The Park Board purchased Frederick Laitenberger’s German beer garden occupying the block between Hume and Fifth Avenue in 1909 to provide a park for the working-class neighborhood surrounding the Warioto Cotton Mills and the Morgan-Hamilton Bag Company (later known as Werthan Mills). At the request of Major E. C. Lewis, the Board named the park in honor of Samuel Dold Morgan (1789-1880), “The Merchant Prince of Nashville,” who had founded the nearby textile mills and had owned similar mills at Lebanon, Huntsville, and other cities. Morgan had served as president of the state commission which supervised construction of the State Capitol building and was interred in the wall of that building. He was the uncle of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan and during the Civil War he manufactured munitions for the Confederacy. The Park Board developed the park as a playground and arranged for the piping of mineral water to the park from a deep well drilled in 1889 at the nearby textile mills. The mineral (sulphur) water was provided without charge to the public, and many Nashvillians visited the park frequently to fill jugs with the water for home use. Maintenance of the fountain in the park ceased about 1955 and the mineral water outlet was relocated to Taylor Street.
