Bob Dylan and the Elm Street Methodist Church Mystery

Lizzy Alfs at The Tennessean reports that Bob Dylan is a partner in a new whiskey distillery that will be in the old Elm Street Methodist Church building.

The Heaven’s Door distillery located at the corner of Elm Street and 5th Avenue South will bring a new level of activity to a historic building that has most recently served as the offices for Tuck-Hinton Architects.

In 2017, Bushala along with Darek Bell of Nashville's Corsair Distillery paid Tuck-Hinton's founding partners $6.2 million for the 0.77-acre property at 610-614 Fifth Ave. S., which included the church building that was constructed in 1871. The structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

But was it constructed in 1871?

The site’s application to become a National Historic site suggests it was:

Elm Street Methodist Church is architecturally significant as the only standing example of an Italianate-style church building in Nashville. Despite the loss of its tower in a 1925 fire, the building’s gooded, arched windows and doors and its wide overhangs with classical cornies impart the strong flavor of the Italianate style. Elm street was at one time an important Methodist church in Nashville. Formed in 1867 by the combination of two Methodist congregations dating to the 1830s, Elm Street was the second largest Methodist church in Nashville during South Nashville’s heyday with over 1200 members. Declining membership eventually led to its disbandment in 1971.

But if the church was constructed in 1871, why is it on

? Is everything we know about Elm Street Church a lie?

So, there are three legitimate possibilities here. One, the church was built in 1871, but travelled back in time to be present for the Civil War. Two, the church was built in 1871 and the army buildings were still there so, oops, the city mistakenly assumed that meant the church was built before the army’s buildings. Three, folks are wrong.

Jim Hoobler, state-wide treasure and knower of all things Nashville history, wrote a book in which he discusses the Elm Street Methodist Church and he said “Elm Street Methodist Church, built in 1860, stood at the southeast corner of Summer (Fifth) and Elm Streets.”

If I had to bet on anyone being right, I’d bet on Hoobler.