Retro Crossroads 0204

- In this episode of "Retro Tennessee Crossroads," we're going back to the late '80s and early '90s. In our first outing, Al Voecks takes us to a small community with a curious name. Jerry Thompson shares a video essay on the Nashville City Cemetery. Janet Tyson meets the Middle Tennessee guys who build model trains that they can ride. And finally, we'll travel through two centuries of Tennessee aboard a traveling museum. That's the lineup for this episode of "Retro Tennessee Crossroads." I'm Joe Elmore. Welcome. Well, it's time for another trip through time in Tennessee, and I'm here with Becky Magura, of course. Becky, I know you've done your share of traveling as I have, but have you ever been to a town called Skullbone?

- No, you know what, I have not been to Skullbone. It's on my list now.

- Okay.

- I've been to Defeated and Bug, just, you know, a few of those.

- Well Tennessee has a number of towns with strange names. Only Shake Rag over in West Tennessee. Nameless, to name a few. Well, around 1987, Al Voecks was drawn to a tiny place whose odd name attracted some worldwide fame.

- Mention Nashville, Memphis, Chattanooga, Knoxville, and most people can immediately identify with Tennessee. But scattered throughout the hills and valleys of the state are dozens of smaller communities, that while they don't have the size of the metropolitan areas, their history is nonetheless just as unique. One such area is right here at the Tennessee crossroads of Highway 105 and Davy Crockett Avenue North. This is Skullbone, Tennessee. Not very big, about 200 people scattered throughout these hills call Skullbone their home, but to them, there is no finer place on Earth. Skullbone wasn't always this small, city fathers like to refer to the entire area of Skullbonia. It range from McKenzie to the east, down to Milan to the south, Greenfield and Bradford to the west. It encompass parts of three Tennessee counties. It is not quite that big anymore. The area once known as Old North Gibson is now just a dot in Gibson County of West Tennessee. The center of activity is the Skullbone Store, owned and operated since 1964 by Ruby and Landon Hampton.

- How you doin' there brother Jerry?

- Fine.

- Come on over here. Let me put it on you.

- [Al] During the past 24 years, they say they have had visitors from nearly every state in the Union and dozens of foreign countries. Indeed, Skullbone is known worldwide.

- Yeah, no RCs today, just Coke.

- Coke be fine for me.

- Okay, thank you.

- All right, thank you.

- [Al] The regular daily visitors to the store, however, are the local residents who come to chew the fat and keep tabs on things and to keep warm in the wintertime. The locals are the ones who provide visitors with the colorful history of the area. The most asked question, of course, is, "Why is it known as Skullbone?" And while there are many theories, the locals are quick to point out that the roots are in the bareknuckle boxing matches of the late 1800s.

- All I've ever known and my talk was my day, they had a sawmill down here and two fellas got in a fight. One of 'em busted the other in the skull with a piece of timber, And they started from then on calling it Skullbone.

- [Al] But did they do a lot of fighting here?

- Yeah, they used to box here just fist and skull. You know, just neck and fist. And they tried till one of 'em got whooped. If they didn't get whooped today, well they'd come back tomorrow. They had to fight til you admitted you were whooped.

- [Al] Was it legal to fight here?

- Yeah. Yeah.

- [Resident] Lot of 'em fought when it wasn't legal too.

- Yeah.

- [Al] Do you live in Skullbone? I mean, you actually live in the city or town of Skullbone?

- Oh, just three miles, like I do-

- Three-mile area.

- And he lives about three miles.

- Three miles, yes.

- He ain't working. This bunch here is anywhere from one mile to three miles.

- That's right.

- But this bunch meets up here every day.

- Yeah, every day.

- We up here every day.

- [Al] So you don't do much work, you just meet here and-

- We do-

- Chew all the fat, huh?

- Back in the farm. Yeah.

- It's only and get right here.

- [Resident 1] We have to come eat dinner.

- Yeah, we eat dinner up here about that.

- [Resident 2] That's only dinner we'll have, works for me.

- [Resident 3] Yeah, the wise working, making living, most of 'em has no dinner.

- [Al] Do you get a lot of people coming through Skullbone? I mean, do people actually make an effort to come here?

- Yeah.

- Just to get a look, yeah, look at the signs.

- California, Texas-

- Yeah, yeah. Yes, sir.

- Washington, Oregon.

- Yeah.

- They go here?

- Yeah.

- A lot of them gotta live somewhere here.

- [Al] Why do they come?

- Well, they just heard about it. Some read about it, you know, out in California, in different places in New Orleans.

- We sell the highest priced corn dogs right around here, never been sold, I sold probably one for $5,000 one day.

- [Al] When you've met people coming through, what's the farthest they've been from?

- What's the farthest they've been from, Landon, the people coming through here?

- England.

- England.

- Australia, Wales.

- [Al] Now, who put the word out? Did you people brag about your town or did you the ones put the word out?

- Well, Ruby and Landon, they pushed it on, you know, and try to, you know, keep things going, you know. Clifford Dolan, the man used to built this building and done a lot of things, didn't he? And Landon and Ruby, you know, they all good store people, Landon and Ruby.

- One thing we failed to mention is just exactly where is Skullbone? Well, Skullbone is two miles north of Goosefoot, but it's 5,300 miles north of Rio de Janeiro. It's about 100 miles from Memphis. However, it's about 10,000 miles from Calcutta. And it's about 130 miles from Nashville. This is probably the most famous landmark of Skullbone, Tennessee. And no matter where you are, Ruby and Landon say, "Come on over." They'd like to see you.

- [Resident] You can go anywhere you wanna go, but if you ever lived here, you wanna come back. That's about the way it is.

- There ain't no place like it.

- That's right.

- Gosh, Joe, I loved that story. You know, Al's a great storyteller and then going to that old country store, I love country stores, and you can still find them all around Tennessee. You just have to know where to look. And they always have those guys.

- Yeah, but we keep looking for 'em too. Our dearly departed friend Jerry Thompson had a special gift. He could find a story just about anywhere he ventured, even the Nashville Cemetery that to him was alive with interesting history.

- Right here in the heart of Nashville lies a vivid history book, a book in which ornate tombstone serve as its pages. It's the Nashville City Cemetery. Close examination of the tombstones here reveal stories of wealth, adventure, fame, and destitution. All these stories are here because many of Nashville's forefathers rest here for eternity. But they share the ground with early government leaders, educators, and 18th and 19th century slaves and infants. It's a 22-acre plot of land that lies on 4th Avenue South, a busy thoroughfare traveled by thousands each day. Most of those passing in the City Cemetery each day are unaware that in the quite solitude here lie pioneers and paupers, scamps and scoundrels, world travelers and adventurers. James Robertson, the man who settled Nashville, is buried here. His son, Felix Robertson, who was the first white child born in Nashville, is also resting here. Captain William Driver, a grizzled old sea captain, sailed the seas of the world before retiring to Nashville to spend his remaining years. He's buried here in this tree-studded sanctuary. It was Captain Driver, who on one of his last voyages at sea, gave the American flag its name, Old Glory. Because of this distinction, an Act of Congress allows the American flag to fly proudly over his grave 24 hours a day. And then there's Ann Rawlins Sanders. She was born in 1815. She died 21 years later when she committed suicide by jumping from this large boulder into the Cumberland River. She said to have jumped after a spat with her fiance. Her fiance, so the story goes, and whose identity has been obliterated by the passing of time, had the boulder removed from the bluff and placed here at her gravesite. It serves as her tombstone. Because was said to be afraid of the dark, her intended place to lantern atop her grave and visited the cemetery here every night to light it. An electric light now serves to abate Ann's fear of the darkness. I get a strange feeling every time I come here. It's a good feeling, feeling of serenity. I feel I'm literally walking through a history book and somehow I'm staking my claim on a part of that rich heritage that belongs to us all.

- You know that cemetery is a very fascinating place.

- I love it, and that's crazy thing to say, but it's such a beautiful cemetery and it's got all these beautiful pathways and park benches. It's almost like a park. It's very peaceful, and I bet you didn't know this. If you're mayor, you get a plot at that city cemetery, and Richard Fulton, as you know, former mayor, was an amazing leader in our community-

- I knew I should-

- Has a beautiful space.

- I knew I should have run. Anyway, from that to trains, okay? Trains have always played a big part in our history here in Tennessee, and for some people, trains are a source of endless fascination no matter what age. Janet Tyson met a group of enthusiasts in Maury County who shared a big passion for riding trains in a scaled down version.

- If you've ever come down on Christmas morning to find a train set under the tree, or if you've ever heard the distant whistle of a locomotive and suddenly had the urge to go wherever it was going, then you probably have a love for locomotives way down deep in your soul. There are a group of people in the area who have allowed that love to become a passion, a passion called outdoor model railroading. In real life, Scott Baxter is an electrical engineer for a communications company, but in his Brentwood backyard, he's a big boy in love with little engines.

- I think after a childhood exposure to railroading, riding on a business trip to Texas with my father at age five and back, I had the feel of railroading. I wanted to run on the railroad, work on the railroad. I'd love to be a railroad engineer. I know that that's not practical or possible for me in today's railroad industry, and so this is the closest thing I can come to it. It's the ideal family hobby. They love it. I can be interested in making the signals operate and fixing a broken locomotive. The younger ones are interested in running, and all of us fit in one way or another.

- Come down this gate or .

- [Janet] Scott got hooked on the hobby of large scale model railroading about two years and $15,000 ago when he and his family went to Columbia, Tennessee for a meet of the Mid-South Live Steamers Club. The erstwhile spectator is now vice president of the group. Their meet earlier this month attracted locomotives and enthusiastic engineers from 15 states. Hank Sherwood of Nashville is the club's president.

- When we have a meet like this, we probably got over 40 locomotives and it gets a little crowded on the track, so everybody tries to take their little turn and not everybody get out there at the same time because they just end up in one big line, and, you know, you don't go very far. And especially when we have a lot of people showing up to ride with their kids, and I think the adults enjoy it more than the kids do sometimes, so...

- [Janet] The Columbia track located at the Maury County Fairgrounds is one of about 250 such setups across the country.

- We have little over of a mile of track in scale, that would be about eight miles for this size, and counting the switchyards and the passing sidings, we have enough track and it's fun to run around if you've been around it and seen the loop and the bridges, and it's just like a real railroad. ♪ Hey Roy ♪ ♪ Here she comes, look at her roll ♪ ♪ There she goes, eating that coal ♪ ♪ Watch her fly, look at her sail ♪ ♪ Let her fly by, by, by the Fireball Mail ♪ ♪ Hop in, my lady ♪ ♪ Watch her go ♪ ♪ Look at her steam ♪ ♪ Hear her blow, whistle and scream ♪ ♪ Like a hound wagging its tail ♪ ♪ Dallas bound, bound, bound, the Fireball Mail ♪

- Some people come from the railroads, some are doctors, all walks of life. It's just that they share the common interest of this hobby, which is growing quite rapidly, you know, as far as the miniature steam locomotives. I think most of the people here have had a model train set at some time in life, and as they get older, their toys get bigger, and I think that's what happened to me.

- I'm 91 years old and this is what keeps me going right here, period. I'm too old for women so I got on this.

- The diesel locomotives, some are battery operated, they are charged or have a generator that charges them and they run on the battery. And some basically have, like, a lawnmower engine in 'em. Well, most of the trains here are steam-powered. That's how the hobby originally started back in the late '30s. And they burn coal. We like to burn a clean burning coal, which we use here. We have a fellow bring down from West Virginia. It's Pocahontas coal and it's a clean burning coal so it doesn't make a lot of smoke and soot that gets you all black from running on it. You know, some of the engines here burn propane, which is just a clean fired gas, but the diehards like to burn the coal 'cause you get the smell and it's more of the realism. But the secret of a locomotive is not how fast it can go, it's how much it can pull, which they call attractive force. We don't encourage, you know, they say high balling too much around here because the track does have a few kinks in it, but, really, the pride is in how much it can pull, and that's when you get the chug, chug, chug, chug, chug.

- [Janet] These engines can build up from 100 to 130 pounds of pressure in their boilers.

- This is the boiler and it'll be full of water up to about here. The rest of this is steam. By the way, there is a steam dome in there with the pop valves. That makes the steam, the steam comes over here, it runs down into the cylinders. It'll squirt some in here. It'll push the cylinder back, it'll squirt some there. It just makes it go back and forth This is a Johnson bar that makes it go forward or backwards. This is a throttle. This is the water glass, which is very essential. You don't want to run out of water. Here's the whistle.

- I tell you, the thing about it, they enjoy working on 'em and building 'em a lot more than they do riding 'em, I think. I think riding 'em is just something to entertain kids and entertain the wives and stuff, but I think working on 'em and building 'em is the main thing.

- Well, yeah, they say the only difference in men and boys is the price of their toys, you know, and that's about true. We have lots of fun.

- [Janet] Young or old, there's a lot to love about these locomotives. If you're seven, a ride on these trains is a pleasant trip back to a time of which you have no memory. If you are 76, it just doesn't seem all that long ago.

- Oh, Lord, yeah, a lots of memories, yeah. I used to run up and down the railroad tracks when I lived here in Columbia when I was little girl. I'd jump of the way of the big old trains, you know. It reminds me of lots of way back. ♪ Barely no more trains to ride ♪ ♪ No more trains to ride ♪ ♪ I'd like to live like my daddy did ♪ ♪ But there's no more trains to ride ♪

- Joe, do you ever wonder when people are watching this at home, if they see themselves like that 7-year-old boy who is riding on the train? You know, what would he be like about?

- Let's see, he's gotta be middle aged by now.

- Yeah. I bet it's fun though. That's what I love about these segments.

- I never thought about that.

- Yeah, it's pretty cool.

- It's amazing. You know, back when Tennessee was celebrating its 200th birthday, they had a project called Tennessee's Treasures. Now, it featured rare artifacts and displays representing two centuries of history. The best part was you didn't need to visit a museum. This one came to you. Over the next 14 months, this traveling history lesson will stop in each of Tennessee's 95 counties. Thanks to these specially built tractor trailers and a wealth of Tennessee Treasures, you can take a very special, unique journey through 200 years of Tennessee. When the trailers are linked together, they form a U-shaped portable museum, one that offers an appropriate prelude to the bicentennial celebration. Over 130 artifacts are displayed inside, most of which came from the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville. All of them are designed to teach Tennesseans about their history and heritage. From a portion of the first constitution of the State of Tennessee adopted in 1796 to Elvis Presley's jumpsuit worn by the King of Rock and Roll about 170 years later. It's on loan from Graceland for the very first time. Now, covering 200 years of Tennessee in a three-trailer traveling museum is quite a feat. So organizers decided to focus on Tennessee personalities, the people who made a difference in both state and US history. Lois Riggins-Ezzell is executive director of the State Museum.

- The bicentennial really is a celebration of the people because a state is a collection of people, like a country is a collection of people. So what you have on Tennessee Treasures is you have the true treasures of the people of Tennessee because the people are the treasures. So these are the artifacts, the items of everyday life, that these people used in their own lives.

- [Joe] The first trailer contains artifacts from Tennessee's settlement and expansion years.

- You have the mess kit that he used at the famous Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812. And here a lock of Jackson's hair and then some political cartoons.

- And Davy Crockett.

- Davy Crockett, the great hero of the Alamo. He is certainly a historical character that is larger than life. He published the "Crockett Almanac." He was a great storyteller, and maybe storytelling makes a great politician and a great warrior.

- [Joe] I'm glad you included the Disney version too.

- [Louis] We did include the Disney version. We want you to look at all faces of history.

- [Joe] This display shows you what a window view of downtown Nashville might look like in the mid-1800s just after the new State Capitol was built. In the second trailer, you experience the Civil War and reconstruction years. And you stand in front of a diorama that brings the war home to a Tennessee farmhouse.

- My my, I remember getting this tablecloth from my mother on my wedding day. It wasn't too many years ago, but now it seems like an eternity.

- Well, the Civil War, of course, was a great tragedy, and I think that in showing the arms and armaments, the weapons of war, you realize that war is really a terrible thing. So you will see sidearms used by Nathan Bedford Forrest. You will see guns and a uniform worn by a young soldier as he went off to war. There's a diorama there interpreting the war to young people so they might really get closer to the war.

- [Joe] The third trailer is the new century of Tennessee, beginning on Beale Street, home of the blues and W.C. Handy. Sergeant Alvin York is perhaps the most famous soldier of World War I. Here, his medals and even the movie of his life are celebrated. Anne Dudley was a fighter for women's suffrage in Tennessee who wanted to prove that voting and motherhood could exist in harmony. East Tennessee and Roy Acuff was, of course, the King of Country Music. This display contains his Grand Old Opry fiddle and his trusty yo-yo. Here is the trademark coonskin cap of Senator Estes Kefauver. And here's a whole display honoring the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Roots," West Tennessee's Alex Haley. It's not often you can travel through 200 years of a state's history without even leaving your own hometown. Treasures of Tennessee will be on the road for 14 months to ensure that every Tennesseean gets a chance to make this once in a lifetime journey.

- We're giving young people in Tennessee an opportunity to really, maybe, have an opportunity to see objects they would never see, they would never have an opportunity to see. But we also hope it will wet their appetite so they will want to come to the museum, they will want to come to the Tennessee State Capitol, and it will give them an opportunity to see themselves as a Tennessee treasure, as someone who might go out from Tennessee or stay in Tennessee, and have something to contribute to the next 200 years.

- You know, Joe, that's the great thing about "Retro Tennessee Crossroads," we capture history just like they captured history, right?

- You got it right. We're doing our job. Unfortunately though, that's about all the time we have for today.

- But you know, you can watch "Retro Tennessee Crossroads" on demand, anytime on the free PBS app.

- Until next time, take care.