The first annual ‘Why Franklin Matters’ symposium will begin Friday morning with planned appearances from Governor Bredesen and noted Civil War scholars. The timing is critical to the city’s push for a battlefield National Park.
An effort to piece back together the Franklin Battlefield began more than a year and a half ago.
On the anniversary of the battle, politicians and preservationists took turns swinging a sledge hammer at a red-roofed Pizza Hut located on core battlefield property. The city purchased the restaurant for 300-thousand dollars. However, the land is still surrounded by development and not connected to the nearly 11-million dollars worth of open space the city has preserved since 2005.
The group Franklin’s Charge has led other non-profits and the city in the battlefield reclaimation project. President Robert Hicks, who’s author of The Widow of the South, says this weekend’s symposium offers historians a chance to make a case for saving the battlefield.
“Our greatest legacy to this community will be that everyone will forget we did this, and that what they will remember is what happened when those boys, men, came here on November 30th in 1864. That’s hopefully what we are laying the foundation for. That some day there will be a seamless piece of land that tells that story.”
The National Park Service has begun a feasibility study for the area, but even proponents of reclaiming the battlefield have doubts about achieving national park status.
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