Nobody's going to come in with a bulldozer and take down the whole town

But they think nothing about taking down one building.

You know history is prologue.

If you don't preserve the past,

you don't keep this identity,

then you have no identity.

You know I realize that old things don't last forever

Unless people like preservationists are out there carrying a sign and beating the drums.

I've been guilty of that.

This is where it all began - on the corner of Bridge Street and Fifth Avenue

1963 Mr. Wilbur Corn died and his daughter came from New York to have the funeral

She did not want anyone living in her daddy's house

So she sold the house and left.

Now she sold it to an oil company who replaced it with a filling station

That filling station didn't last very long. They tore it down and built this lovely commercial strip

Where you could see the house sit right here.

There's the sidewalk right there. It's sitting right, right on the sidewalk. Just like the others up there.

So yeah, it's...

That's what it is.

Well, because this house was torn down.

a group of people in Franklin were probably at a party one night and one of them said,

"You know isn't it a shame. They tore down the Corn House. That was one of the most attractive houses in town."

And then they said, "Yeah, we've gotta do something about that."

So from a handful of people probably at a cocktail party one night the

idea for the Heritage Foundation was found.

I've collected ever since I was a little boy, and I mean I collect chairs and I collect furniture

This is called a baloo chair. This is a Warren chair. I'm not a hoarder, but I do like to accumulate things.

Look at this sweet lady.

I get calls people say you know do you want this?

Yeah, I'll take it.

Well Williamson County has had seven jails since 1800.

Then they built this one in 42 and when the sheriff moved to the new jail in 72

The county stripped out all the metal and sold it for scrap iron

It was just in terrible shape. Peeling paint and the nastiness. This building had been boarded up

It was leaking. The roof was just like a sieve. The commode was here.

It was an eyesore.

The city tried to sell it and then nobody wanted it. So when they kicked us out of the old post office we had to

Find another place and they sold us this building.

Took a lot of going out and raising some money

I mean I didn't have cash, but I had chairs.So I had donated 44 chairs

And I think they raised $12,400... and something dollars.

So that was my contribution

As a child I used to come here to see the movies, and it was fabulous. It was just such an interesting place to be.

This really brings back great memories, doesn't it?

So you don't remember the tiki look? - No, I didn't. | - It was pretty awful. - It is awful.

The theater over the years sold to an outside real estate group and they raised the rent a lot.

The people who'd been running the theater weren't making money, but they were breaking even.

With the new rent, they couldn't.

So the Heritage Foundation knew in January of 2007 that the building was going to go dark.

But we had an option to buy and we were getting towards the end of the option.

I just couldn't quit thinking about it.

And I just kept chewing on it and trying to think of how we could save this building.

Emily called me between 4:00 and 5:00 in the morning and said "maybe I could buy it."

I'm here today to tell you on behalf of the Heritage Foundation

That this theater is heading toward friendly hands.

I didn't want the building to get away

I mean it needed to still be a theater.

We were able to step forward and get this under contract because an angel loaner...

I don't think anybody's ever called me an angel.

People's mouths were on the floor because Emily has always been very modest. She doesn't talk about wealth;

People had no idea she had the capacity to do this.

I just have a philosophy you can't take it with you.

So why not give to something that really

everybody can enjoy.

What has been a challenge for the Heritage Foundation over the years is making sure that these kind of homes were not torn down

because when you lose a house like this

that really changes the whole complexion of the town.

If we lose many more we're really going to lose the historic value of the town.

This is the

McLemore House Museum built by Harvey McLemore an ex-slave in 1880

This is part of the true story, the whole story.

You cannot tell part of the story without talking about the slavery and the ex-slaves and Reconstruction

and what they did after they became free. We cannot give the Heritage Foundation enough credit.

They deeded the property to the African American Heritage Society for one dollar and it became

The McLemore House Museum. - [Voiceover] The first time I came over here

I knew it could be fixed up because it had good bones.

It needed to be saved. It needed to be fixed up. It need to be saved and it's a story that needed to be told.

We work together

to preserve and to share African American history because it's so so important.

Back in the seventies I was practicing law in the square, and I would walk across to the historic courtroom

You walk down Main Street, and there was no one to say hi to.

Literally someone did a calculation and it was 70% vacant.

We were that close in the late 70s of losing this downtown.

If you could see through the grime,

and then the cracked windows and the vacant buildings,

you saw this incredible profile. This architecture that didn't exist in most places.

The seminal move, I think, was forming the downtown committee

getting the coalition of the public and private sector to see the value of what could happen.

Building owners said "What can we do? How can we get back in the game," so to speak.

I mean, this is a living, breathing model of what community togetherness can create.

That momentum and organizational strength of the of the Williamson County and Franklin Heritage Foundation - they were the glue that kept this together.

This is beautiful.

Roper's Knob is the highest hill in Franklin

It was also used as the signal post during the Civil War and there are still earthworks on there

When the Heritage Foundation learned that it was being looked at for development

We were able to work with the Department of Archaeology

And with the Thousand Friends of Roper's Knob to buy that land and put a conservation easement on it and save it

If we don't save what we have here, then we're just going to become any-old-place-USA

Preservation is about managing change over time.

You have to be deliberate nothing happens by accident.

The role of the Heritage Foundation in the future is going to be the same as it is today.

It is to recognize what is so special about this community.

We can keep Franklin, but it's always a fragile thing.

Because it took us years to get where we are.

And it could be lost just as quickly.

People come in from out of state, out of town, and they say there's something special here.

This is what preservation is all about either you're gonna have this...

108 acres of nice pleasant open space or 90 homes here.

I choose this.