[female voice] This place has a heartbeat of its own.

[male voice] You just get a vibe that you're here at home.

[female voice] It's given me opportunities that I never thought I'd have.

That atmosphere is infectious.

[female voice] It's a magic little place in the mountains.

[announcer] Made with the state fruit of North Carolina, Mighty Muscadine offers a line of superfruit supplements and juices made from the Muscadine grape, including the Cellular Health Antioxidant Beverage, Vinetastic.

More at mightymuscadine.com.

[♪♪♪] [Joshua Deel] Franklin, Tennessee, just a skip south of Nashville.

At first glance, it's an old Southern town, dressed up in Americana, a main street out of a postcard or Hallmark movie.

This is history that breathes.

[♪♪♪] Every inch of Main Street, every spot along the Harpeth River whispers the past, even as new faces and big money drift in.

Founded in the 1790s, Franklin saw the Civil War up close, the brutal Battle of Franklin and the messy aftermath.

[♪♪♪] Those scars are still here, tucked between coffee shops, sleek boutiques, and bars serving up whiskey and barbecue with pride.

Walk through Franklin, and you're straddling two worlds.

[♪♪♪] Music legends and corporate titans share the same streets as Civil War relics and century-old homes.

It's a town that remembers, but never stands still.

A place with grit, grace, and a quiet rebellion against the rush of time.

[♪♪♪] That's Franklin, as Southern as it gets, with a charm you can't fake.

I've heard it said, "Where we are affects who we are."

Makes sense, right?

I've always believed you can't really understand yourself until you understand where you come from.

Hi, I'm Josh, and I'm hosting this series with PBS Appalachia to explore the places people still call home, their hometowns, and to uncover the stories that make them unique.

Hometowns is about exploring the communities that give America its character.

This season, we're going off the beaten path, on a journey from Virginia to Wyoming.

Now, don't get me wrong.

Many of these places have their flaws, warts and all.

But if that's all you focus on, you're missing the bigger picture, the raw, untamed beauty of the land, and the depth and complexity of its culture.

These are the things that speak to the heart of understanding what it really means to be an American.

It's a journey worth taking.

Trust me.

[♪♪♪] If Nashville's the place you go to make noise, Franklin's where you go to be quiet, to blend in to something much older and maybe wiser.

This town holds its secrets close, but if you know where to look, they'll start to reveal themselves.

You see, Franklin's story isn't just preserved in plaques and dusty records.

It lives and breathes in the locals who guard this place like it's a little piece of America's soul.

[Kevin Griffin] I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and then spent most of my childhood in Northeast Louisiana, Monroe, Louisiana, Oak Grove, Louisiana.

And then in 2010, end of 2010, I was longing for being back south, a small town, and I was riding some in Nashville.

And this town kept being mentioned, like people, blah, blah, blah, Franklin, blah, blah, blah, Franklin.

And then, I had a right, and it was in Franklin.

So I was like, okay, something's going on here.

And I came down in December of 2010, and went down Main Street and instantly fell in love.

I was like, you know, if I'm going to leave, if I come back south, which I wanted to, because I was just missing it, I'm coming to Franklin, Tennessee.

So this is the longest I've lived in one place ever in my life.

What I love about Franklin is, I grew up in small towns, you know, with a sense of history.

And when I lived in New Orleans, I really fell in love with the architecture and houses that had a story.

I knew that I wanted something with history and a community that really valued their history and historic buildings and protecting that, and it's tough to do.

So when I came down Main Street and I saw those old buildings with the, you know, privately owned shops, and then new shops as well, this nice mix of old and new, I was like, okay, I love this vibe.

And I was 16 miles from downtown Nashville, and even in 2010, Nashville was starting that renaissance.

So I was like, okay, this has one foot in the past, you know, its history, its culture, and then one foot in the future.

And that's where I wanted to be.

I loved that there was so much music in Franklin.

So many musicians and songwriters and people in the labels live in this community.

And I'm a songwriter.

I have a studio on my property.

And what's really cool about Franklin is, everybody is connected to the music industry.

In early 2014, Aubrey Preston started the Americana Music Triangle, which is roughly the triangle that's formed from New Orleans to Memphis to Nashville.

And Franklin is part of that.

And it's arguably the epicenter of American music, blues, southern gospel, rock and roll.

And you see all that, you hear all that in the clubs and the music venues in Franklin.

You've got Kimbro's Pickin' Parlor, you know, in Main Street.

It's right in the residential area, and all the residents just love it.

And the music's going off at 1 a.m. on a Tuesday night, and everybody's like, that's Kimbro's.

You got the Franklin Theatre.

You've got Fox & Locke in Leiper's Fork.

I was just always playing music.

I was that kid in the band in junior high and high school, in college at LSU.

You know, my job was always playing music.

And, at the end of my college career, I started this band called Better Than Ezra in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

We were playing fraternity parties and college bars all throughout the SEC schools.

And we were together for seven years, and really being ignored by the music industry.

But we never stopped.

And in 1995, suddenly this album we made in '93 by ourselves in New Orleans was the number one album.

And we kind of exploded on the national scene, and we've really never stopped.

In 2014, I found myself out at Harlinsdale Farm, where we are right now.

I saw these rolling hills and natural amphitheaters, and I was like, this is the coolest venue I've ever seen for a music festival.

I'm 16 miles from downtown Nashville, I'm a mile and a half from I-65, and I'm in arguably one of the coolest small cities in the country, Franklin.

That's why you're here.

And I was like, I'm going to start a music festival.

We wanted to do a festival that reflected what Franklin was, it's history, it's family.

It's the best music in the world, and we just celebrated, last weekend, our 10th anniversary.

We've had artistes from Willie Nelson to Dr. John to Justin Timberlake, Chris Stapleton, the Foo Fighters, the Killers.

We just had Dave Matthews Band and Noah Kahan.

So, my career is music.

If it's got something to do with music, chances are I have my finger in it, and it's what I do.

You get to a certain point in your life where things have to have purpose, you know, and it's... And I would have kind of rolled my eyes in my 20s, you know.

But then in my 50s, I'm like, no, man, it's gotta... it's gotta help the community.

Because when you do that, everybody has a stake in its success, and people will become your cheerleaders.

And it's bigger than that initial idea.

It's everybody's.

It's just like a song.

You write a song, it's yours, but then you give it to everybody and it becomes part of their lives.

The festival was the same way.

[Joshua Deel] Franklin isn't some sugar-coated Southern fantasy served up to make tourists feel good.

It's got grit, a pulse beneath the old brick and bourbon.

This town's not just for show.

It's got purpose.

A story it refuses to let go of.

And there are people here who fight to keep it that way.

Take Tracy Frist.

She's not just a caretaker of dusty relics.

She's fierce, grounded, dead serious about preserving Franklin's soul.

When you talk to her, you feel the weight she's shouldering.

For Tracy, Franklin's not some museum.

It's a living story she's determined to defend, piece by piece.

-I grew up in Appalachia, Southwest Virginia, which, you know, is just a wonderful place to have a childhood.

I grew up in the country.

And even though we've grown here, this is still the country.

We've kind of maintained that country feeling.

And what brought me here ten years ago was my husband, and he grew up in Nashville.

And I thought he was kind of a lost cause, but he's really a country boy at heart.

And he quickly learned to love this more rural part of the county.

So we moved out of the Nashville area where we had a place, and we looked for the perfect property.

Not easy to find, really not attainable.

And we made a list.

And on the list, he wanted a river.

And rivers are daunting.

I grew up on a river.

And so I said, well, you know, I wanted a creek.

And then he said, "I want an old house."

And I said, "I want an old house that looks like my house in Virginia."

So we started this list back and forth, back and forth.

It was, almost seemed unattainable.

And the one thing that we added to the list was, we wanted some element of ancient history.

This county and this town is embedded with Civil War history.

And the story of that is well, well-told and well-preserved.

-I'm Nat Taylor, and I'm the managing director of the History & Culture Center of Williamson County in Franklin, Tennessee.

The History and Culture Center was a project created by the Heritage Foundation of Williamson County, which has been a nonprofit advocacy group in this area, really promoting for historical preservation of buildings and land in this area since 1967.

So, this is a historic building.

It's a really cool way to repurpose it, too.

It was originally built in 1905 as the county jail, Williamson County Jail, that was used for multiple decades and is now the headquarters of the Heritage Foundation.

There was work done to actually preserve this building too, by the Heritage Foundation originally.

And Sue Berry, who is featured in one of the portraits here, she said that her original intention for this building was to make it an education and culture center.

We didn't know that until we started doing some digging on the history of this building and found that in the records.

So the Heritage Foundation purchased it and thought it was an ideal location for their history center.

I think what really makes this history center unique, compared to other projects like this, are these living portraits.

It's incorporating this technology in a way that personalizes the history.

I mean, the stories they tell is taken from the historical record, and played out by actors, of course, but it's kind of this magical thing where when you step in front of it, it activates and tells you their own personal story in their own words.

-Grabs your attention.

-And so, you know, rather than just reading it on a little placard or even in a book, it's far more dynamic in a way that personalizes their story and makes people realize, like, hey, these were actual people, like, just like us, who just happened to live in a different place and time.

And it's a wonderful way to, you know, teach and account for those stories and teach that.

Franklin is promoting the historical buildings and the preservation work that's been done here.

And it's a tourist draw.

People want to come and be a part of that and learn about it.

The organization advocates for the smart growth that pays respect to and kind of incorporates the historical significance of the area and helps preserve that.

[Rick Warwick] I am the Williamson County historian, and my office is in the old jail, which is the headquarters for the Williamson County Heritage Foundation.

It's a beautiful county.

My passion has been in preserving the history.

I started volunteering at the Heritage Foundation in 1995.

Mid-'60s, the Heritage Foundation was organized, and it was that little, small group of people said, well, they've been tearing down these old houses.

We gotta stop that.

And so, they started putting regulations into the city government, saying, you know, you just can't tear down an old house to put a filling station anymore.

This little group of people have done wonders for preserving the land, and preserving the culture.

This area, Williamson County, was, has always been one of the richest counties in Williamson County.

Today, we are the richest per capita county in Tennessee, and I think we're something like maybe 11th or 12th in the nation.

Most people had a little farm, they raised a little, tobacco was a big crop.

By 1860, we were the only county in Middle Tennessee that had more slaves than we had white folks.

There was over 12,000 slaves, and there was about 11,000 white folks.

The Battle of Franklin, which is November 30, 1864, two big armies clashed right here.

[♪♪♪] [Justin Stelter] McGavock Confederate Cemetery was created in 1867, about a little over two years after the Battle of Franklin.

The reason it was created is because local farmers were plowing up bodies that had just been buried quickly after the battle.

It presents about 1,481 boys that were reinterred.

They were dug up all across the battlefield, reburied, outlined state by state.

The property to the north and west is called the Eastern Flank of the Battle of Franklin.

But what's been protected by my good friend Robert Hicks, who wrote "The Widow Of The South " and who's considered the driving force behind the preservation of Carnton, moved here in 1978.

The cemetery obviously was here.

This was put in in ‘67, completed in 1869.

Robert heard stories about how important the cemetery was, came up with this plan to write the story of Carrie McGavock.

This is McGavock Plantation, or it's called Carnton.

[♪♪♪] And that house was used as a field hospital on the outer edge of this Battle of Franklin that takes place November 30, 1864.

Robert's fascinated by these stories, and this house is falling down.

And they get together, community leaders, in an effort to preserve this house.

And they spend the next 20 years doing a very detailed restoration on this early Middle Tennessee antebellum house.

Carrie McGavock is, her and her husband donated these two acres, private land, and then they paid a team of workers to dig up the bodies and rebury them.

And Carrie McGavock kept any detailed information she could find on the boys that were buried here so that she could write letters home to their families.

This cemetery became a little bit of a nationwide example.

It was such a clean cemetery that Harper's Weekly put out an article saying that the other nations' cemeteries could learn something from the McGavock Confederate Cemetery with the detail, with the cleanliness, the orderliness.

We have black and white oaks in this cemetery just here.

So I like that idea of, you know, we're not tearing down monuments here.

We are telling the story.

We're honoring people.

We're putting things back up so that you can read and learn and come to a place and remember, much like Carrie McGavock did.

-The battle started at night.

It was a horrifically, you know, a horrifically loud battle.

And then, when it was over, people were just retreating in front of here.

And can you imagine the horrific sounds.

It's only eight miles, as the crow flies, to the Battle of Franklin from this house.

And the women that lived in this house, there's a journal that she kept.

And she writes that they would take food and hide it along the trail and then put notes under rocks along the old Natchez Trace, hoping that soldiers, you know, would find the note and say, if you go over here, you'll find something to eat.

Because they knew people were just absolutely brought to their knees after the Battle of Franklin.

We wanted to kind of delve into the ancient history that's here in Middle Tennessee, that story that's not really taught.

It came about that we ended up getting Old Town and moving right outside of Franklin .

We're on the Harpeth River at the connection where the Brown's Creek meets the Harpeth.

And we are on an ancient site.

So Old Town, Old Town is like its name, Old Town.

I learned when it was referred to by native people who hunted across this land, the Choctaw, Chickasaw, or Cree, they refer to this as the Old Town, where the people before them, by a thousand years before them, had lived.

And I learned, just the other day, that this site has features that are 5,000 years old.

So this is an ancient site.

And then, you come up to about 1,200 years ago, and there was a culture and a group of people that lived here that came all the way down from Cahokia and Ohio, following the riverways.

And they were called the Mississippians, the Mississippi Mound Builders.

And their mounds were not just piles of dirt.

They were mighty constructed, almost pyramids built out of dirt.

If you think of building a mountain of dirt that doesn't erode in 1,200 years, I don't think you and I could do it.

But they did it.

They would cut and condition the soil, and they packed it using baskets on their back that they wove out of river cane.

And they built these hills that were only really impacted by the plow later in American history.

They didn't erode.

They were above floodplain, and they were a place for them to have their ceremony, to build their big houses.

And then, their culture lived all around these mounds.

And so, Middle Tennessee, which we're in the heart of here in Williamson County, there was a network of 40-some-odd mounds and cultures and communities that were all interconnected by waterways.

And it was a complex community.

They had hierarchy, they had rulers.

They had matriarch and patriarch rulers.

And then, they had people that were tradesmen and tradespeople all the way down.

So it was a complex culture that was impacted, most likely by climate change, by multiple droughts, probably disease, then that was impacted by that as well.

And then, they scattered and were no more.

So it's really a remarkable piece of Tennessee history.

Andrew Jackson said, "There stands Old Town," referring to this ancient site that was right here.

So people would cross through here, travel all the way to Natchez, Mississippi, 400 miles on the old Natchez Trace.

So it became a big road that transferred a lot of our people out west.

-The Natchez Trace has many traces because the one out at Old Town is one trace.

So there's, everybody says, I live on the trace, but there's many traces.

Very early in Nashville, people came there and was starting to spread out to find their own way.

Many of the best ways were following the buffalo trails or the animal trails or the Indian trails, and they were almost like highways.

And so, one of the best ones we have in this county is a national park that goes from Nashville, Tennessee, down to Natchez, Mississippi.

And it is remarkable.

-You know, like any piece of land that you just carve out and you call your own, Old Town has layers and layers and layers of stories.

People who have come here, lived here, died here, watched the stars here, dreamed here.

We live here with the memories of so many people and so many families, histories that came before us.

We're just a little blip in that long timeline.

-I think the new people moving here are our great hope for preserving the county history and also preserving land.

But there's so many new people and visitors.

On Sundays, the street sidewalks are full of people.

They come here just to spend the day and they'll shop.

So it's bustling.

[Heather Joel] We just opened just over a year ago.

So Phil is a musician.

He's been traveling and doing music.

And my background is film and television and theater.

And so, when COVID hit, he was pulled off the road and we spent all of our time walking around down here, kind of re-dreaming and seeing, you know, just kind of, both of our kids up and out to college.

And so, it was like a whole new season.

-Yeah, COVID kind of, COVID gave us a little, an excuse, I guess, or a license to dream.

And so, we dreamed, you know, what would it be like if maybe I didn't tour as much?

And we opened a store in our town and in our community, which we love.

And the whole community aspect of it, it's kind of taken us by surprise.

It's really fun.

I mean, just we meet so many people from out of town, but then locally, we've got to know our town a lot better, too.

And it's become a, you know, it seems like retail is almost becoming, like, the local community centers now.

-Like cheers.

-Like cheers.

-Like cheers.

Yay.

-Right.

[Heather] We're doing an open mic night for the high school kids.

And we have, like, eight or nine high schools.

-[Phil Joel] Yeah.

And they all represent, which is pretty fun.

And the cool thing about these kids in this town, I mean, this is kind of a, this is a music town.

This is the Greater Nashville.

And so, this town is full of singer-songwriters, producers, artists.

And so, we've got this whole another generation of kids growing up just going, yeah, I'm gonna write some songs and I'm gonna perform.

And so, we're just kind of just providing a little platform for them to do it.

And the talent level is kind of amazing in this little town.

[Heather] So the idea to call this place The Green Room came because Phil is, you know, he's toured all over and spent tons of time in green rooms and... -Toured green rooms.

-Yeah, the Green Room Tour.

-The Green Room Tour.

-Yeah.

And then my background is television and theater.

So, you know, green rooms have been a part of my life, too.

And then our store is, it's all sustainable, eco-friendly and fair trade, organic, all the green things.

So, we're like, that's kind of fun.

-It's a friendly, welcoming town.

You know, people feel at ease when they get here, and they feel at home.

And... don't you agree?

I mean, which is, it's special.

It really is kind of, it's, it's maybe a little bit of an ode to a simpler time.

And we all kind of want that.

So, we feel very blessed to live here, yeah.

-For some reason, there's a magic here that was captured for me.

I grew up in the mountains of Appalachia, where people are supportive and wonderful of each other.

Where people are part of the landscape, they're part of the land, they're part of the mountains.

And it's the same here.

There is a sense of culture, a sense of community, a sense of giving, an excitement for growth, a care for growth, and a very, very tender holding of the history.

So to me, this community sort of takes everything I've experienced in my life, living all over the country and growing up in Appalachia, and it all gets distilled right here, which is just a blessing.

[♪♪♪] -I moved to Williamson County in 1974.

I loved this place.

And when one of the places I loved very much was Old Town.

[female voice] This place has a heartbeat of its own.

[male voice] You just get a vibe that you're here at home.

[female voice] It's given me opportunities that I never thought I'd have.

That atmosphere is infectious.

[female voice] It's a magic little place in the mountains.

[announcer] Made with the state fruit of North Carolina, Mighty Muscadine offers a line of superfruit supplements and juices made from the Muscadine grape, including the Cellular Health Antioxidant Beverage, Vinetastic.

More at mightymuscadine.com.