Franklin’s Charge
Franklin’s Charge President Paul Gaddis (left) and Treasurer Tom Powell burn the note for the Holt Property on Columbia Avenue in Franklin.
Franklin’s Charge purchased the property in 2008 and paid off the loan this month. The property is a key parcel in what will become the five-acre Carter Cotton Gin Interpretive Park.
Restoring a key piece of history is now closer to a reality as Franklin’s Charge Inc. has received private donations totaling the $125,000 necessary to pay off the mortgage on the Holt Property – a key piece of the would-be Carter Cotton Gin Park in Franklin.
“This is as crucial a section of the battlefield as any hallowed a piece of ground as there is in Franklin,” said historian Eric Jacobson, who is also the chief operating office of the Battle of Franklin Trust.
Situated on Columbia Avenue, just south of and across the street from the Carter House museum, the parcel was purchased in 2008 from the Holt family, as the first of four properties that will make up a five-acre Carter Cotton Gin Interpretive Park. A second parcel, already owned by the Heritage Foundation, contains the foundation of the Carter cotton gin. The third property was purchased by the Civil War Trust and will soon be conveyed to Franklin’s Charge.
The fourth parcel is where a strip mall and Domino’s currently sit on Columbia Avenue.
Having paid off the note for the Holt property, Franklin’s Charge can now focus all of its fundraising efforts on the Domino’s and strip mall parcel. Within the last month, they received word of a matching gift from the Civil War Trust of $500,000. Half of the gift is from an anonymous donor from outside of Tennessee. All of the $500,000 in matching money must be raised by May of 2012.
“This is where the Confederates broke through the Main Line,” Jacobson said. “Gen. Hiram Granbury almost certainly fell in the parking lot of that area.”
He said, “Going forward this ground is critical to the preservation of the story of the Battle of Franklin. There is no better and more appropriate place to tell the story of what happened on Nov. 30, 1864.” CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING.
