Nashville Zoo at Grassmere

The Nashville Zoo at Grassmere is a zoological garden and historic plantation farmhouse located 6 miles southeast of downtown Nashville. As of 2014, the zoo was middle Tennessee's top paid attraction and contained 6,230 individual animals, encompassing 339 species. Its site is about 82 acres with an additional 106 acres available for expansion. It is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums .
Nashville Zoo’s history at Grassmere began in the late 1980s. Sisters Margaret and Elise Croft were the last two owners of the Croft House and family farm at Grassmere, located six miles south from downtown Nashville. They donated the 300-acre farm to the Children’s Museum of Nashville, which is now the Adventure Science Center. After Elise Croft’s death in 1985, the museum began development of a wildlife park, which opened there in 1990. Meanwhile, the separate Nashville Zoo opened in Joelton in 1991. By 1995, the museum decided to close the Grassmere Wildlife Park. Ownership of the land went to the city, which was still bound by the Croft sisters’ will to maintain the area as a nature center. In 1996, then-Mayor Phil Bredesen offered the Nashville Zoo the chance to relocate from Joelton to the Grassmere property. On May 1, 1997, the Nashville Wildlife Park at Grassmere opened to the public. In October 1998, the zoo closed its Cheatham County location to focus all of its efforts on the current Grassmere property. In 2001, the Nashville Wildlife Park at Grassmere officially became the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere. The resulting facility has been engineered to grow so as to take maximum advantage of its 200 acres .

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