Morris Creek
Morris Creek is located to the immediate southwest of Nashville. It used to be a small community, a few horse farms and a couple of churches on either side of the creek for which the town was named, before the town flooded in 1975 (see History, below). Now that Nashville is expanding, developers have swooped onto Morris Creek, bought up the land, and are making the town into the new up-and-coming suburb of Greater Nashville. It consists mainly of new, pretentious residential areas, with a thriving shopping mall and commercial district.
In 2002, Morris Creek hosts a number of Talented people with some money who want a quieter community, larger yards, or a better school district than Nashville offers. Most of these purchased houses from developers, but those with more money purchased undeveloped land and built their own houses. Because of its easy access to Granny White Pike, Old Hickory Boulevard, and Franklin Pike (and thus to Interstate 65), the commute to the DIS Building, Nashville and to St. Augustine's School for the Talented is rather easy. Although mages and other Talented folk live all over Morris Creek, the Hawthorne Park and Bell Hollow neighborhoods of Morris Creek were built specifically for the Talented.
Government
Morris Creek is run by a town council of thirteen members. One of these members is elected mayor. The head of the Morris Creek School Board is also a member of the council.
Districts
- Downtown: the current Downtown district was built slightly south where the old one was located, though drainage and other safety features have been added to prevent or mitigate flood damage. The area is bordered roughly by Granny White Pike in the east, Old Main Street in the north, Clarity Bell Avenue in the south, and Three Bells Road in the west. Center Avenue divides the district in half, north to south.
- Hawthorne Park: neighborhood in the west end of town, 150 larger single-family dwellings, constructed specifically for the Talented. The development abuts Hawthorne Park (a municipal park), thus the name. A short drive to the center of town.
- Bell Hollow: development in the southwest of town, 200 dwellings, specifically for the Talented. Bell Hollow has larger plots (and houses) than Hawthorne Park.
History
Morris Creek wasn't much of a town for most of the twentieth century. It consisted of several large farms which cultivated corn, wheat, and vegetables, or raised livestock. "Downtown," such as it was, consisted of the town's two churches (one Baptist, one Episcopal), the small grade school, and a few stores. The population numbered in the hundreds.
In March 1975, however, a severe rainfall set records across Middle Tennessee, and the actual Morris Creek (which is more like a small river than a creek) flooded. The entire "downtown" was destroyed. The livestock farmers, who used the Morris Creek as a water source for their animals, were especially hard hit and lost many livestock buildings and the majority of their animals. The crop farmers fared a little better, as planting was only beginning, but still sustained significant damage. When the recession began to hit a few years later, several of the farms folded. The "downtown" area was never rebuilt. Some of the farmland was recovered and used for crops and hay, but the town was not really resettled.
In the mid-1990s, however, real estate developers began buying large sections from the farms and building large, expensive, good-looking developments of poorly-built "McMansions." The developments have very pretentious names, such as "The Villas at Morris Creek" or "Highlands of Morris Creek" or "Magnolia Farms." The homes are variations on a single theme: large, airy, with modern kitchens and huge bathrooms, tiny backyards with oversized decks. Because of the development, however, some savvy people are buying land, building their own houses, and holding the rest of their plots to sell later at a profit.
Other developers built for commercial purposes. One such development is the new "downtown," consisting of a new grade school, a new high school, a town hall and town buildings, and several strip malls. The Crystal Palace shopping mall was completed in 1997 and hosts all the usual mall stores; the mall boomed and attracted other large stores, such as Borders Books and Music, Sam's Club, Costco, Best Buy, and CompUSA.
Road and infrastructure construction also picked up. Entire new roads and power infrastructure had to be built to accommodate the new housing developments, and existing roads needed to be widened and repaved. The Crystal Palace Mall and its surrounding commercial district also demanded new roads and power infrastructure.
Points of interest
- Town Hall and Town Offices: located on Center Avenue. These are the main government buildings.
- Morris Creek Elementary and Morris Creek Middle School: both located on the west side of Three Bells Road, right outside of Downtown.
- Morris Creek High School: located on the south side of Clarity Bell Avenue, just outside of Downtown.
- The Crystal Palace Mall (and mall district): located on the east side of town, this large, beautiful glass mall boasts a surrounding park, complete with bandshell. Parking is available either beneath the mall in a parking garage or outside the park (with convenient shuttle busses). Lining Crystal Palace Boulevard and Morris Avenue are the usual large stores that crop up around malls (Sam's Club, Costco, Borders, CompUSA, Media Play, Home Depot, etc. other shuttle busses make the rounds of these stores.
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