Each Nashville commute has its landmarks, quirks, shortcuts and headaches. For our annual Summer Guide, we put the most iconic roadside vertebrates — each with a bit or piece of biographical information — together in this incomplete list. This roadmap leads to new restaurants and old parks, giving anyone many excuses to check out a new corner of Nashville.
Toros del Rancho
3798 Nolensville Pike
The bulls — like Rancho Cantina’s ornate seating and interior decorations — come from the Jaliscan capital of Guadalajara, Mexico, and arrived in Nashville last year. The scaled-down toros look out on Nolensville Pike across from the real zoo, proudly sizing each other up for what might be a bloody clash. Likely descendants of the famed Criollo Mexicano stock, Rancho’s outside beef is a subtle advertisement for the various steak offerings inside.
Belle Meade Horses
Belle Meade Boulevard at Harding Pike
The City of Belle Meade acquired Gwen Reardon’s equine bronzes in 1997 for $87,000. The commissions were secretly approved with public dollars, according to a report by former Scene staffer Matt Pulle, and have stood guard at Belle Meade’s de facto gates where the boulevard splits off Harding Pike. The original Belle Meade plantation, a 5,400-acre estate worked by as many as 186 enslaved people at the eve of the Civil War, was among the country’s most prolific and prominent thoroughbred nurseries. Its historic roster of sires trace their bloodlines to today’s elite, much like the prominent families who have inhabited the old-money enclave.
Shelby’s Dripping Bird
Shelby Park
Lawrence Argent’s “Reflection” landed in 2012 with help from Metro Arts. While not along a major roadway, this shiny mockingbird has prime real estate in Shelby Park, one of the city’s premier outdoor gems. The sculpture competes with the pond’s many mischievous geese and the solemn sparrow on the Walker Brothers’ specialty Shelby Bottoms Blackberry Lemonade Kombucha as East Nashville’s avian avatar.
Edgehill Polar Bears
Edgehill Avenue and 12th Avenue South
Southern heat helped these two arctic predators survive for more than 90 years, first as ads for the Polar Bear Corp.’s local frozen-custard shops in the 1930s and later as local resident the Rev. Zema Hill’s yard art. The Metro Development and Housing Agency, which manages public properties across the city, hosts the famous snowball-throwing pair across from Carter-Lawrence Elementary. Two more reside in Germantown. Both WPLN and the Nashville Public Library offer excellent deep dives into the polar bears’ past and present.
Mosaic Sea Dragon
Fannie Mae Dees Park
Technically it’s a serpent. Colorful tiles decorate undulating curves, which smooth out into a concrete bench suitable for parents waiting on kids or kids waiting on parents. It’s the most eye-catching installation at Fannie Mae Dees Park (aka Dragon Park), but far from its most climbable structure. Children regularly go wild here. The dragon has been around since 1981, a joint effort between artist Pedro Silva and the surrounding Hillsboro-West End neighborhood.
“Crawling Lady Hare”
Cheekwood Estate & Gardens
We again stray slightly from major roads to highlight the only work behind a paywall. Sophie Ryder’s “Crawling Lady Hare” (1997) crawls away from the Cheek Mansion. Opposable thumbs and a hybrid human-rabbit form may provoke or unsettle, adding artistic valence to the large steelwork at home in a storybook. According to Cheekwood, the sculpture faced a climbing-and-touching problem, earning “Crawling Lady Hare” its more remote woodland home.
Golden Steer
Murphy Road and Westlawn Drive
A mighty golden steer stands just outside one of Nashville’s few roundabout traffic experiments. Unlike the antisocial Dickerson Pike bison or the Belle Meade horses, this landmark catches foot traffic from bustling neighborhood restaurants, nearby McCabe Park and the popular Richland Creek Greenway. Though the land underneath its four hooves recently changed hands, new owners have no plans to scrap it.
Scout Catfish
3414 Hillsboro Pike
To the unacquainted viewer, very little makes sense about an enormous, weatherproof plaster catfish dressed up like a scout in Green Hills. Fish spawned across the city way back in 2003 as part of the “Catfish out of Water” public art project. Each boasted unique flesh — Spider-Man catfish, cowboy catfish, Minnie Pearl catfish — adorned by Nashvillians. A few remain, including one fish covered by pasted newspaper still in the Scene’s loving care. Diligent caretakers at the Boy Scouts of America’s Middle Tennessee office now count more than two decades displaying their catch to Green Hills.
Pink Elephant
6005 Charlotte Pike
Used car lots typically blend into the background for drivers along major arteries like Dickerson Pike, Nolensville Pike or Murfreesboro Pike. On Charlotte Pike, University Motors has a way of standing out — a massive pink elephant posted up right on the asphalt shoulder. Reporting by WPLN’s Curious Nashville fills out “Pinkie” lore, which includes the firm belief that the quirky animal helps draw in customers.
Dickerson Bison
610 Dickerson Pike
Before people, there were bison. Since 2009, a small herd has grazed at Buffalo Park just past the I-24 underpass where Dickerson Pike cuts its trail north. The family reminds passersby that, a millennium ago, Indigenous people thrived here in one of the preeminent Mississippian settlements on the continent. The intersection itself lacks pedestrian infrastructure and features a harrowing curve connecting Dickerson to Spring Street and the surrounding mess of highway on- and off-ramps — a tough place for a photo opp and a far cry from more peaceful days on the Cumberland River’s banks.
Overhead Bass
1408 Gallatin Pike N., Madison
Neighborhood youths use the floating fish above Madison’s El Rodeo Mercado Latino as a meetup point, according to one local teacher, proving the effectiveness of a well-positioned animal sculpture on its surrounding community. The well-stocked market offers ample raw seafood, including fish, as well as a hot bar for quick lunches. Its overhead bass wins as the highest-placed animal on this list, frozen in an apparent roar toward the clouds.
Nashville’s roadside animal landmarks, some of the city’s best patios and more reasons to get outdoors this season
