HISTORIC CEMETERIES The Parks Department maintains the City and Resthaven Cemeteries. Past partnerships with the CHP at MTSU and the Rotary Club worked on individual projects to document headstones, their condition, and Cultural Resources Reports. In 2025, the Parks Department worked with a conservator to restore headstones in the Resthaven cemetery that were is disrepair. In 2024, the City received a grant for a preservation plan for the Toussaint L’Ouverture Cemetery. The CHP at MTSU continues to work with the T’oussaint L’Ouverture Cemetery Association and City staff in creating this guiding document. CULTURAL HERITAGE The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) posits that cultural heritage extends beyond buildings, designed landscapes, structures, and objects. “Intangible cultural heritage includes traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants, such as oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts.” (UNESCO p2). While people of European descent comprise the largest group of residents in the county per U.S. census data, there are Asian and Hispanic populations in the region which may have brought cultural traditions with them. While Native Americans were expelled from the region, the heritage of descendant tribes and nations have a direct connection to the area and to extant archaeological sites. Some may consider “southern” a culture with practices, food, traditions, and lifeways that are distinct from other parts of the United States. Music has been a powerful force in middle Tennessee, particularly country and bluegrass music. Franklin is a featured destination on an Americana Music Triangle driving trail that takes visitors from the music recording meccas of Nashville to Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The Americana Music Triangle links Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans, Muscle Shoals and other cities in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas where nine distinct genres of music – blues, jazz, rock and roll, R&B/soul, country, gospel, Southern gospel, Cajun/zydeco and bluegrass - emerged over time. Franklin hosts numerous music festivals, such as the Pilgrimage at Harlinsdale Farm, the Bluegrass on the Harpeth Fiddlers Jamboree on the Square, and the Porchfest in Westhaven. The city is home to many professional musicians and recording studios. Music venues in Franklin include the historic Franklin Theatre, Puckett’s, Gray’s on Main, and Kimbro’s, among others.59 Downtown Franklin’s culture is celebrated through three festivals hosted by the Heritage Foundation and the Downtown Franklin Association. These attract more than 350,000 attendees annually. In the spring, the Main Street Festival allows attendees to enjoy unique arts and crafts, live music and dance performances, public art exhibits, and children’s activities. The festival is consistently listed as one of the Top 20 Events in the South by the Southeast Tourism Society. Each October, festival goers celebrate autumn at Pumpkinfest which features unique arts and crafts, live entertainment and other activities. In December, Dickens of a Christmas uses the historic downtown’s architecture as the backdrop to recreate the time of Charles Dickens (famed author of A Christmas Carol) with musicians, dancers and costumed characters from Dickens’ novels roaming the streets.60 HUMAN STORIES A focal point of the preservation of the intangible histories during the second phase of the preservation movement has been to share the human stories from within the community. To date, the stories that have been interpreted and publicly displayed in the form of statues have primarily been posthumous. 59 https://www.americanamusictriangle.com/story 60 “Festivals on America’s Favorite Main Street,” Heritage Foundation of Williamson County and Downtown Franklin Association, https:// downtownfranklintn.com/festivals/ 95
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTY1Mzc2