The Ellington Agricultural Center is a acre campus in

Nashville Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

, which features many structures housing the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, the

Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) is an independent state agency of the state of Tennessee with the mission of managing the state's fish and wildlife and their habitats, as well as responsibility for all wildlife-related law enforce ...

, and the Tennessee Agricultural Museum as well as other state agencies related to agriculture. It is located about 10 miles south of Nashville. The site includes more than 10 buildings that are interconnected by walking trails.

History

The 207 acres of land belonged to the Ewing family since the 1800s. In the 1910s, Brentwood Hall was built for Rogers Caldwell, a prominent businessman across the

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, Dixieland, or simply the South) is List of regions of the United States, census regions defined by the United States Cens ...

. When he was convicted of fraud, his estate was seized by the state of Tennessee and turned into this center. It was named after

Buford Ellington Earl Buford Ellington (June 27, 1907 – April 3, 1972) was an American politician who served as the 42nd governor of Tennessee from 1959 to 1963, and again from 1967 to 1971. Along with his political ally, Frank G. Clement, he helped lead a ...

, who served as

Governor of Tennessee The governor of Tennessee is the head of government of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the commander-in-chief of the U.S. state, state's Tennessee Military Department, military forces. The governor is the only official in the Government of Tenne ...

from 1959 to 1963 and again from 1967 to 1971. The center is home to the headquarters of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, the

, and the Tennessee Agricultural Museum. It has a long frontage along Sevenmile Creek, an

arboretum An arboretum (: arboreta) is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees and shrubs of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, many modern arbor ...

, an

iris Iris most often refers to: *Iris (anatomy), part of the eye * Iris (color), an ambiguous color term *Iris (mythology), a Greek goddess * ''Iris'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants * Iris (given name), a feminine given name, and a list of peopl ...

garden, and a hiking trail known as The Rogers Trail. It hosts the Annual Rural Life Festival, organized by the Tennessee Agricultural Museum. It also serves as a wedding venue.

References

Williamson County, Tennessee {{Tennessee-stub