The city of Franklin is slowly piecing back together the site of its famous civil war battle…one parcel at a time.
The task force charged by the city to oversee the process approved the purchase of three-and-a-half acres yesterday for the deeply discounted price of 45-thousand dollars. It had been spared from commercial development in 2001 for nearly 300-thousand dollars, money raised by the non-profit Save the Franklin Battlefield.
President Joe Smyth says though there’s plenty of land left to acquire, the battlefield is taking shape.
“The wonderful thing is we’re slowly gaining a set of properties where you could be at Fort Grainger where cannon balls were fired and almost walk on public property eventually to where the cannon balls landed. So that’s kind of an exciting thing. You actually start to take all of these little parcels and turn it into an actual battlefield.”
The centerpiece of the battlefield restoration project is the former site of the Franklin Country Club which was bought by the city along with an old Pizza Hut restaurant.
Franklin officials have been working hard to turn the battlefield into a National Park. The federal parks service has shown some interest. It began a feasibility study this spring that will last three years.