- [Joe Elmore] This time on Tennessee Crossroads we go to historic Rugby for a getaway retreat into Tennessee's intriguing past.

Then it's off to Primm Springs with Ken Wilshire where an annual sweet tradition takes place.

Then to Dunlap with Rob Wilds for some family farm dining, and finally to Franklin with Tammy Arender to meet a cowboy turned leather artist.

I'm sure glad to see you again.

Glad you turned to Tennessee Crossroads.

I'm Joe Elmore.

Welcome.

(gentle music) Well, spring is finally here and just maybe it's calling you to the open road and a change of scenery.

Well, have you visited historic Rugby lately?

Nothing's changed there much, and well that's a good thing because preservationists are working hard to ensure the town's charm and history remain for visitors.

(gentle guitar music) - [Zachery Langley] It's really an amazing sight to see when you can drive up this road and you're almost literally taken back to the 1880's and 90's when Rugby first started.

- Rugby's a great retreat for people who want to come enjoy its pristine historic architecture and perhaps relive the story of an Englishman named Thomas Hughes and his almost perfect utopian society.

Hughes was a noted British author who envisioned a community of cooperative enterprise and cultured lifestyle all free of the rigid classist stations of 19th century Britain.

Back then the eldest sons of landed gentry inherited everything.

Hughes believed the less favored younger sons could build a successful community of their own through farming.

By 1884, Rugby had attracted about 300 young dreamers, along with an English agriculturalist to train them.

One problem though, the rugged land itself.

- Thomas Hughes had this idea that they were going to come here and all be these kind of gentlemen farmers in the area, and he brings them from England without really knowing how to farm.

And then brings them to an area that isn't the great place to try and have a farm at.

Yeah, we had Tabard Inn.

It was actually one of the largest structures in town.

There's a picture over there.

- [Joe] That's resident historian Zachery Langley who bridges the gap between the old and new Rugby.

Here in the recently-built visitor's center, there's a mural that depicts Rugby in its heyday.

Complete with over 65 Victorian buildings, several of which were taverns, where the so-called gentlemen farmers spent their evenings.

- It was really almost an oxymoron in a way because it's kinda hard to be a farmer and have a successful farm and then be able to kind of just kick back and live like you were used to in England as a gentleman over there.

- [Joe] And after that, a typhoid epidemic, financial problems, fires and severe winters, and you can understand why by 1900 most of the colonists had moved away.

And it didn't help that in truth the fervent founder only spent a couple of months a year here away from England.

- Some folks historically have actually contributed that to probably one of the issues that caused Rugby's failure in the end is that the person who was really the driving energy behind it didn't actually spend a whole lot of time here.

- [Joe] But while Rugby declined, it never was deserted.

- [Zachery] One of the neat things about this is that unofficially you have groups who are working to preserve and care for Rugby and its structures, going all the way back to the 19-teens.

And so that's a lot of who remains here are families and children of these families, as few as there are that allow us to actually have what we have in Rugby today is going all the way back over 100 years ago.

- [Joe] Over a century later, Zach heads up historic Rugby.

The care of 18 original buildings, some faithful reconstructions, and the vacation homes of new settlers.

Meanwhile, visitors to historic Rugby can immerse themselves in the charm and history of places.

Well, like the town library.

Wow, this is cool.

Pretty much intact since it was built in 1882.

It's mesmerizing to scan the now rare collections of English books and local periodicals.

And it's close to the original home of Thomas Hughes himself.

It's adorned with antiques, some original, that faithfully reflect how the founder spent his not so numerous days here.

Rugby has a handful of cozy choices for overnight visits.

The favorite, perhaps, is the old Newbury House, with Victorian furnishings that are true to its 19th century origins.

Today there's a suite downstairs and five rooms upstairs.

One of which, like Thomas Hughes' house, has been the source of numerous ghostly noises and strange events.

- Well, we had two different cases where all the lights were off when we left, but one time at Pioneer, and then another time here at Percy, you come back at 11:00, there's lights on inside the house.

But there's nobody, and all the doors are locked.

Nobody's been in there.

There's no evidence of it.

So we get all sorts of strange little things like that happening.

- [Joe] If you come here for a weekend getaway, chances are you won't encounter a ghost from Rugby's romantic past.

Back when it was briefly the promised land for disregarded sons of English gentry.

However, if you should encounter the ghost of Thomas Hughes, tell him he should have come here more often.

- [Zachery] It's not just history that's here.

There's natural beauty as well.

There's kind of that quiet, pristine, almost serenity you get when you come into Rugby as well to appreciate.

(gentle guitar music) - When most people retire, they're likely to pick up the fishing rods or golf clubs for their rest and relaxation.

But Ken Wilshire meets a man next in Hickman County who's more likely to pick up a bag of tools and head to the woods.

And as you're about to discover, life has never been sweeter.

(guitar music) - [Ken] He gave more than 30 years of his life to General Motors in Missouri and Tennessee.

If you've ever owned a new Chevy in the 70's, or Saturn in the 90's, Gene Wilson could've touched it on the assembly line in one way or another.

But these retirement days Gene's far from massive manufacturing operations with modern technology and techniques.

When Gene packs up his tool kit and heads to the job today, all he needs is a drill and a hammer.

And it certainly isn't work.

He's carrying on a tradition his uncle taught him years ago, and that's how to make maple syrup.

- [Gene] I had an uncle over in Missouri that did it.

I was kind of surprised.

I didn't know he could do it, but he did.

When he quit messin' with it, he gave me his five or six taps that he had.

And I thought well, I'll try it down here.

- [Ken] But his uncle never told him that making maple syrup is a northern thing, and almost exclusive to the New England states.

Actually, historians say Native Americans were making maple syrup and sugar long before Europeans arrived in that part of the country.

- And they would take a hatchet and just chop the tree, and they'd place like a little piece of bark or something in that slot that they put in the tree to work as a tap.

And then put a bag or whatever they had to catch the sap on.

And that's what I've been told that's where it got started at.

- [Ken] So Tennessee is about as far south as one can go to find the right trees and weather conditions that support production of quality maple syrup.

Gene has accepted this challenge with as much pride and commitment to quality as he did when he put mufflers on Monte Carlo's.

- [Gene] If you looked at a map of the Sugar Maple where they're at in the United States, we're just about as far south as you can get.

There's a lot of kinds of maple, but only the Sugar Maple has that high of a content of sugar.

If you've got a good run, it's two percent, and so that's why it takes 40-50 gallons to get your syrup.

- [Ken] So it's these 30 to 40-year-old Sugar Maples that provide all the raw material he needs to start producing syrup.

And remember, there's only a six to eight week window of opportunity here in Tennessee to gather all the sap he can.

- It'd be hard to tell somebody when to start, but you feel it though.

I can feel it.

Today it's warming up.

Time to do it.

I like it right in here somewhere.

It looks like a good spot right there maybe.

Take that 7/16 bit and drill a hole about an 1 1/2 into the tree.

And they say to do it at a slight angle, but it doesn't really matter.

It's gonna come out.

Hang the buckets on it and start gathering it up.

- [Ken] Don't worry.

Gene says the trees aren't harmed in the process.

Like an experienced forester, he knows exactly how and where to place the next tap.

He has about 25 trees producing sap, and it takes a lot of it.

And when you boil it down, I mean literally, to make this one pint of Tennessee maple syrup, it takes three of these buckets of sap.

(upbeat guitar music) Gene uses a 60 gallon tank full of the watery substance to gravity feed into his evaporator pan.

- [Gene] I can evaporate about 10 gallons an hour.

- [Ken] Then he fires it up.

The slow cooking process begins.

- There's a lot of waitin' time.

Then when I get down to about, I usually have about six gallons left, I pull the evaporator pan off so that it won't burn.

And then I'll put it into smaller containers, and I got a propane cooker and I'll cook it on down until I get syrup, and I got a hydrometer.

It'll tell ya when it's up to sugar content.

And at that point, you can put it in a jar and grab a biscuit.

- [Ken] The labels on the jar say "Still Hollow Maple Syrup."

Gene tells us back in the day this peaceful hollow nestled deep in Hickman County was the home of one of the area's largest moonshining operations.

Thus the syrup's unique name.

And when all the jars are filled... - It's a good sense of accomplishment, you know?

A lot of years I'll have six gallons worth.

Usually I put it in pint jars.

You heat it up to 180 degrees and 200 degrees.

Just as long as it's up to a boil, and then I pour it off and seal it off and it cans it.

And it's a good feeling, you know?

You got six gallons of it sittin' there to give away or to eat on.

My wife cooks a lot with it.

She puts it in a lot of things that calls for sugar, and she'll just use that instead.

- [Ken] Unfortunately, "Still Hollow Maple Syrup" is not in the grocery store.

Gene doesn't sell a drop.

- [Gene] I've given a lot away to my family and friends.

I just give them that, and there's certain people.

Like I seen a guy the other day and he's like, "What did you do?

"Take me off the list?"

I hadn't got around to his house to give him some.

Of course he was kiddin', but there are people that really like it.

They're like, "Bring me some of that."

I enjoy doing it and enjoy giving it to people.

- [Ken] Gene's production process is simple.

The only new technology is a battery-powered drill, some fancy new plastic bags, his tractor and a hydrometer.

And the competition needs to take heed.

- [Gene] But now I had a friend that does this.

Lives off over here.

I got him started on it, and he took some of it up to Vermont with some friends of his.

And he told me that all them people up there said that this from middle Tennessee was better than theirs.

So that's just what he said.

I don't know.

- [Ken] Well, maybe it's because here in Still Hollow, it's not about productivity and profit.

It's honoring his uncle, proving he can do it right here in Tennessee, and putting his heart and soul into every jar.

Just like he did on the assembly line, and just like those shiny new vehicles would make someone happy, "Still Hollow Maple Syrup" is also a sweet deal to Gene Wilson.

- Boilin' down.

- Thanks, Ken.

Remember when you were a kid how the cookie jar was such a great temptation?

That's because it always contained something good.

That's why they call a diner in Dunlap The Cookie Jar Cafe.

Rob Wilds took a trip there to see if it lives up to its appealing name.

(gentle guitar music) - [Rob] Dunlap, near Chattanooga, is one of the prettiest places you'll find.

Beautiful scenery and a breathtaking valley.

The home of fertile farmland.

(clapping) - They've been wrestling you, haven't they?

Yeah, they've been messin' with you.

- [Rob] This farm has been home to the Johnson family, including Sue Ann Lockhart for more than a century.

So when her dad decided it was time to retire, Sue Ann and her sisters just couldn't see the place being sold.

- I was at MTSU.

My oldest sister was working at the bank, and my middle sister was teaching school.

And we all decided that we weren't ready to get rid of our farm, so we brainstormed, and came together, and decided we would do field trips.

And originally this was just supposed to be a snack shop, but the community kind of came together and told us what they wanted and we ended up with a full restaurant on our hands.

Is everything okay?

- Good.

- Good, good, good, good.

So I was the only one who had any restaurant experience.

I had worked in a restaurant in Nashville for about two years.

I was a server and that was it.

The rest of it we just went by the whims of the night I guess.

- [Rob] And one of the questions going around that night was what do we call our new place?

- [Sue Ann] My middle sister, Bonnie, she started collecting cookie jars about 15 years ago.

And when we got the building built, we were in here trying to decide how to decorate it.

And in the process of us all moving home to start this we were kind of shifting houses, and we didn't really want to move all these cookie jars five times, so she said, "Why don't we put 'em up "on the shelf inside the restaurant?"

And so we all said okay, and that's just kind of how it happened.

- [Rob] It's amazing what makes people go to not to move things.

- Yes, it is.

Built a whole restaurant just to put 'em in there.

- [Rob] That's right (laughs).

Do you care anything about 'em yourself, or is that your sister's thing?

- [Sue Ann] They're my sister's thing but I do like them.

People bring them to me now, and lots of people who have-- Like if they have a relative that's passed on and they have a cookie jar of theirs, they'll bring it here and put it up.

And so it's kinda been like a-- Like a little memoir for a lot of people.

- [Rob] And is there one of those cookie jars among the many that reflects who Sue Ann is?

- [Sue Ann] There's a bear and a moose in a canoe on the other end, and that's probably my favorite one.

- [Rob] I saw that.

Which one are you, you think in that canoe?

Are you steering or riding?

- No, I'm riding.

(Rob laughs) I'm easin' along.

(gentle guitar music) - [Rob] So the name was set, and it wasn't like the Johnson family women didn't have experience at feeding hungry folks.

- [Sue Ann] Most of the recipes came from my grandmother, which we call Mamaw, and she was my dad's mom.

She taught us everything we know, from cooking gravy and biscuits to our cream pies that we have here on the plates.

So most of the recipes that we use are hers.

Almost everything that we can make from scratch we do, even down to the pie crust on the pies.

We make our own rolls, our own cornbread, our own slaw, slice our own cabbage and all.

So, we stay very busy.

- [Rob] Now Memaw wasn't an armchair chef by any means.

Her feeds were legendary.

- [Sue Ann] We always had dinner.

Well, lunch I guess you would call it at 11:00 every day, and the community knew it.

And so if somebody was passin' through, or if they were in the fields workin', they would all come by my Memaw's house and eat, so she had this huge table that would seat 12 people or more, and we always had extra side tables we had to set up.

So she cooked big lunches every day.

- [Rob] Many people who come here to The Cookie Jar to this day still remember Memaw's rolling lunch date.

- Big feeds, big plates, and big food.

- [Rob] Yeah?

- Good food.

- [Rob] And so you'd just happen to pick your lunchbreak about the same time they were having dinner down there?

- Every day.

- [Rob] Every day.

So the tradition Memaw started is carried on with Sue Ann doing most of the cooking these days.

- [Sue Ann] The specialties we have are grilled meatloaf, which they don't have a lot of places.

We have fried catfish, which is very popular, and chicken livers.

We sell lots of chicken livers.

- [Rob] Why do you suppose chicken livers is so popular?

- [Sue Ann] I'm not really sure, but they are.

We sell tons of 'em.

(ducks quacking) - [Rob] This is still a farm, so there's a petting zoo to remind people about that.

- [Sue Ann] Even the children in our area aren't familiar with it and Dunlap's a very rural town that they're still not familiar with farm life at all.

So we bring our whole elementary school, which is about 1100 kids up here once a year.

And they get to come around, and a lot of the local vendors set up and show 'em about farm life, and it's really nice.

- The farm animal viewing area is really popular out here because you'd be surprised even in this rural area so many people don't know how a farm works.

But those of us who do, maybe the attraction isn't so much the geese or the mule, it's the lovely countryside where they live.

I mean you couple that with the great food that's here, and the extraordinary hospitality makes a drive out here to The Cookie Jar well worth the effort.

- Well finally, how do you go from bull riding to creating works of art?

Well that's the story of the cowboy artist you're about to meet.

Tammy Arender takes us to Franklin to meet Terry Lankford, who works wonders with leather.

(gentle country music) - [Terry] We used to go to rodeos and stuff as kids, and we didn't have a lot of money.

So we ended up having to make our own chaps and stuff and then guys got to see them.

- [Tammy] Terry Lankford is a cowboy.

- Next thing you know you're making people chaps than you're doing anything else.

I had two girls helping, and we did 600 pair a year.

- [Tammy] But he hasn't ridden a bull or bucking bronc in years.

Lankford gave up competing, and got into crafting the tools of the rodeo trade.

He worked in a saddle shop in downtown Nashville for about a year, but since 1970, he's been on his own making saddles and satchels and so much more.

- [Terry] Well, we build saddles and we build chaps, and we do notebooks and belts.

We just finished a pool cue bag for a guy.

(tapping) He had a gambler themed pool cue he got upholstered.

Well, I guess they are gamblers in a way.

- [Tammy] Lankford works in a small wooden shack behind his house in Franklin.

What may appear to be a cluttered and claustrophobic cottage is his cabin of creativity.

- [Terry] It's more of a craft.

It's something you learn, and it changes over the years.

Your patterns will change.

You can go back three or four years and look at your patterns you used and go, "Oh, dude, what were you thinking?"

You have to put a little moisture in it or it won't stay.

If it's dry and you're just hitting it, it kind of bounces back.

- [Tammy] The technique is called tooling.

It can be a painstaking process, but in some ways, therapeutic.

- Everybody thinks you have to have a lot of patience.

I have no patience.

When you start you want to go at it 'til it's done.

Then it's out of the way and you do something else.

- Terry makes some very unique designs on his leather.

And when he doesn't have the tools, he actually creates his own stamping tools out of bolts or scrap metal.

The family of tools help him bash in everything from flowers to feathers.

Lankford is mostly a freehand artist, but before the first pinging of his mallet, the design is developing in his mind.

- [Terry] Well you're still a little while and you know what it's going to look like before you start.

Then you make it look like what you're thinking it's supposed to.

That's the way most of it works.

If you just start, it just wanders.

It never goes anywhere and it ends up nowhere.

So you kind of have to have what you're going to do down before you do it.

- [Terry] Lankford's customers are a who's who of the country music and rodeo worlds.

From Marty Stuart and Hank Jr., to Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings.

- This is fairly simple to do.

- [Tammy] His electric guitar covers are some of the most coveted creations.

♪ Mammas don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys ♪ In 1978, Willie and Waylon's duet album with Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys had this leather artwork by Lankford.

For this master craftsman, it was just another project.

He wasn't phased by the famous album cover.

- [Terry] See I grew up in the rodeo business.

It was building bronc saddles and chaps.

And you've got world champions wearing this, and world champions wearing that.

It's the same thing, it's just a different world.

So I was kind of used to it I guess.

This just a nice solid color.

- [Tammy] He's still called on by people in the rodeo world.

Lankford's saddles have become legendary.

He's known for intricate artwork that few can duplicate.

He's also known for functionality.

- If it doesn't function it's useless.

- [Tammy] Doesn't matter how pretty it is.

- No.

- [Tammy] But pretty it is, and that's whether it's purses, pouches, or pool cue bags.

Terry Lankford can use his cowhide canvas to deliver just about anything a leather lover would long for.

He considers it his life's calling.

- [Terry] I always said I didn't pick this.

It picked me (laughs).

(gentle country music) - Can you believe that our time is just about up again?

Well, thanks for joining us, and please check out our website when you get a chance.

A great source of some of your favorite Tennessee Crossroads stories.

Here's what's on next time.

We're going to take you to Williamson County to catch up with a Tennessee treasure, Miss Daisy King.

Then to Fayetteville with Rob Wilds where an artist found his calling during some hard times.

Then to Paris with Ken Wilshire to explore Sally Lane's candy farm.

And finally to Hermitage, where Tressa Bush meets a guy who had a fascination with illustration.

The next Tennessee Crossroads.

Please join us.