In 1880, Nashville celebrated its Centennial in honor of the founding of the city. It was an inspiring occasion, but the Centennial of the State of Tennessee, celebrated at the capital in 1896-’97, crowned the city with laurels that will long be remembered with honorable pride. It was a revelation,--a noble memorial of a century of statehood. The dream of James Robertson, the father and founder of Nashville, was more than realized. In a little more than a century of progress, the camp of the brave little colony on the bank of the Cumberland had grown into a splendid Southern city. [Illustration] [Illustration] LOUISVILLE THE GATEWAY CITY TO THE SOUTH BY LUCIEN V. RULE Beautiful of situation is Louisville, the metropolis of Kentucky, and the Gateway City to the South. Builded along the Ohio at the Falls, the river stretches away to the northeast in a sheet of water nearly a mile wide and six miles in extent with a scarcely perceptible current, making one of the finest harbors in the whole course of this “Rhine of America.” Circling hills surround the city, and the parks upon them are unsurpassed in this section of the country. The avenues are broad and well shaded, and while the residences are, as a rule, handsomely modern, many splendid specimens of Colonial architecture are to be seen. The homesteads in the suburbs are delightful, dreamy retreats, and the river valley is as fertile as that of the Jordan. As the visitor approaches over any one of the railroads leading into Louisville and looks upon the charming scene just outlined, he may recall the historic associations connected with it. Here, in the long ago, Daniel Boone loved to linger and hunt. It was here that George Rogers Clark, the famous Indian fighter and leader of western civilization, first won renown. Here John Fitch studied the problem of steamboat navigation, anticipating Robert Fulton many years, and so far succeeded that Fulton acknowledged him the original inventor of steam craft. Here the fathers of ornithology in the new world, Alexander Wilson and John J. Audubon, resided and labored, the latter first awaking to a realization of his marvellous genius in the Kentucky wilds. In this vicinity Zachary Taylor spent his childhood, learned the art of war, and returned at intervals of peace to reside, after achieving notable triumphs for the Republic on the hard-fought fields of Mexico and elsewhere. It was here that George Keats, favorite brother of the poet, John Keats, came to live, bringing with him from old England an atmosphere of classic culture and refinement which influenced the development of intellectual Louisville. It was here, also, that Henry Clay often came to confer with his political colleagues, and to charm the people with his superb oratory. Here George D. Prentice, whose witty, trenchant paragraphs on the editorial page of _The Louisville Journal_ made it the most widely quoted American paper in foreign realms, wielded his wonderful influence