Episode 3737

- [Narrator] 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.

- [Narrator] 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.

- This time on Tennessee Crossroads, we take you to Franklin to meet a lifelong blacksmith. Then to Chattanooga for some barbecue with a view. We'll explore a rustic B&B called Butterfly Hollow and finally immerse ourselves in Middle Tennessee history in Cannonsburgh Village. Hi everyone, I'm Joe Elmore. That's our lineup for this edition of Tennessee Crossroads, welcome. It's a skill that was started during the Bronze Age, and at one point almost everything was made by a blacksmith. Well, Laura Faber is forging ahead in our first story, taking us to Franklin to meet a lifelong blacksmith.

- [Laura] You can hear the work from what seems like a mile away. Metal on metal, sparks flying, flames flickering, charcoal blackened hands. This is the life of a blacksmith.

- We're at the Franklin Forge at the factory in historic Franklin, Tennessee.

- [Laura] Since 1976, Bob Parks has been a professional certified blacksmith and farrier and works alongside his pretty shop assistant, Ms. Keebler.

- Started out the Bronze Age and then shoeing too. At one point, everything was made by the blacksmith. I mean household utilities, tools, parts.

- [Laura] Bob never guessed forging would be his future. As a young man, he headed west to ski and fish and work on ranches, working odd jobs to support his lifestyle. It's when he came across a book titled The Last of the Mountain Men, written by an MIT professor that his interest was sparked.

- What drew me to it was what all you can make. Everything from hinges to tools. I don't know, it's just endless what you can make. And I found the only school at the time in New Hampshire. So I went to New Hampshire and went through a colonial blacksmith school, six people there. And then when I went back to Montana, nobody really wanted colonial iron work, but I kept getting calls for shoeing as a farrier. So I went down to Montana State University, went through their shoeing program and got involved with the associations and started competing. And I was on the US shoeing team in '88 and '90.

- [Laura] His clients with horses started asking Bob to make other things too and he began building a more artistic career, forging commission work.

- They'd see stuff I made and, oh, can you do this and can you do that? Small fences, things, focal points, door hardware, pot racks, fireplace stuff is big. Did a chandelier here not long ago. Actually, I do most than anything that walks in the door.

- It takes steel, an anvil, a hammer and heat to be a blacksmith, but it takes so much more than that. Years of experience to go from this to this.

- I use mild steel primarily, which some people would call black iron. It's not really black iron, but it's mild steel 836 for most everything. So I'll be working this between 1800 and 2200 degrees and you judge the temperature by the color. When this sort of sparks a little bit, that'll be 2300 and so I wanna go just, and you can forge well it at that temperature. This will be just below that. And then 1550 is austinite, the critical temperature, steel becomes non-magnetic. So I have magnets here and that's a dull charity. And then a black heat is black, and that's where you get burnt the most. First step is to put a point on here like I'm making a nail. The hotter it is, the softer it is. And the hotter you have it, the longer you can work it. This is a hammer I made and I have teardrop-shaped handle on it. So I know if I'm on the flat or the round without looking. This is what I call my free $2 demo.

- [Laura] Here at Bob's shop at the factory in Franklin, people can watch him work, it's fascinating. Today he demonstrates how he makes a gold plated leaf used for trivets.

- I do that all the time and it was sort of reversed engineered. After I have all these leaves, what am I gonna do with them? So I started making the trivets and then some hooks and then the candle holders. I like the animal heads and the floral things, just because you don't expect to see that metal. That's the lateral veins. Now I'm gonna use this treadle hammer right there to do the center vein. Now I'm gonna turn it to gold. Don't I wish. Between 600 and 650 degrees, I can take a $2 brass brush and put a bronze looking patina on there. This is too hot, so I'm just gonna quench it a little, chill the surface and I'm waiting for the residual heat to come back. And when it crosses 600 degrees--

- [Laura] Is that awesome?

- I use this $2 brass brush and this one's looking like it needs some work replaced. But yeah, this will melt on there at six to 650. And it takes a fair bit of friction.

- [Laura] The Klein family from Brentwood is on spring break and never knew Bob's shop was here till today.

- Wow, he made it look so easy.

- That's really something, wow.

- [Laura] Jonathan and his daughter Emma, in town from Jacksonville, Florida, are equally amazed.

- The hammer did all of that.

- [Laura] Seems that what's old is new again and Bob couldn't be more grateful.

- It's so fun to meet people from all over. People that have ties to blacksmithing or have never seen it. I love coming to work every day. It's exciting for me still to heat something up and play with fire and hit it with a hammer. What could be better?

- Thanks, Laura, as Crossroads viewers, it's probably no surprise our next story involves barbecue. If you've ever taken a drive to Chattanooga, you may have seen a restaurant person way up on a hill. Well, Miranda Cohen climbed that hill and discovered it's not only a great place for ribs, it's also an experience you won't forget.

- [Miranda] Nestled high on Missionary Ridge in Chattanooga, the locals and travelers from all over just seem to know where to go.

- Who's next?

- [Miranda] Sugar's Ribs is owned by successful restaurateur, Walton Hagood, and under the watchful eye of chief of operations, Jesse Rogers, they are up in the clouds serving up comfort food.

- You're aimed downtown Chattanooga, but you also see Lookout Mountain just over to the side. So you get a little mountain, a little bit of city, and in the evening with the lights, it's lovely sunset. I mean, you can't beat it.

- [Miranda] As if you need more to draw you in, they are serving up the classic southern staple barbecue. And with a name like Sugars, you know it's going to be good.

- It was just kind of an homage to southern barbecue, sweet. We do St. Louis style ribs. We don't do baby backs. I feel that the fat content on the spare ribs is better. It has a little bit more moisture because of the fat and a little bit more tender. The old adage of low and slow is still the way to go. So how low and how slow and all of that comes into play. So we smoke all our meats in house. 12 hours is generally what we do, but that's almost in some ways the easy part. It's okay, what can we do to make sure that when it hits the plate in front of you, it is as close to the way it was when we pulled outta the smoker. That's the trick.

- And whatever the trick is, they have it figured out. Along with ribs, Sugars serves up pulled pork, chicken, chopped brisket, barbecue tacos, and even house-made sausage.

- He didn't want something that was just full of sauce on the meat. He wanted the meat to stand as the primary and have accent sauces, which is not necessarily what you see everywhere. Some places, it's all about the sauce and they just load it up and the meat, you don't even know what you're eating.

- [Miranda] And Rogers knew when he took the job, barbecue is a rather sensitive subject here in the south.

- You are on the money. Everyone knows if you ask their opinion, they know the best way to do barbecue 100%. And no matter what you do, somebody thinks you're wrong.

- [Miranda] And Sugars came up with a way to solve that problem too.

- Our style was really, we wanted to pay homage to some of the other styles with some of the sauces from different regions.

- [Miranda] Even for diehard barbecue fans, there are plenty of special potions to pour on, drizzle or dip the flavor you crave thanks to a huge variety of house-made sauces like southern classic, Carolina Red, mustard, clearly great, Tennessee sweet and goopy. And what's sweet without sassy? Meet their signature sauce they call Hot Lips.

- We decided to take peppers and onions and grill 'em, on the grill, get some good smoke and a little color on there, and then chop that up, turn it into a sauce. So you have the smokiness and the pepper flavor, cut the heat to give you a little tingle around the lips.

- [Miranda] You're a Hot Lips guy. Tell me about how spicy is that.

- On a scale of one to 10, I'd give it maybe about a seven and a half or an eight. It has the habaneros in it, so it's a little bit warm, but it's the right type of warm. It's a slow burn going down.

- [Miranda] And just as long and distinguished as the sauce list is the list of southern sides like Texas pinto beans, corn on the cob, and again, trying to keep the peace, they have two versions of cole slaw, mayonnaise-based and vinegar-based.

- We also do what we call okra chips, where we slice the okra very, very fine and fry 'em up till they're just crispy, put a little seasoning on top and they're kinda like potato chips, but okra.

- They had a lot of awards and so I like good barbecue and their ribs are great. So I didn't get this body by going to lousy restaurants. That's all I got to say.

- [Miranda] And just when you thought it couldn't get any better, Rogers pulled some strings with the best cook he knew to round out the dessert menu.

- This one is near and dear to my heart. So the recipe for the banana pudding that we do is literally my grandmother's recipe. And I don't mean, it's like somebody says that and it's a story. No, literally my grandmother's recipe, Jesslyn McClure, and so we call it Jesslyn's banana pudding. And so it's made from scratch, it's not out of a box and made with love since I was a little kid. It brings a smile to my face every single time I get to see somebody have that because it's a little piece of my childhood and it's amazing.

- And at Sugars, it's not all about the food and friendly staff. Even the lawn mowing crew is the greatest of all time. So here at Sugars, you think the barbecue is the real star of the show, nope. How about the sauce? You think it's the star of the show, it's not either. The real stars of the show and one of the biggest draws here at Sugars is the beautiful goats. You get your piece of cabbage and they come running. Everybody eats great here at Sugars.

- We have people that come and love these goats. Three or four times a week, you'll see 'em up there. So we love 'em too, but they have a job. They're here to work. So people take photos and post stuff on Instagram and all the social media and it's great.

- That's all the food I have.

- We want people to be happy. We want to see those smiles on their face. And you see that with barbecue and more than some places because you don't have to be serious here. I mean, it's barbecue. You got sauce on your face and it's okay 'cause it's barbecue. So you don't have to be fake or think about anything else or just sit down, smile, be happy, have fun.

- Thank you Miranda. Say, friends, is the hustle and bustle of everyday life taken its toll? No, I'm not peddling medication, just relaxation. You see, we found this peaceful, pristine getaway that's surrounded by natural beauty in a remote location not far from Nashville.

- Growing up in the north, I call it a hollow, but my neighbors, when I first purchased it reminded me that I'm in the south and it's actually a holler, but I still call it a hollow.

- [Joe] Since 2014, David Yakes has been proud overseer of Butterfly Hollow, here in a storybook setting on 85 secluded acres of Smith County. It has what you might call a combination of simple charm, casual elegance and natural inspiration.

- The home is a 1899 farm home, 125 years old, and it was restored from a couple that we purchased it from in 2014 and they did a wonderful job restoring the home, bringing it back to life and the property and we purchased it and transformed it into a year round three room bed and breakfast and small wedding venue.

- [Joe] The wood interior of the home is poplar and cedar all harvested right here on the property.

- So I always joke if we can figure out a way for wood to talk, we'd have days of stories to listen to. So the rooms are named after the three kids. Our first floor room, which is probably the most popular room, is Leighton's Porch. What makes it popular is it has its own screened-in porch. It gives a little opportunity to have your own space and enjoy the property by yourself. We have two rooms upstairs. One is Alexandra Zack, which is the oldest child, and then we have Christopher's tree house. And it's the room over the kitchen overlooking the family room or the sitting room, kind of give you that tree house feel. Each room has their own bathroom, one queen bed, so we can accommodate two guests per room.

- [Joe] In 2017, David added a new cabin to the property separate from the main house. It's designed for visitors looking for a roomier vacation home away from home.

- It is a two bedroom, two bath log cabin to allow people who want that vacation rental experience to come and have their own space, do their own cooking, bring a friend or another couple with them or family members and enjoy Butterfly Hollow, have their own piece of serenity on the backside of the property and what makes it unique is the logs are actually made outta concrete.

- [Joe] By the way, David's wife, Beth Ann, is a full-time physician at Vanderbilt Hospital. So needless to say, this guy wears quite a variety of hats.

- Behind the scenes of sales and marketing, the shopping for food, fixing an electrical outlet, on top of cooking breakfast, having weddings, cleaning rooms, and then occasionally sitting on one of these chairs and just taking all this in and remembering this is a stress-free environment.

- [Joe] Of course, during warm weather months at Butterfly Hollow, you'll find in the abundance of the B&B's namesakes.

- They appear every year. Towards the end of May, early June, they come in groves and then they kind of die off a little reducing numbers. And then we get another, what I like to call a second hatching, a recurrence about mid-July. Of course, we're entering now the vegetable garden, what I like to refer to as my farm to table version to where we have tomatoes, corn, zucchini, squash, all used for breakfast or when they're in overabundance, they're giving away as partying gifts.

- [Joe] Speaking of food, David's got hungry guests waiting for breakfast and the culinary work is one of those hats he wears well.

- A little ham and cheese omelet. This morning was just a good all American breakfast, ham and cheese omelet, hash browns, of course bacon to make it all healthy and then the fruit, we had a combination of fresh fruit in a yogurt parfait. Breakfast, all American. I always like to say I'm either Denny's or IHOP or Cracker Barrel on steroids. So we don't do fancy breakfasts, but I'm from the north, so we have to have a little meat and potato.

- It's cheesy.

- This gazebo is a popular attraction for many visitors. You see, they're the ones who come all the way to Butterfly Hollow to tie the knot.

- I underestimated the demand on small, intimate outdoor weddings. We do a lot of elopements where they stay as guests that night, they get married during the day and will spend the night and leave as husband and wife. And we have a variety of packages if you just wanna show up and say, I do. Or you can spend a night or two and have 30 of your closest family members and friends here and we'll do the ceremony and dinner in our open air barn that sits behind me.

- [Joe] Whether they come for a romantic escape with or without the wedding or just a peaceful getaway, butterfly Hollow has received rave reviews from visitors.

- Every day is different. I mean, that's pretty cliche, but because of the amount of people that I do see, whether it's bed and breakfast guests, whether it's wedding guests from all over the country and even international, a day doesn't go by that you don't meet someone new or create a new friendship.

- It's a far cry from the hectic world of corporate hospitality, but David Yakes has never looked back, not since acquiring his own welcoming wooded sanctuary to share with guests and of course the butterflies. A wise man once said that people without knowledge of their history, origin and culture are like a tree without roots. Well, as Rickey Chick discovered, the city of Murfreesboro took those words to heart and they created a special place to preserve its roots, a place called Cannonsburgh.

- Alright, if you'll just follow the lady with the sign, we'll go right through here and we'll go in through the gate.

- [Rickey] There's a magical place in Murfreesboro where a quick turn off the busiest street in town also turns back the pages of time. The historic village of Cannonsburgh has been a part of the Murfreesboro Parks Department for nearly 50 years, but the buildings that make it so special have been around much longer than that. As Parks director, Nate Williams explains.

- In 1974, the city embarked on a national bicentennial project. The whole nation was celebrating, encouraged communities across the United States to do something that would be unique to mark the bicentennial United States so leaders of Murfreesboro at that time decided to create this village, bring in buildings from across the county from the late 1800s to early 1900s and it ended up winning a national award, third place in the country ended up winning $75,000 and an interesting fact, it's the only one of these projects that's still around today.

- [Rickey] Part of the reason Cannonsburgh is still around can be attributed to a devoted staff and volunteers, time traveling tour guides like Kathy Owen who bring the village to life.

- A lot of them are folks that came on tours with their grandchildren and became interested in the place and said, hey, what can I do? And we have several that are retired teachers and they love it.

- Throughout our park system, we have tons of volunteers. We recognize them every year and Cannonsburgh is a huge percentage of that. They come out and they bring their expertise and their passion for these buildings in this area. We can't say enough how much we appreciate all they do to make this village what it is.

- What any world have we got here? I've been looking for some desperado.

- You got 'em, man.

- Man, this is a desperate looking crew if I ever did see one. I'm also not only the marshal this here Cannonsburgh, I'm the truancy officer.

- But marshal, these kids are in school. What better way to learn than by immersing them in a bygone era? So Kathy, tell me about the Lehman House.

- The Lehman House is my personal favorite. It was actually located outside of Murfreesboro. There were 10 children raised here, five boys and five girls. They had a rather large farm, tobacco and cattle raisers. And we are lucky enough to have some of the family that still comes around and can share stories of thanksgiving and all sorts of things.

- Any idea what this is? Most visitors don't know what this is, but back in the day, for those of us who were vertically challenged, it was a very handy device. It's a mounting block and it was used so women could mount their horses. And when those horses needed shoes, where did they go? The local blacksmith, of course.

- The interesting thing about steel, see the magnet sticks to the steel, but when it gets to critical temperature, that orange hot doesn't stick anymore.

- [Rickey] Now, if you prefer horseless carriages, you can check out the classic cars at the Stones River garage. But beware, it's a speed trap. Must be related to that marshal.

- And this is just a great place for people to come and pause for a second and reflect on more simple times.

- You might've heard your grandparents tell you about it, but if you come here, you really get to experience it for just a little while. It's a taste of a life that doesn't really exist anymore.

- [Rickey] Except in a magical place near a busy street in the borough.

- Here's a fun fact, Cannonsburgh was once Murfreesboro's original name for at least one month that is. Well that's it for this week. Thanks for joining us. Don't forget about our website, Tennesseecrossroads.org, a great place to download that PBS app. Meanwhile, we'll see you next week.

- [Narrator] 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.

- [Narrator] 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.