Episode 3521

- [Joe] This time on Tennessee Crossroads, we discover the artistic magic of Nashville's, Michael McBride. Then relive the story of The Little River Railroad in the Smoky Mountains. We'll visit a campus for catfish in Columbia and finally explore a notorious prison. That's now attracting tourists. Hi everybody. I'm Joe Elmore, happy holidays and welcome to Tennessee Crossroads. They say, if you can find a job you love, you'll never work a day in your life. Cindy Carter met an award-winning artist recently who found his calling all right, as he creates his breathtaking works of art.

- All right.

- [Cindy] Step into Nashville, visual artist's, Michael McBride's studio, and you instantly pick up on his vibe. Jazz plays is the background. His artwork is proudly displayed on the walls and the man just can't seem to talk for too long without laughing a lot.

- Oh, enjoy all of them immensely. I mean, I enjoy art. At the age of eight I told my parents I was gonna be an artist. And so that feeling that I had at age of eight, I still have it now at the age of 64. You know, it has never left me. I never deviated from that.

- [Cindy] Michael's varied background includes design, illustration, watercolor painting, print making, ceramics. He's an art professor, a muralist oh, and a keen observer of the human condition.

- Most of my work is figurative, you know, people and faces and things because I find them fascinating. You know, I do people watch. You know, as an artist, man, you look at everything. People, insects, you're just look at everything. Whatever affects you. You will be surprised at the things If you're open as an artist, to the nuances around you and your environment.

- [Cindy] Michael says much of his art depicts African-Americans because that is his experience. But he doesn't shy away from any subject matter or theme. There are a few common threads in Michael's work, perhaps most notably his use of color, rich and saturated, a reflection of both his aesthetic and his positive outlook.

- Good trouble. Yes.

- [Cindy] Good trouble is the title of perhaps Michael's most notable Nashville mural to date.

- Wow, you know, that's the biggest one I've done, you know.

- [Cindy] He was commissioned to paint civil rights activists and Congressman John Lewis. Appropriately along downtown Nashville's John Lewis Way and to do so in a way that highlights Lewis' many historic ties to Music city.

- It's such an honor because he was a great man. And to be able to do something of that premise because it's big, it's like 54 by 54 feet. So it's pretty big.

- [Cindy] Michael has created more than 20 murals in Nashville. His first one went up in the 1980s on Church street. He says he has a lot of gratitude for how far he's come since then, what he's been able to accomplish and what might happen next.

- I'm living my dream of what I wanted to do.

- [Cindy] A dream that took root in rural Tennessee, just outside of Jackson.

- I was a PK, a preacher's kid. So my mother would let me these old Bibles, they used to have had these wonderful engravings in them. And my mother would let me take blank paper, typing paper and a pencil. And she knew that would keep me quiet in church for two to three hours, you know.

- [Cindy] From those humble beginnings, Michael went on to study art and illustration in college and graduate school. Just soaking in everything he learned by studying great artists. Eventually, he was able to develop his own technique and style, which is on full display in his artwork today.

- I call it kaleidoscope painting. And when I was in graduate school, that's when it evolved. A combination of looking at Picasso's cubism painting and then merging Aaron Douglas with his geometric designs, which is African base in that and merging those two together.

- [Cindy] Michael really enjoys creating series or collections of paintings that carry the same theme, but also standalone in their individuality.

- My iconic pieces, I came up with that series. And when you look at iconic pieces, it's not really about any skin color. It's just about color shaping these images. And it becomes very interesting. Dolly Patron doesn't have black eyes, but all of these images have black eyes and you don't even think about it when you see it.

- [Cindy] He has a series devoted to African-American writers and another that depicts 25 of his father's sermons.

- Each painting would be the title of the sermon.

- [Cindy] A series both contemporary and deeply personal, but you could argue all of Michael McBride's work is personal, also colorful and distinctive. Created by an artist who likes his jazz. And loves to laugh almost as much as he likes to paint.

- I can create any kind of world I want as an artist on canvas. You know, I can make myself happy, no matter what's going on around me. You know, that's the beauty of that.

- Thank you, Cindy. Before the Smoky Mountains became a national park, about two thirds of the Virgin forest were clear-cut by loggers. We're gonna visit a couple of sites that reveal an intriguing story of how a lumber company and railroad brought jobs to towns of Tennessee, while bringing destruction to what's now protected park.

- The lumber company actually brought the industrial age into this valley because we were nothing more than hunters and people that grew crops for livelihoods. So when the lumber company came in, people had jobs.

- [Joel] Around the year 1900, Colonel WB Townsend came here from Pennsylvania to buy 86,000 acres of land full of rich Virgin forest in what's now Smoky Mountain National Park. The next year, he and his partner started the Little River Lumber Company with plans for building a railroad to carry lumber from the mountains down to the mill. This little museum and his namesake town shares the history of how a lumber mill and its railroad led to both prosperity in the valley and devastation in the forest. David ESL is one of the volunteers.

- The railroad here went from Walland, which is seven miles down river to here where the mill was at this site in Townsend. And then went from Townsend up to both Elkmont and Treemont to gather the logs there, bring them to the mill, and then they'd be sawn in the mill and be stickered and dried or go to a kiln for drying. And then they would go all over the United States.

- [Joel] Inside the original Walland railroad station are numerous artifacts and photographs from the company's glory days. Including the station managers office.

- [David] That's Albert and Albert would sit there and he would hand the directions or the instructions to an engineer going by on a train. And if you saw that little fly catcher stick that he had in his hand, he would hold that out and it would have a piece of string across it with a paper in the middle that had the instructions and the traveling engineer passing by would grab that. And the string would, ideally the string would come off and he'd have his instructions, where to stop and where to wait for another train to go by.

- [Joel] On the grounds is a rare 70 time geared Shay locomotive, a workhorse of the lumber industry.

- [David] So a lot of folks come from Europe, from Switzerland, from Australia, from different countries to see this type of locomotive because they simply don't exist in areas outside of the United States.

- [Joel] The small locomotive was used as an engine to operate on the mill onsite up in the mountains. Townsend's lumber company laid about 150 miles of rails into the mountains. And as years passed, the Colonel even envisioned another way to profit from it. It's funny but those same trains that carried lumber out of the mountains were soon carrying visitors into the mountains to escape the summer heat and pollution. This is a resort enclave called Daisy Town, which may have been a precursor to something called tourism.

- [David] Well, Mr. Townsend was essential in starting tourism by offering the train as a mode of transportation to come and stay at one of the cabins up at Elkmont or stay in the Wonderland hotel, which was a great place to stay there in Elkmont as well.

- [Joel] Around 1910 towns and started selling land to individuals at what's now the Elkmont campground. First came the Appalachian club. Then the private summer cottages. It was a true playground for the well to do of east Tennessee. And the only way to get there was by train counts and strike force.

- A lot of the folks who just wanted to go along and maybe couldn't afford to ride in a covered car would have the option to ride in an open car. And a lot of times they'd wear white because it'd be a weekend trip up there and back. And people dressed pretty formally, but in the most cases, they would end up with a layer of coal Ash on their white shirts if they had to ride in the open cars.

- [Joel] During the 1920s, Elkmont was birthplace of the National Park Movement. Eventually all Smoky Mountain property owners were forced to sell and move. And the cottages well, they were sold at half price in exchange for lifetime leases. All of which expired in 2002. Today, Daisy Town is a ghost town and a popular stop where visitors want to explore an era when logging and tourism briefly co-existed and the Little River Museum is a worthy companion destination. One that uncovers much of the Smoky Mountains, free national park history, a perilous time for this now public owned gift of nature.

- Well next, fried catfish. It's a Southern comfort food that's hard to beat. While some folks are downright obsessed with finding the perfect filet, Tammi Arender discovered an out of the way spot in Columbia called Catfish Canvas. It's a place where you find tasty fish and friendly folks.

- Hello.

- Are y'all good?

- Doing good.

- Hey, bro.

- How are you doing?

- I'm doing all right.

- How are y'all?

- We're hanging all right in there.

- Hanging in there.

- [Cindy] You may think with a name like Gary Bass, there would automatically be a fondness for fish. And yes there is, but Gary and his wife, Rhonda specialize in catfish, not bass.

- The main draw is our catfish. We make our own batter for the cat fish and we just lightly batter. You get a lot more meat than you do batter.

- [Cindy] Gary and Rhonda are the principals at Catfish Campus in Columbia, a mainstay in mule town since 1991.

- We've been using always a school with all the fish in best, you know, like a school of fish, they go in schools. And so that's how they got the name.

- [Cindy] The Basses has started in the restaurant business in a small town in Northeast Arkansas.

- We have another location in Arkansas, a little town called Caldwell Arkansas. That's right off of interstate 40, is a little town of 311 people I believe. And a famous country singer was from there. Guy named Charlie Rich. They called him the silver Fox and he was born right there, close to where the restaurant's at. And we will feed somewhere around 1500, 2000 people a week in a little town of 311 people.

- [Cindy] Rhonda doesn't have a culinary degree, but her upbringing taught her everything she needed to know about good Southern home cooking.

- I grew up in a family of 10 kids and I'm one of the older ones. So we helped do everything and learned to cook early and whatever, and I've always enjoyed it.

- [Cindy] And she still enjoys it. You can often find her in the kitchen, even though the employees know the recipes by heart. Some of these employees have been a part of this establishment since they were kids.

- All the years, I mean, we've seen 'em grow up and babies that was here, work for me now. And one of my managers, my bank manager he started for me when he was 15 year old. And now he has, when he started, of course he was a bus boy, a dishwasher, and he's worked his way up as manager. And then he has two sons that works for us.

- So the quintessential Southern lunch got the turnip greens, the cole slaw and that crispy fried catfish. I cannot wait to dig in.

- [Cindy] Although catfish is the calling card at this cafe, you can get just about anything your taste buds desire. Steaks, seafood, chicken, and pork chops, and dessert. Don't dare forget the desserts. And some people just come for the sides.

- It is Southern cooking and like our hush puppies, our slaw, everything we do from scratch. Make our own and so you're not getting prepackaged frozen stuff, it's all fresh.

- A lot of people thought we'd just shut down. They didn't realize we'd move back off the road.

- It took a little while, but. Good food, good service and brand, I don't care where you go.

- Yeah. Right.

- [Cindy] You'll seldom find Gary in the kitchen. He's all about public relations, literally.

- How you Mr. Bay?

- I'm doing fine.

- Good to see you sir.

- I'm a PR guy, I guess you could say I love the customers and I love to talk to 'em find out where they're from. Of course, we've made a lot of friends over the years and we've got people that come in almost every day to eat. And we have people every week. If some of them don't show up on Friday night with, "Oh, no, what's wrong with this guy or this lady or." we know 'em by name not just by faces. We're just friends with a lot of people in the community.

- [Cindy] Giving back to the community is also important. The Basses get to know their customers so well they know when something is wrong or when someone is sick.

- They're just almost like family. Yeah. When some of 'em are sick, I'll take 'em a meal or feed their whole family, just take 'em what we call a family pack of chicken or fish, or we'll mix it, make a combo out of it. And we've had a lot of people over the years that were close friends or good customers. And when they get sick, couldn't go anywhere. I'd take a meal every day.

- [Cindy] That's really putting a restaurant to the test. And if you're a student of Southern cooking, then a trip to Catfish Campus, will get you an A-plus every time.

- Well, finally, you don't usually think of a prison as a good vacation destination, especially one like Brushy Mountain State Prison. You know, for more than a century, the worst of the worst criminals were sent there. Well, it was closed in 2009 but now it's reopened, not for inmates, but for tourists. Rob Wilds takes us there.

- All Brian May knew about prisons was that he had no desire to go to one. Then he got his first look at Brushy Mountain.

- The first thing that strikes you when you come around the bend and you see it for the first time, is this almost castle like structure, but then it's surrounded by Frozen Head State Park and these mountains that look like they spring up from out of the prison. And it's really difficult to describe until you see it for the first time. It's just absolutely gorgeous. And that at something that we felt like should be seen by as many people as possible.

- [Rob] So Brian and his company decided to reopen the prison as a tourist attraction. Which includes a museum containing some unusual artifacts.

- There's a Bible right here where they've cut the inside out to hide some homemade needle stuff and a homemade weapon. And find it interesting that they decided to use Proverbs 10:7 as one of their marking points for the cutout. The memory of the just is blessed and the name of the wicked shall rot. It's pretty interesting.

- That is interesting. Kind of ironic.

- Yeah. Yeah.

- It's ironic too about the Tennessee code here, I guess.

- Yeah. There's some cutout Tennessee code here out of a book that hold some drug paraphernalia and-

- Right above the robbery section.

- Yeah. Right above the robbery section. which is kind of fitting for this place.

- [Rob] The museum has plenty to show. By the time the prison closed in 2009, administrators had collected many artifacts and confiscated even more.

- When say we have three or 400 weapons that were made by prisoners. We have three or 400 weapons made by prisoners. They kept everything tubs and tubs and tubs of shanks and sheaves and knives and random, you know, weapons made out of everything from toothbrushes to parts of beds. You'll see photographs of James Earl Ray, when, during his looking process, we've got all the files for him. You'll see log books that go back to the early 1900s, boots and uniforms and hats. And if you can think of it and it was in this prison over the years, we have it.

- [Rob] There's a restaurant here. And the old exercise yard is now a concert venue.

- What they would do is you was given one bucket to use the bathroom in and you was given a bucket of water. And when they put you in that cell closed that door, that's what you had.

- [Rob] What makes the place really interesting is the tour guide. Former guards like William Harvey and inmates too, like Wayne Davidson, a convicted burglar who first got a taste of the harshness of this prison in 1969.

- I remember saying to myself, "Mate, once the man gets out of here, they ought to kill him. If he comes back to prison." Six months later after getting out, I was in Georgia doing a seven year sentence in the max security prison down there.

- [Rob] Wayne's spent a total of 32 years in prisons, a big hunk of it at brushy mountain. He has vivid memories of the place. Going back to the very first meal he was having in the chow hall.

- All at once this guy jumped up with a knife, threatened officers and inmates, he wanna kill him all? Well, I'm scared. I'm thinking he's a tough guy. And I asked myself, "Mate." I said, "What's going on?" He said, "Be quiet. I'll tell you when we get in." So later on, he told me what the term check in prison meant. That means an inmate was scared and he does things on purposes to get locked up. When you see an inmate do that in front of officer, he's asking for help.

- [Rob] Different views of this place where the most dangerous and most notorious criminals went. Criminals like James Earl Ray, who murdered Martin Luther king. The tour guides are all part of the story of the place like Deborah Williams, who came here to an all male prison in 1980.

- The inmates were very respectful. They were just glad to have a young female back here that they could speak to. A lot of the ones that didn't get visits from family and so forth. They were just happy to have a female back here. My big challenge was being accepted by the other officers. Of course, this being a maximum security prison at that time and all the violence that was going on, they felt like it was putting their lives in danger and my life in danger by being back here.

- Of course, Wayne Davidson, who was imprisoned here for many years has his own view of Brushy.

- This here probably one of the hardest prison ever been in, but the guards did run this prison. Guards had control of this prison and that made it a little bit safe because really inmates want the guards to be in charge of the prison. They're not gonna tell 'em that, but if you got outta line here, they were straighten up.

- [Rob] Whatever side of the bars they were on before prisoners and guards are glad they're getting to share Brushy Mountains history, good and bad with visitors eager to get a glimpse behind the wall.

- People are interested in the history of this place, both the atrocities and the good things that happened here. Because I like to tell people a lot at times, a prison mirrors society. It's just that all the good things, all the bad things, all the secrets, everything you can think of that happens out in society happens here but it happens in a very, very small confined environment.

- You know, there's a lot of good about Brushy. There's some black with Brushy, but there's a lot of red with it too. This prison had a purpose and good or bad what happened here, it served its purpose. What it was meant to do.

- [Rob] Remembering being enclosed with the worst of the worst Tennessee criminals brings back a nostalgic feeling to William Harvey.

- It was like a brotherhood. Whether they liked you or disliked you, they took care of you. If you had fight on the yard and you was attacked, they'd come running. I ain't drones. I mean, you never had to worry about yourself. Somebody always had your back

- [Rob] For Wayne Davidson being back here, telling the stories of his life at Brushy Mountain is well, it's therapeutic.

- And I remember I used to have dreams every, or at least twice a week, I'd have nightmares. But since I've started working here, it's sort of like counseling, just being here and talking to people and telling my story. And I haven't had a nightmare yet.

- [Rob] Some of the stories Wayne and the other guides tell may at times disturb the sleep of the visitors who are flocking here, but Brushy Mountain was a prison for better or worse. Now it has a reprieve, a pardon, if you will. And the the chance to serve as a reminder of the history of its notorious past.

- Hard to believe We've come to the end of the road this time. Hope you enjoyed the show and don't forget our website, tennesseecrossroads.org You can follow us on Facebook, of course. And Hey, I'll see you next week.