Belle Meade Plantation - Financial Collapse, (1898-1904)

Financial Collapse, (1898-1904)

The next year the nation experienced a financial crisis and depression that continued throughout the decade. At the same time evangelical reform movements in Tennessee resulted in the closure of racetracks and eventually gambling by 1907. These economic and social conditions coupled with competition from horse breeders in other states were too much for Belle Meade and other Thoroughbred breeding farms in Tennessee to over come. Tennessee Thoroughbred farms closed and the horses sold at dispersal sales including at Belle Meade.

Reduction sales began in 1898 at the urging of Billy’s son William Harding Jackson, Jr. to streamline the operation. The 1902 horse sale and auction at Belle Meade brought in $172,665 and was considered to be the most successful sale of Thoroughbred horses ever held in America, but it was too late to offset mounting debt. William Hicks Jackson died in March 1903 and a few months later his son William Harding Jackson died before realizing an opportunity to manage the farm full-time. His young widow Annie Davis Jackson held several more dispersal sales in 1903 and 1904, and then the Thoroughbred stud farm that the Philadelphia Record called “the most remarkable breeding establishment in the world,” closed after almost a century of unparalleled growth and success.

Following the Jackson brothers' deaths, adverse financial conditions forced an auction of the property at the beginning of the 20th century and the fourth generation of the Harding family moved off the property. The former plantation lands formed the independent city of Belle Meade, Tennessee.

In 1953, Belle Meade Mansion and eight outbuildings on 30 acres (120,000 m2) were deeded to the Association for the Preservation of Tennessee Antiquities, and is today managed by the Nashville chapter of the Association.