On July 4, 1984, Nashville celebrated Independence Day at Riverfront Park for the first time. The park itself was just a year old. Richard Fulton was mayor. The only Athena statue in the Parthenon was four feet tall. Fort Negley was a neglected ruin. Nobody had ever heard of a greenway or a dog park.

Within a decade, Nashville's greenways initiative would begin sewing the city together with threads of green; another decade and the entire park system would be unified by a sweeping master plan; another and the seeds for massive regional parks would be planted in the far reaches of Davidson County.

In the forty years since that first fireworks display on the Cumberland, Metro Parks has transformed from a bat-and-ball, recreation-focused department into a force for environmental preservation, physical and mental health, and social equity. Along the way, Parks' people have seen the city through tornadoes, a brutal recession, a thousand-year flood,

and a pandemic that reminded the growing city how important its green space is. This is the story of that momentous forty years and the community that grows and sustains one of Nashville's greatest assets.