Episode 3805

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- This week, we'll take you to a one-of-a-kind B&B in Joelton. You'll visit the oldest town in Tennessee, get a great cup of Joe in Watertown, and watch our Joe pan for gold. Get ready for a priceless half hour. I'm Vicki Yates. Welcome to "Crossroads." Family traditions run deep here in the south. Coming up in our first story, Miranda Cohen travels to Joelton, Tennessee where one young man is keeping his family legacy alive by serving up recipes that were made famous by his grandmother.

- [Miranda] This is Carter Hach and this hidden property in Joelton, Tennessee called Hachland Hill has been in his family for almost a century.

- My official title is Executive Chef, however, I'm really a jack of all trades and just do whatever it takes. I do hear stories every day of people who were touched by my grandmother in some kind of way over the years. My grandmother, whose name was Phila Rawlings-Hach, her family came over in the early 1900s from Switzerland and she was a Rawlings in her maiden name, so really settled this road that we're sitting at the end of. She grew up as a little girl loving to cook.

- [Miranda] Phila Hach was a true culinary pioneer and a real renaissance woman. As a flight attendant for both American Airlines and Pan Am in the 1940s, she introduced to exotic cuisines from around the globe.

- [Carter] On those times abroad, really honed in on her passion, staging and kitchens at the Hotel Savoy in London, Copenhagen, Paris, and where have you. And over time brought that back to home to Tennessee with her eventually to host the first cooking show in the South from 50 to 56 and authoring a number of cookbooks. And ultimately that ended up with her opening Hachland Hill in 1955.

- [Miranda] Today, Phila Hach's legacy, Hachland Hill, is located in the shadow of her childhood home and is a spacious event venue and destination bed and breakfast. This retreat boasts two rustic inns, both indoor and outdoor dining options and endless possibilities.

- [Carter] The property was special to her already and over the last 40 or so years, it's been graced by her, my father, me, all bringing something special to it and corporate retreats, creative retreats, weddings. Every single person who comes on to the property leaves some kind of mark on the property, and that's what she definitely welcomed.

- The wooded vistas offer scenic overlooks, a gently-rolling creek and several options for overnight accommodations, each with something special. Carter, this property is so beautiful and everywhere you look, there's something else to see and so much history. So this room was actually a schoolhouse, right?

- Yeah, so it was the oldest schoolhouse in Robertson County, and my grandmother had fallen in love with it. The idea of an institution, housing students, the hospitality of it all. She had the logs chalked with numbers and brought here to be repurposed into one of our most popular overnight rooms.

- It's really beautiful and you can actually stay in this room.

- You can. So Hachland Hill sits on about 100 acres and borders Lake Marrowbone. Three wooded trails, persimmon trees, blackberry bushes, all kinds of wild animals, turkey, deer throughout the property, and a creek really splits the property and that's what defines it. There's a natural spring about 300 yards up from the cabin.

- [Miranda] And of course, what is putting Hachland Hill on the culinary map is the food inspired by the family matriarch, but now in the hands of the next generation. The young boy who grew up cooking alongside his grandmother, Phila, is now a classically-trained chef. And like his famous grandmother, he too traveled the world and sought out influences from far-off cultures and cuisines and brought them all back home to Tennessee. And now as the executive chef, he is committed to bringing the very best in local flavors to his farm-to-table meals.

- As a chef, I like to work with the seasons and really preserve the land. My grandmother always said, steeped in nature, which I think is a cute saying. I source all of our food within a 50-mile radius. On the property, we have honey, we have blackberries. Persimmons make a great persimmon Ozark pudding. And ramps are abundant right now. As an accomplished chef and cookbook author in his own right, Hach hopes to elevate his family's classic recipes, all while staying true to his roots.

- If I'm ever unsure of myself, I know I can just pull out one of her old books and find something that'll please everyone. It means the world to me to be at the helm of a business that my grandmother had started almost 100 years ago and to carry on her legacy. Hospitality and food is something really special to me. I'm a fifth-generation in it, and it's something that changes with time too, and it's an honor to be able to take it into the new day and be able to, at the same time, pay my respects as an homage to my grandmother and all the people who defined hospitality for me.

- Thank you, Miranda. Founded in 1779, our next stop is the oldest town in Tennessee. Jonesborough has the charm of a Norman Rockwell painting, and as Laura Faber explains, is known as the storytelling capital of the world.

- [Laura] Once upon a time, back in 1779, before Tennessee was a state, the town of Jonesborough was established. Tucked into the Appalachian mountains of East Tennessee, what you won't find today is boarded-up buildings.

- I think a lot of people come to Main Street, Jonesborough, and they walk through the well-preserved town. They see the 18th-century buildings and they're in awe at the architecture. But after they spend a little time, I think they realize that the special part of Jonesborough is the people.

- [Laura] Cameo Waters is the director of tourism in Main Street for Jonesborough. She grew up just up the road and has seen firsthand the lifelong commitment residents here have had to preserving what makes Tennessee's oldest town so special.

- In the 70s when downtowns really started to die down, people moved to shopping malls. Jonesborough's community members decided they didn't want that to happen. So for us, we were about 20 years ahead of that national movement.

- [Laura] Of all the events Jonesborough hosts, and there are many, the granddaddy of them all is the National Storytelling Festival. Held the first weekend of October, it draws thousands of people from all over the world.

- Like this is one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. This is the oldest town in Tennessee, and storytelling is the world's oldest art form. And what Jonesborough has done over many, many years has cultivated a tradition that's so important to this region, to these mountains, to the ways of life.

- [Laura] Kiran Sirah, president of the International Storytelling Center, says the festival started in 1973 by a school teacher named Jimmy Neal Smith.

- It was part of the folk revival movement, so there was folk festivals happening across the country and the word spread. Now, this is before the internet. Word spread and people thought, "Wow, there's a storytelling festival," and storytellers that were performing at folk festivals descended on Jonesborough, and what was 60 people turned into a few thousand. And now we have about 11,000 people that come here for the National Storytelling Festival.

- [Laura] There are unique places to stay, like the historic Eureka Inn currently under renovation and for sale. The Butterfly Cottage, private and quaint, sits on the first plot ever recorded in Jonesborough. The Historic Stone Seller Suite offers a private stay on the lower level of one of the town's oldest homes. Though people don't stay here anymore, the famous Chester Inn is where we met Anne Mason. She knows this town's history, she gives tours, and is the executive director of the Heritage Alliance.

- [Anne] So this is the Parlor Room. This is where guests came and they checked in and this is where you spent your time.

- [Laura] Today, the Chester Inn is a state historic site and museum, the oldest commercial building in town.

- We definitely have had famous people stay here. John Severe, which is Tennessee's first governor, all three of Tennessee's presidents, Jackson, Johnson and Polk stayed here. Jackson probably has the most colorful history here. He was staying at the Chester Inn one time when there was a fire in town and he had to come out and help fight the fire. Most sources say he was still in his night shirt.

- All along Main Street, which sits on the National Register of Historic Places, architecture buffs will revel in the mini styles on display. It's a living timeline with buildings from the 1700s through the 21st century. A modern distillery sits where the old Salt House was, making bourbon, barrel-aged beer and other spirits. The building dates back to the Civil War. There are so many old things in the town of Jonesborough, including this elevator in the Tennessee Hills Distillery. In fact, it's believed this might be the first elevator in the state of Tennessee. Used to be hand cranked. It's now been mechanized, obviously, and still works to this day. Lots to eat here too. We stopped in at the Main Street Cafe and Catering.

- We make everything ourselves. We grind our own hamburger, we cook it to order, we make our own chicken salad. We make our sauce for the potato salad and the the dressings and everything, the quiche, the pie, the cookies.

- [Laura] Zach Jenkins' parents started this restaurant in 1987. Zach and his wife now run it. Located in the 1930s building, which used to house the post office, they've kept much of the history in place.

- You have the original pressed-in ceiling, original globe lamps, the original wood floor, original giant windows that are very cold in the wintertime, and we still use a boiler for our radiator system.

- The cafe is known for its chicken salad. The Beverly Salad is named after Zach's mom, the homemade 1,000 Island dressing named after his dad Herman. It makes the Ruben Sandwich a top seller too. Then there are the events. Every holiday offers something special. The farm-to-table dinner features a harvest table three blocks long serving a food that comes from within 100 miles of the town. The Boone Street Market, a year-round farmer's market, is gorgeous. And for the kids, the nearby Wetlands Waterpark offers a cool escape in the summer. When a place is made up of thousands of stories like Jonesborough is, it's hard to sum it up in just one for TV. Maybe the best idea is for you to visit yourself and tell your own story.

- Thank you, Laura. When you live in a small town, you don't have a coffee shop or bakery on every corner. But in Watertown, there's a coffee house that's not only serving great Java and food, but giving back to the community at the same time. Here's the vanilla. We fell in love with Watertown. My business partner and I both lived out this direction and we both just kept saying like, "Watertown just needs a neat little coffee place." Someplace that the community can go and just be. All right, dear. There you are.

- [Tammi] Ali OReel and her business partner, Austin Floyd were wooed by Watertown and Wilson County. The two grew up just down the road in Gladeville.

- Your change.

- All right, thank you.

- Alright, you have a great day.

- You too.

- Alright, here's that iced Americano, dear. There you go, love.

- Thank you.

- You're welcome. See ya later.

- Bye.

- [Tammi] Watertown is a small map dot, but with a big heart.

- We feel like we're the heart of the community here. We're on the center of the square, right on the corner. People walk in any day or time and realize, "Oh, this is good. This feels like home."

- [Vicki] Ali and Austin own the Adopted Farmhouse Coffee Company.

- It was kind of born. It really wasn't something that we planned out. In fact, the building that we found available for rent, we rented it with half my husband's tip money, half her husband's tip money. It's really very interesting. It was kind of an accident.

- [Tammi] The ladies call it the Adopted Farmhouse 3.0 because it's the third location. Although the address may have changed a few times, the vision is still the same.

- [Ali] We actually started right over on the square. On the other side of the square, I should say. And then a few doors down, next to Nona Lisa Pizza, that was Farmhouse 2.0. And then this is Farmhouse 3.0 and this was our dream space. We love this space. There's so much history. We call it the Farmhouse on Melton Block, and we love all the windows. It's just so homey in here and just such a great place for the community, and it's just peaceful.

- [Tammi] Their goal is to offer an oasis for people to come in, sit a spell, have a great cup of coffee and conversation, share a meal or a sweet treat. But there's much more to this menu than meets the eye and it's found in the name.

- Adoption, also, for us, we take it very literally that we are adopted in. So in God's Word, it talks us about us being adopted in in Romans 8:15. So we are adopted in, and so that was another part of it for us. But also farmhouse is our theme. And when you think of a farmhouse, coming home, the comfort, the peace there, that's a really big part of it for us.

- The coffee shop ended up playing a really big part of helping her bring her son home, Alex, and we helped walk through the fundraising. The community just really stepped in and just really helped to provide the funds to bring him home. We decided after that, we wanted to help other families do that as well. So we called it the Adopted Farmhouse so that way we could walk through that adoption journey with other families.

- [Tammi] Austin and her husband were adopting Alex, their oldest son, who can often be found helping out at the coffee house when they first opened the store. Adoption is very expensive and exhausting, what with all the paperwork, legal hoops to jump through and travel. So the two thought it would be great to help others navigate that complicated and costly process.

- [Austin] We've even had people come in and I've sat down with them and coached them through grant writing for the adoptions because I experienced that myself. So that's a huge part of our heart and our vision and something we'd like to continue to do on both a national and an international level.

- [Vicki] So several times a year, there will be designated donation days where a portion of the proceeds go to help other families hoping to give a forever home to a child in need.

- [Austin] That's probably our favorite thing that we get to do here. We have customers that have eventually become family, and we've been able to help with a few adoptions already.

- [Tammi] The other part of the name, Farmhouse, comes from not just the decor, but the decision to use area farmers when possible.

- [Austin] We partner with a local honey company called High Flight Honey. It's named that because her husband is actually an international pilot, so super cute. They have 200 acres here in Watertown and they have some of the most incredible honey I've ever tasted. Then we have local produce, local eggs. We really try to pull in local as often as possible. We incorporate it into everything all the way through so our local berries that we get for our baked goods, like the blueberry muffins, blackberry muffins, our kickin' fig sandwich, which is ridiculously good. We have a Watertown club sandwich, chicken-bacon-ranch wrap. I mean, really, the possibilities are endless.

- Thank you.

- You're welcome.

- All right, I had to order Antique Gems honey-bourbon latte, and I'm not even a bourbon drinker, but I gotta try this. Wow, that is tasty. I love that local honey. And you really don't taste the bourbon. Ally and Austin have brought two other ladies in to help run the kitchen. Kim does the savory and Heather does the desserts. All working together to bring this little slice of heaven to the Watertown Square.

- [Austin] It's so peaceful. We get the word dreamy a lot. We have a lot of people say, "It's so dreamy when you walk in," but we just want them to feel at home, even if they're not from here. And we want it to be a spot that they're like, "Oh, I have to go back." When you are coming to someplace new, I think people feel lost. Again, as a believer, we want people to feel like they're coming home and to know that peace, and that peace is definitely here.

- Thank you, Tammi. While Tennessee is famous for orange, you might also find gold in them-thar hills, at least in the southeast part of the state. Many moons ago, Joe tried his hand at panning for that precious metal and decided to stick with TV.

- Coker Creek is located in an area now known as the Cherokee National Forest, a place where Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina all come together. Now, according to a local legend around these parts, about 200 years ago, some settlers ran across some Indians wearing gold nuggets around their necks. They said it came from a creek just down the hill from here but before you could save 14 karat, the gold rush of Tennessee was on. Before long, gold-hungry prospectors and settlers had pushed the Indians off their land. Several large mining operations sprang up to reap the golden harvest. A lot of the gold was discovered right here in Coker Creek, a fine place for gold of small nuggets, some almost impossible to see.

- Back in the early twenties, they were probably... A stretch of 10 or 12 years, there were probably 10 or 12 mining companies in this area.

- Most of the old prospectors, like Frank Murphy's grandfather are gone now. But one remains. His name is Harold Witt. Mr. Witt, who still has the scales his grandfather gave him, is a living history of the Coker Creek gold-mining days and eager to pass on his wisdom to present-day prospectors. Is there still gold in this creek here?

- There's plenty of it everywhere. Now, if one generation could get it all, they'd drop the rest of it. So just a little comes out now and then, at the time to...

- Do you know any secret places to go to find more?

- Yeah.

- You do?

- Yeah.

- You wanna tell us about it?

- It's up the creek.

- [Joe] Since 1969, there has been an annual autumn gold festival here around this store. There's lots of music and crafts and various throwbacks to the old days of Coker Creek. But it's the lure of gold that still gets into the hearts and minds of most visitors, children and parents alike.

- This?

- No, that's nothing.

- [Joe] There's something about youngsters and a shallow creek that naturally go together and the chance for some gold only makes it all-more inviting. Now, while styles of mining differ, this little girl even used her feet, it's always best to ask an expert and Mr. Witt is happy to keep the tradition going giving good-as-gold tips.

- You gotta make it do what you want it to do, and you gotta get the feel of it. And gold is much heavier, you know? It goes to the bottom. Now rock your pan.

- Rock it.

- As you rock it, tilt it up. See, that just whoops it right off.

- Wow. Here are just a couple of nuggets Mr. Witt's collected from the creek over the years. This will inspire you to be persistent. You gotta keep trying, don't you?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- It's always behind the next rock.

- The next rock?

- Yeah.

- [Joe] Not everyone uses the tin-pan method. This diver uses a fancy vacuum cleaner in his search for gold. Are you having any luck?

- I've done pretty good today so far. Sure have.

- [Joe] So there really is gold in this creek.

- Oh, yes. Yes, this creek's... You can get gold just about anywhere you go in this creek.

- [Joe] You're not getting rich off this, are you?

- No, but I'm having a heck of a good time.

- Well, goodbye and good luck. Here's more proof that the creek still has gold for the taking. Although Harold Witt, he's letting others have a chance now. Are you still prospecting?

- No. I've quit. I've lost my squatters, my hunkers, my bend overs.

- It takes a lot of them to do it, huh?

- Oh, oh, yeah. Plenty. You know, when you bend over so long and go home at night, you just as well dig taters because you're already down there, you know?

- Yeah. Well, Mr. Witt, is there still possibly a big mother lode out there somewhere?

- Yeah. Yeah. When you see a rabbit track, there's a rabbit on the other end. Gotta be.

- Well, no, not this time. You know, the festival is only one time a year, but I'm told prospecting tourists stop here all the time in hopes of finding that mother lode or in hopes there'll be one pan away from striking it rich here in Tennessee's only stream of gold. Maybe one more time.

- Well, we're out of time, but you can check us out anytime at tennesseecrossroads.org. Download the PBS app while you're there, and we hope to see you again next week. Thanks for joining us.

- [Announcer] "Tennessee Crossroads" is made possible in part by...

- [Announcer] Some of our biggest checks have also made the biggest difference. The Tennessee Lottery, proud to have raised more than $7.5 billion for education. Now that's some game-changing, life-changing fun.

- [Announcer] Discover Tennessee trails and byways. Discover Tennessee's adventure, cuisine, history, and more made-in-Tennessee experiences showcased among these 16 driving trails. More at TNTrailsAndByways.com.

- [Announcer] Middle Tennessee State University College of Liberal Arts helps students explore the world, engage minds, enrich lives, and earn a living. More at mtsu.edu/cla.

- [Announcer] Amazon, a proud supporter of programming on public television. Amazon focuses on building long-term programs that have a lasting impact in communities where employees live and work. More at aboutamazon.com.