Artists, Tennessee's poet larueate, an independent record label, and even the Louvin Brothers Museum—the pocket-size, Middle Tennessee town of Bell Buckle is bucking the odds and earning unexpected attention as an arts community.

by Paige La Grone

Driving into Bell Buckle, Tennessee, the back way along Highway 82, night envelops the rain-soaked countryside. It is Halloween, and not being familiar with this windy, street-lamp-barren road makes the drive mysterious. Here and there along the road sits an inviting farmhouse, lights on over the porch and visible through kitchen windows as the smell of burning wood, still green, meets the damp, slightly muddy autumn air. A few cars wind their way over the slick road away from town, illuminating for brief moments the welcome burst of maples and oaks gowned in blazing color. Up one last rise of road, the sprawling Webb School campus comes into view—crosswalk lights blink

ing, each building lit, a few adults moving tables and chairs inside.

Just past the school, closer to the road, are homes which look as though they have sprung from the earth itself, stately and natural, nestled between the trees. Jack-o-lanterns and holiday lights radiate from porches as children make their way from one door to another..."Trick or treat!" A woman pushing a carriage with one hand, guiding a small ballerina with the other, crosses the road. Two pre-teen boys in black costumes sift through their pillowcases of loot on the curb. The Methodist Church steeple looms in the background as the air is filled with squeals of laughter and childish prattle. The relative absence of grown folks is striking, and a feeling of overall safety pervades. Past the old general store, the public restrooms, the fire truck garage, and round the corner, sits the heart of downtown Bell Buckle, facing the railroad tracks that bisect the town. The sidewalk in front of the shops is adorned with antique bed frames, potted plants, rocking chairs, folk art totems, and benches. From the outdoor speakers of the Bell Buckle Cafe, the soundcheck from the back room is broadcast as a freight train whistles by less than 100 yards away.

On the Cafe stage, in front of a backdrop of quilts, singer/fiddler Valerie Smith introduces her song "Patchwork Heart," which is the title cut on her superb debut album on the newly formed Bell Buckle Records. "I chose this as the title song for my record because it seems to me that it captures the essence of Bell Buckle. Bell Buckle is all about..."

"Quilts!" quips labelmate and first-rate songwriter/banjoist Jim Connor.

With a hearty laugh, Smith completes her thought, "Bell Buckle is all about things made for and given to others." Accompanied by her band, Jim and Sheila Wingate on guitar and stand-up bass, respectively—and, on occasion, Connor and Kraig Smith (Valerie's husband)—Smith treats the folks at Bell Buckle Cafe to an informal yet most enjoyable show. Proprietor J. Gregory Heinike says of partner Smith (together they founded and run Bell Buckle Records)— "She's really something special. Val used to come down from Nashville and play her fiddle in front of the Cafe every Saturday. One morning she just really caught my attention. I heard something there and knew I wanted to work with her." Smith took a leave of absence from teaching this year to focus on running the label and performing.

Heinike, like many of Bell Buckle's residents, has his fingers in many pies. With wife Jeanette and daughter Heidi, he runs Bell Buckle's only restaurant, which also functions as the town's social hub. The Cafe features mouthwatering catfish, prize-winning hickory-smoked barbecue, and live country music Thursday through Sunday. Saturday afternoons find Heinike running the J. Gregory Jamboree, a live radio broadcast on Shelbyville's WLIJ, 1580 AM. The Saturday after Halloween, the legendary Charlie Louvin (who Heinike counts as "one of my very best friends") pops in to perform some tunes. The Louvin Brothers Museum, with much support from Heinike, is located just across Main Street from the Cafe. A Bell Buckle resident only these last four years, Heinike is admittedly still viewed as an outsider; yet he feels a strong commitment to his community, seems firmly rooted, and proudly calls Bell Buckle home.

Bell Buckle, which lies in the heart of Tennessee Walking Horse country, just up the road from Murfreesboro and roughly mid-way between Nashville and Chattanooga, has a population just under 500. It's extremely diverse for its size. It's been said, with appreciation, that Bell Buckle is 50 miles and 50 years from Nashville. Tourism has blossomed in recent years, with such events as the annual Webb School Arts and Crafts Festival, the Quilt Walk, and the Moonpie Festival, along with antique malls and a spate of old-timey and crafts shops. Birthed over 100 years ago from the community of Tricum, Bell Buckle became popular with early settlers thanks to a plentiful freshwater supply, fertile land, and temperate climate. Says native Kimi Abernathy, "The town grew up in the late 1800s as the train track was laid down. And that's when the town really boomed, when the train came through. It was really more of a community than a town prior to the train. Bell Buckle evolved into a classic train town with a strip of shops facing the train, on either side of the tracks. The strip of shops on the other side of the tracks burned, but they were comparable to [what remains] on the other side."

As legend has it, the town's unusual name derived from a dispute with Indian neighbors; a white man's cow wandered onto Indian territory, and in retaliation, the cow was killed and its bell was hung from a belt on a tree, warning the white men to keep their livestock at home. In 1870, the progressive Webb School was founded by William R. "Sawney" Webb in neighboring Culleoka. Yet when liquor made its way to Culleoka, Sawney moved lock, stock, and barrel to the still "dry" Bell Buckle. Around the school, an industry of boarding homes grew up, with college prep-educated farmers co-mingling with academicians and merchants. Webb School remains, to this day, one of the preeminent college-preparatory schools of the region and spawned the Webb School at Knoxville.

Abernathy, who today is Director of Admissions at Webb (her parents taught at Webb for many years and her teenage son is a fifth generation student, on her husband's side of the family), recounts her girlhood in Bell Buckle, "I can remember, when I was a little girl, a very dim memory of riding the train with my mother at the very end of when the train was still running, to shop in Nashville. I loved to go down and watch the train and to get ice cream at Miss Jean's, which was the general store then. In the early '60s was when they stopped running the passenger trains."

The once bustling township hit upon hard times, Abernathy explains. "It's the same history that goes all over the US. As automobiles took over for trains, the town began to decline. The focus was not that people had to come into Bell Buckle for access to markets, it was just as easy to go other ways. In the late '70s and early '80s, the town had a very abandoned look. The shops were boarded up, nothing was going on."

Not so today, and much of the credit goes to Anne White-Scruggs, who came to Bell Buckle in 1976. A potter, White-Scruggs came to teach art at Webb and fell in love with the old bank building because of its stained glass. When it went up for auction, White-Scruggs purchased it and the adjoining building for $4,000. "Everyone thought I was insane!," she recounts. "Everything was leaking and falling down, no roof to speak of." With local sculptor, Russ Faxon, she restored the bank building and thus began the revitalization of today's downtown.

Over lunch at the Cafe with her dear friend Margaret (Maggi) Britton Vaughn, who just happens to be Tennessee's Poet Laureate and a Bell Buckle resident, White-Scruggs elaborates on why this area has become particularly attractive to artisans. "It's supportive here. It's centrally located, it's low overhead. Artists can't live if they have a high overhead. A lot of poets, writers, and musicians live here or just outside city limits."

Vaughn, who left her Nashville newspaper job and came to town in 1982, says, "Bell Buckle is the only little town I know of that has three sculptors commissioned by the state: Russ Faxon, Bill Ralston, and Sherry Hunter. Nashville can't even boast that, or Memphis! It's remarkable. You also get a lot of feedback in this kind of community."

White-Scruggs continues, "Being Poet Laureate, [Vaughn] gets to do all these neat things. Last week she had a commission, and she'd work on it and come out on the sidewalk and read it to us as she worked. There's a great exchange of ideas. Sometimes I'll get a call from Russ in the middle of the night saying 'Hey, do you have anymore kiln shelves?'" Close proximity makes this possible—White-Scruggs' Bell Buckle Crafts and studio is next door to Vaughn's shop/office/apartment. Faxon's home and studio is located just across the railroad tracks. Most evident is a warmth and accessibility, which seems to be extended by nearly everyone in town.

Myrtle Howell, a marionette maker and performer, has been in Bell Buckle for 13 years. A visit to her studio/shop prompts a mini performance with a singing Big Bad Wolf and Red Riding Hood. Of Bell Buckle, she says, "It's just a good town. You come in it, and you just feel relaxed. Sometimes you get upset, but that's just a small town for you. We all fuss once in awhile, but we all love each other. We have a good wholesome atmosphere here."

The town of Bell Buckle, thriving as it is, has its difficulties, as well. It has been an adjustment for the long-time locals to have so much focus put on their town. Public figures have invited a rush of press and brought new concerns to light. Abernathy explains, "Tourists come here for the shops and say this town is so quaint. I want to say, 'It's not Disneyland. We're not some little postcard. Real people live here. We're real people with real issues; we worry about our fire department; we talk about how we're going to fix our town's sidewalk. We're a community that goes beyond the shops.'"

Abernathy has a valid point. Economic disparity has weakened the ties between Webb and the town. Worries about the possibility of subdivision and truck-yard developments threaten what Vaughn has described as "quality over quantity." Abernathy wants Bell Buckle preserved for her four sons and the other children in town. One of the better things about growing up in a small town is the relative safety and comfort, the ability to roam unharmed. "Anywhere they fall down, someone will pick them up. And I mean that literally and figuratively. If one of my sons falls off his bike, someone will pick him up, put a band-aid on him, and send him home. If he's doing something that he's not supposed to, someone will pull him over, let him have it, chew him out, and then call me and tell me about it. Even the town drunk would do that."

Abernathy readily confesses to romanticizing the Bell Buckle of 30 years ago. She goes on to say, "The people that are shop owners are friends of mine. I love the fact that they've made Bell Buckle beautiful. And I think they've done something really significant here. Wendell Berry talks about sustainable agriculture and bringing things down to a human scale—we have that here."