These brick industrial buildings are Marathon Village, once the Marathon Motor Works, which built the Marathon automobile here from roughly 1907 to 1914 — one of the earliest cars made in the American South. The factory was built beginning in 1881 and converted to automobile production around 1907. The Marathon Motor Works produced cars from roughly 1907 to 1914, a brief window in which Nashville aspired to enter the nascent American automotive industry.
The company's demise was swift, and the buildings served various industrial purposes for decades afterward. When the complex was redeveloped in the early 2000s, developers kept the original structures and transformed them into a mixed-use campus of studios, retailers, distilleries, and event spaces that draws on the industrial character rather than erasing it. Tennessee whiskey distilleries have made the site a destination for visitors interested in the craft spirits scene that has grown alongside Nashville's tourism boom.
Walking these brick corridors, you are standing where Nashville briefly tried to build a car.