Evil bear

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Visitors to Nashville often ask what a "demon bruin" is. Is it some kind of evil bear?

What they're referring to, of course, is Demonbreun Street, which runs from the nearly completed new Convention Center in the LoBro area and ends at the "Musica" roundabout at the northern edge of Music Row (Also known as "them nekkid dancers in the middle of the street," but more on that another day.).

Actually, Demonbreun isn’t pronounced like “demon bruin” at all. We say it more like de-MUN-bree-uhn. It’s French. Well, French-Canadian, actually. One Timothy Demonbreun was born in Montreal, Québec, in 1747. As a teen, he traveled south, eventually becoming a fur trader. At one point he discovered a great source of deer and buffalo along the Cumberland River and settled in a make-shift shack after living in a cave for a few weeks. Therefore, he is known as Nashville’s “first citizen.” There’s no record of him hunting for the furs of evil bears, though.

He later fought as an officer in the American Revolution and even served as Lt. Governor of the Illinois Territory. He again returned to Nashville and became a rather successful businessman before dying here in 1826. Demonbreun fathered several children and his descendants are still all over town, with varying spellings and pronunciations of the name. So we can’t be too hard on visitors who have trouble saying Demonbreun when his family can’t even agree on how to pronounce it.