There’s a new statue outside Tennessee’s capitol building, honoring one of the state’s most legendary native sons: David Crockett.
It’s a little ironic, because at the end of his life, Crockett felt that he was essentially forced to leave the state. As a Congressman, he was vocally opposed to the Indian Removal Act championed by another Tennessean, President Andrew Jackson. That stance made him unelectable in Tennessee.
After losing a reelection bid, Crockett reportedly said “You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.”
Family said he planned to go there to hunt buffalo, but they weren’t exactly surprised when they found out he had joined the Texas Revolutionary Army. Crockett lent his skills as a pioneer and frontiersman to the cause. He died at age 49 defending the Alamo, alongside about 30 other Tennesseans. He didn’t recruit them to the fight, but to them, he would have been a celebrity.
The bronze statue shows Crockett dressed for hunting, holding a rifle and accompanied by dogs. He is holding the kind of coonskin cap that later generations came to consider his defining accessory, but he is not wearing it. In real life, Crockett reserved that type of attire for hunting only. He also never went by the nickname “Davy.”
The statue was unveiled in a ceremony Thursday. It occupies a place of honor that was long held by another statue. That one depicted 19th century newspaper editor and politician Edward Carmack.
Who was Edward Carmack?
Carmack was initially memorialized on the capitol hill steps in 1927 as a martyr for prohibition. He was shot in the streets of Nashville after an argument with his former publisher, who had endorsed his pro-alcohol political rival in an election.
But Carmack is best known for the racist views he held and editorials he published. Carmack was editor of the Nashville American, which later became The Tennessean. He moved to Memphis in 1892 to work on the Commercial newspaper. There, he had a nasty war of words with Black activist and newspaper-woman Ida B. Wells, who co-owned an African American publication. The two sparred back and forth via editorials about the issue of lynching, to the point that Carmack publicly called for someone to lynch Wells. That incited a mob that destroyed Wells’ newspaper office and ultimately drove her out of town.
Protesters knocked down Carmack’s statue in 2020 amid the backlash to George Floyd’s killing. It’s not immediately clear where the Carmack statue is now, but as of 2021 it was being held on a Nashville loading dock.
Copyright 2026 WPLN News
