Our city in ruins: Lock 2
by Lyda Phillips
A property worth saving leased by Metro from the federal Army Corps of Engineers stands at Lock 2 (off Pennington Bend Road) north of the Opryland complex. The locks were crucial to navigating the Cumberland in the days before flood-control dams were constructed; the Corps demolished them sometime before Metro began leasing the property for a park in 1956.
Today the little park on the river is well maintained, but the charming old lock keepers' residence nearby is rapidly falling into disrepair. Not only that, the park lacks any signage at all that would explain the locks' historic function.
Adaptive reuse of the house as a museum of Cumberland River history seems an obvious solution. But Tim Netsch, planning superintendent for Metro Parks and Recreation, says that any programming or use of the lockkeeper's house, other than mothballing it, has never been on Metro's to-do list. He adds that two outbuildings, both in better condition than the house, are jointly maintained by Metro and a private model airplane club.
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