Life & Casualty building, Nashville's first modern skyscraper, over the years (2024)

Life and Casualty Insurance Co.'s present home office building on Fourth Ave. N., shown here March 4, 1950, is next door to the new site for their new building.

The new $2,500,000 Life and Casualty Insurance company structure will face on Church St. at 4th Ave., N., and will rise higher than the Third National Bank building visible in the background across 4th Ave. The building will replace stores on the right side of Church St., shown here March 4, 1950, and will extend to the new Princess Theater.

Bulldozers start digging out a hole for the foundation Sept. 27, 1954 of what will be the 30-story office building of Life and Casualty Insurance Company at Church St. and 4th Ave.

Guilford Dudley Jr., left, Life and Casualty president, and Robert A. McDowell of McDowell & McDowell, excavation contractors, inspect the first earth movement Sept. 27, 1954 for the 30-story home office building for Life & Casualty.

The first steel for the Life and Casualty Insurance Company's 30-story home office building at 4th Ave. and Church St. is moved into the excavation pit Jun 2, 1955.

Steel workers labor with massive steel beams as the structural steel skeleton of Life and Casualty Insurance Company's 30-story home office building begins to take shape Aug. 5, 1955 at it's Church St. and 4th Ave. site.

The bolted steel framework of Life and Casualty Insurance Company's new home office building at 4th Ave. and Church St., reached the 12th story level Nov. 3, 1955 on its way to 30 stories and 400 feet. The beam-lifting derrick boom atop the skeleton now reaches more than 200 feet above the street.

Up to the top of the 30-story Life and Casualty Insurance office building went the last steel Feb. 23, 1956.

Workmen Robert Bevels and Herbert Tranford are bolting one of the final beams in place of the Life and Casualty Tower Feb. 23, 1956. When the bolts are secured, the construction men will hold an age-old tradition of "topping out."

With the American flag raised, Foreman Angus Horn shouts to his crew and the ritual of "topping out" is completed for the Life and Casualty Tower Feb. 23, 1956.

A 13-ton boiler, bottom center, makes the long trek up to the top of the new 30-story Life and Casualty Insurance company building Feb. 28, 1956. The boiler was one of two raised up to the penthouse of the uncompleted skyscraper.

The Life and Casualty Tower is under construction June 3, 1956 as it towers above Nashville.

A workman walks on a beam 409 feet about 4th Ave. and Church St. July 17, 1956, helping ready the 25-foot "L&C" letters atop the Life and Casualty Insurance company's new 30-story home office building. Multicolored neon tubes, which will forecast the weather for four-hour periods, are protect by plywood covering, the two sets of letters, facing southeast and northwest, cost $22,000.

A workman is placing masonry near the top of the Life and Casualty Insurance Company's 30-story home office building July 21, 1956 with the State Capitol in the background. An observation deck for the public will be at approximately this level.

A cross, formed by lights in the Life & Casualty tower, shines brightly over Nashville Dec. 19, 1956. Lights were left burning on the east and west sides of the tower to form two crosses visible to residents in the east and west sections of the city. They were form by lights burning from the 14th to the 25th floors of the new 30-story building.

For the first time since 1954, Nashvillains could see and walk on the southwest corner of Church St. and 4th Ave. March 8, 1957 after the barricade around the new 30-story Life and Casualty tower was removed. Also they got their first unobstructed view of the beautiful marble entrance to the building. A number of the company's departments have been moved in, and at least two commercials tenants. Formal opening will be held in the near future.

Pushing and hauling, workmen maneuver a 15-year-old water oak into a specially constructed pit in front of the Life and Casualty Tower March 28, 1957. The eight trees set into the pits will be matched later with six more on the third floor terrace.

Julian Zander, center, owner of the Zander Insurance agency, the first tenant to sign a lease in the new Life and Casualty tower, receives a charter tenant certificate March 30, 1957 from H.F. Smith, right, superintendent of the buildings, and his secretary, Miss Betty Grubb. Every original tenant will receive one. All rental space is leased and all company departments that are to be moved are in the new building, except executive offices.

Nashville Rotary club members Tom Joy, left, and Aubrey Maxwell look over the city from the observation deck atop the new L&C Tower in April 10, 1957. Joy, who died at age 76 in 1978, was owner of a florist shop, while Maxwell, who died in 1973 at 60, was a wholesale food broker and longtime city school board member.

Receptionist Florence Henderson's desk, shown here April 12, 1957, combines two of the nine types of marble used in the brand new Life and Casualty tower. The top is Italian Verde antique while the sides are St. Genevieve Rose.

Life and Casualty mail room employees begin to sort out their daily load of 10,000 pieces of outgoing mail in their new L&C Tower April 12, 1957. The company's yearly postage bill is $105,000, more than Madison and Old Hickory combined.

Heating engineer Jose A. Carcedo checks the water level on a giant steam boiler in the penthouse of the new Life and Casualty tower April 12, 1957.

Capt. W.D. Gallaher, left, and Fireman Phillip M. Ritter of the Nashville fire department check a hose line in the seventh floor lobby of the the new Life and Casualty tower April 12, 1957.

Life and Casualty advertising assistant Fae Rice displays cigaret lighter and charm bracelet featuring the company's new skyscraper April 12, 1957.

"Ahhhh," says Mrs. Ruth Bryan, right, dutifully, as Dr. C.T. Kirchmeier, left, checks for signs of a sore throat in the new Life and Casualty Tower's dispensary April 12, 1957. Looking on is Nurse Erlene Kelly, center.

One of the few ground-level tenants in the new Life and Casualty tower is Home Federal Savings and Loan association, shown here April 26, 1957, is now holding a grand opening celebration. This is the glass, aluminum and marble entrance on the 4th Ave. side of the building. Home Federal's Union St. building burned last year.

The huge red ribbon above the ramp of the Life and Casualty tower April 29, 1957 will be parted the morning of May 2nd, officially opening the Southeast's tallest building. Below the flags of 15 states where the company does business, stand agent Myron Stroud of Little Rock, Ark., with his wife and nephew, Gary Wayne Stroud, 8.

City Beautiful and civic officials present to Life and Casualty Tower a scroll in appreciation for its contribution toward the beautification and progress of Nashville Feb.12, 1958. Receiving it is Guilford Dudley Jr., second from right, president of L&C, from Mrs. Mary D. Pogue, commission director; Mayor Ben West and Miss Dolores Adams, commission member.

The year-old Life and Casualty Tower still stands tall in downtown Nashville May 17, 1958.

The Life and Casualty building towers Jan. 29, 1959 over the Third National Bank, right, which was Nashville first skyscraper when it was called the First National Bank building. Third went on to become the J.C. Bradford building.

The top of the L&C Tower in downtown Nashville is covered by an early morning fog Dec. 9, 1961.

With the L&C Tower rising above it, the burnout historical Maxwell House sits waiting it fate on a mild weather day in downtown Nashville Feb. 5, 1962. The hotel was destroyed by a fire late Christmas Night.

This air view of downtown Nashville Nov. 2, 1962, shows the Life and Casualty Tower standing tall among all the other buildings.

The tremendous amount of icing required for the 18 foot and 6,485 pounds Life and Casualty Insurance Co. 60th anniversary cake posed a problem. But modern machinery and ingenuity found the solution. It was been mix in a brand new Transit Ready Mix's cement truck and unload in clean barrels at the Tower by Becker's bakery Sept. 6, 1963.

This 18-foot cake, shown here Sept. 9, 1963, weighing 6,485 pounds was a scale model of the L&C Tower baked in sections over seven days by Becker's bakery for the 60th anniversary of the Life & Casualty Insurance Co. So much was needed it was mixed in a new cement mixer. The observation deck is visible just below the L&C name on its top. Ginger Head, 11, is sampling the icing before the party begins.

Metro Mayor Beverly Briley, left, and Life and Casualty Insurance Co. president Guilford Dudley Jr., lick their fingers over L&C Tower's 6,000-pound birthday cake, an 18-foot-tall replica of the L&C Tower Sept. 9, 1963.

The site of the historic Maxwell House Hotel, which burned Christmas night in 1961, will be the proposed Maxwell House office building. The site, here June 9, 1965, sits across from the Life & Casualty Insurance Co. that owns it jointly with Third National Bank.

Nashville skyline has the Life and Casualty Tower, left, and the J.C. Bradford building towering over the city Sept. 14, 1968. The Bradford building was Nashville first skyscraper when it was the First National Bank.

Not to be outdone by man in the space age, this high-jumping grasshopper is perched on the 27th-floor window of the Life & Casualty Tower on Sept. 26, 1968. Judy Kinnard, assistant to the director of the L&C public relations department, eyes the insect from her office window.

Nashville skyline has the Life and Casualty Tower, left, and the J.C. Bradford building towering over the city Sept. 14, 1968. The Bradford building was Nashville first skyscraper when it was the First National Bank.

Presidents and past presidents of Life and Casualty Insurance Co. of Tennessee cut the company's 75th anniversary cake Sept. 8, 1978 at a luncheon for 1,000 home office employees and retirees at Municipal Auditorium. They are Paul Mountcastle, left, president from 1950-52; Guilford Dudley Jr., president 1952-69; and Allen M. Steele, current president.

Secured by safety harnesses, Ronnie Griggs, a radio antenna installer for AAA communications, can barely be seen clinging to the WLAC radio broadcast tower Oct. 6, 1980, which looms 509 feet above street level atop the Life and Casualty building.

Secured by safety harnesses 509 feet above street level, Ronnie Griggs, a radio antenna installer for AAA communications, works on the WLAC radio broadcast tower atop the Life and Casualty building Oct. 6, 1980. Griggs says his high-altitude task doesn't bother him "except when winds cause the tower to sway."

Robert C.H. Mathews shows off some of the memorabilia April 30, 1985, that will be on display during a “homecoming” for former tenants of the L&C Tower, now part of the Landmark Center. The 31-story tower, which opened in 1957, was the city’s first high-rise office building.

Third National Financial Center, left, a $60 million project to be 30 stories high, is now level May 25, 1985 with the 20-story Third National Bank building, center, at Fourth Ave. and Church St. and going after the Life and Casualty Tower next. Third National Bank will be the anchor tenant of the office tower at Fifth Ave. and Church.

With the Life and Casualty Tower in the background, James E. Loyd, left, senior vice president of the Murphree Co., and project manager of Third National Financial Center, checks out the view from the 24th floor of the 30-story tower with Gerald A. LeCroy and William A. Hawkins, partners in Touche Ross & Co., and C.S. Boyd, Murphree assistant and vice president Aug. 23, 1985. Touche Ross has leased 40,000 square feet on the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th floors of the 500,000-square-foot, $60 million building.

The Third National Financial Center, being finished up in downtown Nashville on Jan. 16, 1986, is shown lining up with the older L&C Tower and the brand-new One Nashville Place.

A single lightning bolt appears to be lighting up the sign of the L&C Tower as lightning crackles over downtown Nashville May 10, 1988 as seen from Interstate 265 near the Cumberland River.

A view of the L&C Tower in downtown Nashville on April 29, 1996. The building was built in 1956 and owned by Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. since 1988, is about to be sold again.

A 25-foot cake replicating the Life and Casualty Tower, is one of the highlights of the 40th anniversary of Nashville's second skyscraper. Located in the lobby of the building Oct. 29, 1997, it was cut by Guilford Dudley, Mayor Phil Bredesen and Governor Don Sundquist. Dudley also cut into a similar cake when the building was first opened.

The setting sun reflects off the windows of downtown buildings including the Life and Casualty Tower Jan. 4, 2002 as commuters, with their headlights already on, make their way out of the downtown area.

The Life and Casualty Tower in downtown Nashville Feb. 17, 2005 could be one of three prominent buildings to fuel another strong year in investment real estate sales.

The Life and Casualty Tower, right, built in 1957, was one of Nashville's first skyscrapers, but is now dwarfed by the Bellsouth building, left, June 23, 2005.

A full moon sets behind he Life and Casualty Tower, right, as the sun rises in the East March 28, 2013, casting a warm morning glow over the Nashville skyline.

Saturn and Jupiter are seen in the sky over the The Life and Casualty Tower in downtown Nashville Dec. 21, 2020. Jupiter and Saturn are aligned, one-tenth of a degree apart, in what is known as the "Christmas Star.”