Located a few miles from downtown Nashville, Glen Leven Farm serves as a key base of operations for The Land Trust for Tennessee. Rich in cultural and ecological significance, the property reflects the Land Trust’s mission to conserve Tennessee’s historic landscapes and natural resources for future generations. The 64-acre site is a significant pre-Civil War plantation landscape, shaped through the forced labor of more than 140 enslaved African Americans whose work generated wealth, political influence, and social standing in the Upper South. Many vernacular and agricultural landscape features from this period remain, bearing witness to these histories.
Glen Leven also represents the largest surviving remnant landscape of the Civil War Battle of Nashville. During the conflict, at least 16 men formerly enslaved at Glen Leven fought for emancipation as part of the United States Colored Troops. The property was donated to The Land Trust in 2006 by Susan West, a Thompson family descendant and longtime advocate for farmland conservation, continuing a multigenerational legacy of agricultural stewardship on the site.
NBW recently completed a Cultural Landscape Synthesis that brings forward these histories and other underrepresented narratives, from Indigenous peoples to African American communities and later Euro-American settlers. Building on this work, the Comprehensive Landscape Plan provides a roadmap for expanded education and public programming while identifying opportunities to interpret the site’s ecological and cultural resources.
The plan establishes a vision for Glen Leven Farm as a place of learning and advocacy, offering the community insight into agriculture, ecology, and the histories of land use that shaped Nashville prior to modern planning and conservation efforts.
