Rolling Mill Hill sits on a 34-acre site on the west bank of Cumberland River roughly between the Korean Veterans Bridge and I-40. 

 

General Hospital once occupied the highest point of Rolling Mill Hill overlooking six Public Works garages, which today are known as the historic Trolley Barns. Metro General opened as the City Hospital in April of 1890 at a cost of $30,000. 

 

After World War II, the hospital slowly began its financial decline. In the 1970s it became clear that an investment in the buildings of up to $50 million was needed (Satcher, 1990). In 1988 first talks began about a merger with Meharry/Hubbard hospital, a predominantly African American medical college that was struggling financially as well. Several attempts at a merger failed until then-Mayor Phil Bredesen drafted a proposal, which was agreed upon by all parties in 1991 (New York Times, 1991). Metro Council approved the merger in 1992, and the physical relocation of General Hospital from its original home on Hermitage Avenue to the renovated George W. Hubbard Hospital on the Meharry Medical College campus was completed in 1998 (Cahal, 2014).

 

The second historic structures on the Rolling Mill Hill property are six structures, which were built in the 1940s by the Works Project Administration (WPA) effort of the New Deal. However, the structures never actually housed any trolleys or street cars. 

 

The Public Work garages – or “Trolley Barns” – received a preservation award from the Metro Historical Commission in 2013 for its retention of historical elements “such as the bowed street truss roof systems, original metal frame windows, stepped parapet rooflines, and decorative brick detailing (Metro Historical Commission, 2014).