Black and white image of Cumberland Furnace, an old wodden building next to a railroad crossing.
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Cumberland Furnace

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Many Nashvllians know that ironmaster Montgomery Bell (1769-1855) had an iron forge at the Narrows of the Harpeth in Davidson County 30 miles west of Nashville. Many have launched a canoe there. Far fewer know much about Cumberland Furnace, which Bell purchased for $16,000 in 1804 from James Robertson when he moved to Tennessee from Lexington, Ky. The wilderness tract included beech, elm, walnut, chestnut, oak and pine trees needed to make the charcoal to fuel the forge. Bell systematically purchased additional land, much of it in nearby Montgomery County, where he received permission from the county court to erect a ferry across the Cumberland River 10 miles east of Cumberland Furnace.

Movie poster of Look Into My Eyes. It features an illustration looking into the window of an apartment building. In the window is a woman sitting at a table illuminated by a candle.
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‘Look Into My Eyes’ documents contemporary loneliness and the supernatural

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Most Nashvillians will know filmmaker Lana Wilson for her Taylor Swift documentary, Miss Americana (2020). Wilson also directed the Brooke Shields documentary Pretty Baby (2023) as well as an examination of extremism and abortion in America (After Tiller, 2015), and a meditation on suicide in Japanese culture (The Departure, 2017). Wilson’s new movie, Look Into My Eyes reads like a blend of the filmmaker’s curiosities with interesting personalities and particular cultural trends. The movie was released by A24 in September and it’s now streaming on MAX. Look Into My Eyes is a mosaic portrait of a handful of psychic readers in New York City.

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Learn More About Rural Homelessness

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Cheatham County is participating in the outdoor homelessness count for the first time this year, and as I worked with a team to administer it, it occurred to me how many states and cities, including Tennessee and Nashville, still underestimate the impact of rural homelessness on urban centers. A lack of affordable housing and a lack of income are the main causes for people losing their housing. This fact is true for urban as well as rural communities. Yet, homelessness often is hidden in rural areas where people tend to live in dilapidated housing with a combination of holes in roofs, walls or floors, no running water or no electricity. People also stay in abandoned homes, in campers, in cars or deeply hidden in wooded areas.

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Q&A with Alberto Gonzales

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Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is the Dean of Belmont University’s college of Law. Gonzales currently is the highest-ranking Hispanic American who has served in an executive position in the United States government. He started his political career in Texas, when then-Governor George W. Bush appointed him as his general council in 1994. Gonzales consequently served as Secretary of State of Texas in 1997 and was named to the Texas Supreme Court in 1999. In 2001, he started working as White House Counsel under President George W. Bush and was appointed by the President as U.S. Attorney General in 2005.