Castalian Springs, TN

Castalian Springs is a Sumner County census-designated place east of Gallatin, and its name comes with several earlier chapters attached. The area was first known as Bledsoe's Lick, after mineral springs that drew large game and people for thousands of years. A Mississippian-period settlement grew nearby into a 40-acre mound center; later, Isaac Bledsoe established Bledsoe's Station, a fortified agricultural community on the frontier. The springs became Castalian Springs in the 1830s, and the post office adopted the name in 1837.

The historic pieces are unusually close together. Bledsoe's Fort Historical Park protects the station site, while Wynnewood State Historic Area preserves the two-story log inn built for travelers along the Avery Trace. The springs also had resort years, with bathhouses and guest facilities operating in two main periods before the property returned to a more rural, working landscape. Today Castalian Springs sits along Tennessee Route 25, seven miles east of Gallatin, with archaeology, mineral water, frontier travel, and old Upper Cumberland farm country all sitting in the same view.