Episode 3633

- [Announcer] Tennessee Crossroads is made possible, in part, by:

- I'm Tennessee Tech President, Phil Oldham, Here in Cookeville, Tennessee's college town, we are bold, fearless, confident, and kind. Tech prepares students for careers by making everyone's experience personal. We call that living wings up. Learn more at tntech.edu.

- This time, on Tennessee Crossroads, they go behind the scenes at the home of a world-famous maker of cast iron cookware, then meet a Nashville artist making her mark with charcoal. We'll explore the historic Douglass-Clark house in Gallatin, and finally, visit an Alcoa diner known for hamburgers and hot rods. Hi, everybody, I'm Joe Elmore. That's the lineup for this edition of Tennessee Crossroads. Glad to have you. Chances are you have some cast iron cookware in your kitchen, at least a skillet, and most likely, it came from a factory in Tennessee. Lodge Cast Iron has been making heirloom-quality cookware since 1896, and we're about to discover how the legacy lives on with their world-famous skillets, and a lot more. Things are pretty quiet on the picturesque main street of South Pittsburg. However, just a couple of hundred yards away... Lodge is one of the oldest, most successful manufacturers of cast iron cookware in America, from humble beginnings in 1896 to today, with state-of-the-art foundries, turning out skillets and more with amazing precision and speed.

- We're gonna go from a raw material, the pig iron, that is seen, that you see on the ground, to a finished product in a box, ready to go to our consumers and our fans in two and a half hours.

- [Joe] And according to Lodge veteran Larry Raydo, that's more than 1,600 pieces an hour on one foundry machine.

- It's a fascinating process, and it's not something that people get to see every day.

- [Joe] Well, this must be our lucky day. We're getting an inside visit

- From here it'll be way down-

- at one of the two main foundries, where an age-old process combines with new skills and technology. It all starts with a combination of pig iron, recycled steel, and castings from the foundry. Then the material is heated, 45 minutes at about 2,800 degrees. A bag of silicone is added at a precise time to increase tinsel stream. Impurities, called slag, rise to the surface, and they have to be removed before casting. A cast is made by pouring molten iron into molds made of sand with some water and clay added. Sand molding has been around since 680 BC, and for good reason. You see, sand melts at a higher temperature than iron so it holds its shape when it comes in contact with molten metals. A vibrating conveyor helps shake off the molding sand, then a rotating drum filled with iron media finishes the job. In the finishing area, each product is blasted with steel shot. Then they use a grinder to remove any possible rough edges. And finally, the newly-cast cookware gets a bath of soap and water with steel media added to enhance the finish. Before 2002, the final process was all up to you, the customer, a process called seasoning.

- It was coated in wax. The consumer would have to go home, wash it, take the wax off, coat it with oil, put it in your oven. And what did you get, 450 degrees in the oven, maybe? I don't know. And you'd have to smoke up your kitchen, and then it would only come out a caramel color. Most folks think cast iron seasoning comes out black. When grandma used to make them, and all that, they didn't. We developed a seasoning process in-house here, completely in-house, where we actually apply the oil and send it through industrial ovens at about 650 degrees, and they're in there 13, 14 minutes, and they come out black, ready to use.

- Well, since visitors aren't allowed inside the foundry while it's in operation, you can enjoy the next best thing with a virtual tour here inside the Lodge state-of-the-art museum. It's a fascinating destination for folks who love all things cast iron, and for those who just wanna explore the history of America's original cookware.

- Kind of long way- Brand development manager Walker Henley showed me around.

- One thing .

- The story of how we make our products is really the first thing people wanna see, so we infused a lot of the foundry process into our museum. Also, of course, the history and legacy of Lodge. We've been here 126 years, we've got generations of stories to tell, family ownership, generational employees. The evolution of our foundry industry is also very interesting. And then, of course, just the fun stuff. How do we use cast iron? We cook food with it, we celebrate it, online, with each other, we make memories. So it's really a celebration of all things cast iron.

- [Joe] While I was there, I met Bob Kellerman, a great-grandson of Lodge founder, Joseph Lodge, and now retired CEO.

- I miss the people greatly, we have a lot of wonderful folks around here, but I don't miss the stress or responsibility. It's like I have seven Saturdays a week now.

- Bob may be retired now, but still loves extolling the virtues of newer Lodge products, like the Blacklock series.

- It's triple-seasoned, so it's like getting you buying Grandmama's pan.

- [Joe] Well, grandma never had a choice of cookware like this. It's the Lodge Factory Store, where visitors can shop for their own heirloom-quality cookware, bakeware, and all kinds of kitchen accessories, and at home, they'll continue this cast iron tradition and pass it on to future generations.

- We make a product that is, comparatively speaking, inexpensive, and lasts forever.

- Did you know that one of the first artistic tools used by man was a form of charcoal? Cave drawings have been found going back thousands of years. Well, in our next story, Miranda Cohen seeks out a modern artist who's capturing poignant images in magnificent shades of charcoal.

- Okay.

- [Miranda] Nadine Shillingford is gently blending blacks and whites, and what seems like thousands of shades in between.

- [Nadine] I like the look of charcoal on that paper.

- [Miranda] This self-taught artist is working entirely in delicate shades of charcoal, and that, along with her French Caribbean heritage, is what inspired her unique artist name.

- Charcoalatte, that's my art name. My sister, Ann, actually came up with that. So I'm from the Caribbean, I'm from an island called Dominica. It's situated between the two French islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. In Dominica, growing up, we didn't really have art programs. I remember art classes being, "Here's some crayons," you know, "draw something." So I really started art when I moved to Nashville.

- [Miranda] With a PhD in Engineering and a demanding teaching career, she knew she needed a change. When life brought her to Music City, she found a talented group of like-minded artists, and her art became a priority.

- [Nadine] It kind of found me; I don't think I found it. Drawing was like my diary, my journal, so every night, depending on what's going on, especially during Covid, you know, it was my way of drawing, and, you know, the different things that were going on. I just kept doing it every day. So every day, I would draw a new thing, you know, just kept drawing, until it became a habit.

- [Miranda] For Nadine, as Charcoalatte, her habit has turned into great success. Today she is surrounded by one of her many exhibits, and this particular show features a group of women she calls her ladies. It's a collection of beautiful and courageous women who battled breast cancer, and the first portrait Nadine drew was of herself.

- I started out with a self-portrait, and I told my story, and then I reached out to friends that I knew had breast cancer or had loved ones with breast cancer, and I asked them if I could draw their family. It was a way of telling people that, hey, I've gone through this, but it was also me opening up, because it's very difficult when you've had a body-changing experience, especially as a female, you know, it was really healing for me, you know, and to have people reach back and say, "Hey," you know, "I went through this."

- [Miranda] As a breast cancer survivor, she wanted her art to capture the ladies' reflection just as they are, beautiful, confident, resilient, and brave. For months, she gathered images, and every night, she created a new portrait.

- And it was very, very touching to see some of the stories. I had one situation where I posted a drawing at night, and then the next morning, I got a message from a lady who said, "I'm on a chemo chair right now, and I just saw your post." And that, to me, was like so, you know, just, it was just really touching, 'cause I didn't know the lady. It's just so many different people from all over the place, and they want their stories told, so I didn't think that it would turn out to be an exhibit, but I wanted to make sure the story was out there.

- It was important to get the stories and the portraits just right, capturing the light and the hope in every face. Nadine says the most important part of any drawing is getting the eyes right. She does those first. Not only are they the windows to the soul, but once she gets those in the perfect place, the rest of the image just seems to come together.

- [Nadine] Yeah, you can see a lot in somebody's eyes, right? I've always been drawn to people's eyes and their smiles, so drawing a portrait, to me, if you get the eyes wrong, you get the person wrong.

- [Miranda] Through carefully studying faces and details, Nadine also brings the lighter side of life to the page as well. She loves to draw commissioned pet portraits, focusing primarily on dogs, and her first model was her own dog, Lola.

- [Nadine] When I look at Lola, I can see personality. Again, it's all in the eyes, right? So I have lots of drawings of dogs.

- [Miranda] Nadine's stunning collections also include the people who inspire her daily, her love of dancing, cultural issues, and music.

- [Nadine] If I listen to music during the day and it moves me, I will end up looking the singer up and drawing them. I didn't plan to get in to be charcoal artist, it just kind of became more of my lifestyle, and the more I did it, the more fun I had .

- Thanks, Miranda. The state of Tennessee has an incredible array of historic sites, many predating the state itself. Cindy Carter visited one such historic home in Gallatin that is older than the Hermitage, and although not as famous, it has a rich history all its own.

- [Cindy] Let's be honest, most Tennesseans probably never even heard of the Douglass-Clark house, and it's also a safe bet that folks driving along busy Long Hollow Pike near Gallatin fly right past the little house without a second glance, but it's Douglass-Clark's historic interpreter, Andrew Spicer's mission,

- Talking about history is my thing.

- [Cindy] calling, actually, to change that.

- I have a lot of people who, they come in for a tour not knowing at all what to expect, and then I give them this 45-minute tour, at the end, they're just blown away by how much information they were able to learn.

- [Cindy] This historic gem was built in 1786 by early settler, Elmore Douglass, a cabin for his growing family, at a time when Tennessee was still part of North Carolina.

- [Andrew] He was exploring with several other pioneers who just came out here. They camped out here, somewhere along the Station Camp Creek. Elmore Douglass evidently liked the land, and he put in for the application, and he was granted a piece of this land.

- [Cindy] Initially just a two-room cabin, Andrew uses Douglass-Clark to paint the full picture of just how the various families who once called this place home lived and survived.

- They had 10 kids. If you can imagine, in this space, 10 kids. What I can imagine is mom and dad saying, "Go play outside."

- [Cindy] Just before the turn of the century, as the area became more settled, so did the need for public infrastructure. There certainly wasn't a courthouse available in this rugged, undeveloped region. Elmore Douglass offered his home for the greater good.

- It was the courthouse of Sumner County from 1788 to 1790, before Tennessee became a state. This house was built 10 years before Tennessee became a state. In 1789, they appoint a new district attorney, who is a 21-year-old man named Andrew Jackson. So Andrew Jackson practiced law in this home.

- [Cindy] Andrew, Spicer not Jackson, stresses the former United States president who once paced these floorboards did so at a time in his life that the public may not be as familiar with.

- He was 21 years old at the time, was not quite the same guy that you see on the $20 bill, did not have the white hair yet. He was a redhead, if you can believe it, which might explain a few things.

- [Cindy] As the area became more settled, the need for a makeshift courthouse ends, and full-time family life returns to the little cabin. Elmore Douglass's niece, Emma, and her husband, William S.F. Clark, add on two additional rooms to the two-room cabin, which offer a bit more space for the couple's 10 children.

- Four of Emma's sons are gonna fight for the Confederacy during the Civil War, three of them are going to die during the course of the war. We have the boys here who fought for the Confederacy, but we also have a former enslaved man. His name was Winchester Clark. He was born into slavery on this property. During the Civil War, he self-emancipates, he joins the Union Army, he ultimately fights at the Battle of Nashville.

- [Cindy] So the story of the Douglass-Clark house not only reflects Tennessee's origins but also includes painful and complicated parts of our nation's history.

- It's the responsibility of all historians who work with the public to be able to present that side of history, because it's been so ignored for so long.

- The house itself was ignored for a long time. The Douglass-Clark family and their descendants lived here quietly until the house was sold out of the family in the 1950s, and eventually stood empty. Highway travelers and nearby Station Camp Creek visitors never gave it a passing glance, until developers building a nearby subdivision did, realized what they had, and donated the abandoned cabin to the Sumner County government for restoration. Many of the items on display inside the house like this Civil War-era bullet were found just by walking around the grounds. Piece by piece, they tell the story of a family, not famous or particularly unique, but the site does offer a true glimpse into how Tennesseans once lived.

- All right, so welcome, folks. My name is Andrew, I'll be your historian.

- [Cindy] Every day, Andrew brings pioneer life alive with the help of an incredible visual aid, something Sumner County Tennessee has more than its fair share of, says the county's Tourism Executive Director, Barry Young.

- We're a well-kept secret in Sumner County. We have more than our share of historic sites. We have well over a dozen sites in Sumner County, ranging from the Revolutionary War all the way through the Civil War, so if we have history buffs out there, we'd love for them to come and visit.

- [Cindy] Old homes and buildings often get torn down to pave the way for progress. It almost happened to Douglass-Clark. But Sumner County has managed to hang on to places like the unusually large log Bridal House in Cottontown, or Hendersonville's Rock Castle.

- [Barry] We have more state-owned historic sites in Sumner County, I believe, than any other county.

- [Cindy] And that's why Andrew Spicer and the Douglass-Clark house are such a good fit.

- So Andrew Jackson practiced law in this room.

- [Cindy] This young historian enthusiastically leads the charge to take the little cabin off the almost-forgotten list, one story-filled tour at a time.

- [Andrew] I really enjoy it. It's what I would be doing even if no one was paying me. Ask my parents, they will tell you.

- Thanks, Cindy. Few time periods bring back sentimental feelings like the 1950s, the birth of rock and roll, classic cars, sock hops, malt shops. Well, if you'd like to take a walk down memory lane, there's a restaurant in Alcoa, Tennessee, that will let you do just that. Gretchen Bates has the story of Hot Rods 50s Diner.

- I'm just looking forward to the step back in time feel, with chrome, the neon signs, the Elvis records. I'm just trying to give you a more of a retro, true 50s diner feel.

- [Gretchen] Move over, H.G. Wells, Ray Schwartz built a real time machine. From the jukebox, to burgers and fries, everything about Hot Rods 50s Diner is designed to whisk you back to the days of malt shops and Marilyn Monroe. But Ray didn't always have it made in the shade. His first gig was working with amphibians.

- I was a dishwasher and I breaded frog legs, and that's because nobody else wanted to bread them, I guess, and I was the lowest man on the totem pole.

- [Gretchen] Ray finally forgot the frog legs leaped out of Squaresville, and into his dreams.

- [Ray] I always loved cars, you know, and I always love neon and, you know, the retro, you know, look.

- [Gretchen] Every inch of real estate at Hot Rods is jam-packed with 50s memorabilia.

- [Ray] I just really wanted to do something that was fun. And I went to a lot of the local little antique shops and stuff like that, and picked up, you know, whatever I could find that would fit the, you know, the retro feel that I was looking for.

- [Gretchen] But you don't just run across authentic boots and chairs in an antique shop. Those babies are custom-made.

- [Ray] They're actually modeled after the Chevy. You know, I think it's more like a Bel Air-type backseat is what the, the look they were going for.

- [Gretchen] Muscle car memories are nice, but it's the menu that's guaranteed to get your motor running, and believe me when I say there's a whole lot of shaking going on.

- [Ray] We make our shakes the old-fashioned way, where we, you know, we hand-spin them. They're not from soft-serve ice cream, they're actually hand-dipped ice cream, 16 flavors of hard-dipped ice cream. We have a lot of desserts.

- And I'll be honest with you, I've not had many of the desserts, because usually, after the hamburger, you don't really have much room for anything after that.

- [Gretchen] Hamburgers, yeah, different styles, Hot Rods might have one or two, or 80!

- [Ray] We have over 80 burgers. We have pork burgers, we have black bean burgers we do have chicken burgers.

- Among the 80 burgers you can sink your teeth into at Hot Rods, this monster is the most famous. It might even be your ticket to the wall of fame.

- [Ray] We have a challenge, called the Chubby, and that's why all the pictures are on the walls. It's three patties that are 11 ounces each, for a total of 33 ounces, and they have to eat it with a pound of fries within 30 minutes, and they get their picture on the wall, and they get a free shirt that says, "I got a Chubby at Hot Rods 50s Diner."

- [Gretchen] Now, as you can imagine, the Chubby challenge isn't for everyone, but every once in a while, a rare breed of dietary desperado moseys into town, looking for a beef with the Chubby. A valiant effort.

- [Chubby Challenger] Gave it my best shot.

- [Gretchen] Any advice for future challengers?

- 30 minutes sounds like a long time, but it's not a lot. It's not enough time. You gotta just eat.

- [Gretchen] Just eat, wise words, especially at Hot Rods, because burgers and shakes are just a fraction of the whole delicious story.

- [Ray] Food wise, if you're not looking for a burger, we have, you know, all the traditional 50s diner food, including pot roast, which we... Everything's made from scratch. We have killer grilled cheese, chicken pot pie. I mean, we have just about everything you would expect to find in a 50s diner.

- [Gretchen] And a few things you may not expect to find. Allow me to introduce the Hog.

- [Ray] We take the pork loin, we cut it, and then we'll pound it, and then we season it with our salt and pepper, and then we actually marinate it in a egg-buttermilk batter, and then we bread it and pan fry it. And it's huge.

- [Gretchen] Huge aptly describes the Hog, as well as the menu.

- [David] Our menu is so expansive, there's gonna be something for everyone, and everything is, you know, homemade, it's made in-house. If you're ordering even onion rings, you know, we're cutting them and we're battering them to order, so everything's very fresh. The patties are made probably an hour or two before you order them. No matter what you get, it's gonna be good, and there is something for everyone.

- [Gretchen] David Bills is the manager at Hot Rods. This young man takes great pride in his work, and you can taste it.

- We have plenty of options that we make from scratch in-house, anything from the marinara, or the chicken pot pie soup, to the burgers. You know, we don't... We have chicken tenders, but we don't just buy chicken tenders. We take chicken breasts, we cut them to size, we use those scraps, we grind them to make burgers. It's all very efficient and very fresh. There's not anything that you're gonna get here that was made in, you know, a factory, or something like that. It's all the real deal, local, good, yummy food.

- At the end of the day, you know, when everybody's, and we start closing up, and everybody's just happy, and leaving here, and, you know, we see all the comments on Facebook and everything, and all those reviews, just gives me a great feeling. It actually makes me... You know, I have a great night's sleep after a day like that.

- [Gretchen] Chances are, after eating at Hot Rods Diner, you'll sleep well, too. Just wait until you get home please.

- That hamburger's probably about the size I am, so I don't think I'd... I might get it down, but getting back to the house would be the problem.

- People will come approach me and tell me how much they love the restaurant. It really means a lot to make an impact in the community, and just to have a place where people can come and make memories is really special.

- Thank you, Gretchen. Well, we gotta rock on outta here, after a couple of reminders, that is. First of all, the PBS app. You can watch Crossroads and all your favorite shows anytime, anywhere. Also, check out our website, TennesseeCrossroads.org, follow us on Facebook, and of course, join us next time. I'll see you then.

- [Announcer] Tennessee Crossroads is made possible, in part, by:

- I'm Tennessee Tech President, Phil Oldham, here in Cookeville, Tennessee's college town. We are bold, fearless, confident, and kind. Tech prepares students for careers by making everyone's experience personal. We call that living wings up. Learn more at tntech.edu.