MILTON, Tenn. (WTVF) — Out in Rutherford County, there's the little community of Milton. Farmers Phillip and Alanna Vaught know the history very well of a once-thriving place.
"My family's been here, I think I'm the eighth generation," Phillip said. "There were three general stores right here in this area."
"There was a gas station," Alanna added, sitting on a porch. "This used to be an old country store, used to be very popular. People would come, buy lunch meat, buy canned food. When it became Cherry's Grocery is what most people remember it from, and Charlie Cherry was the store owner at that time. The only black and white television was here, and it was in the back of the store."
What happened that made the area go so quiet?
"This used to be the main road and then now we have Highway 96," said Alanna.
Perhaps people were driving right by Milton.
"Milton's been kinda lost for the past 15 years, 20 years," Alanna continued.
The old store was vacant for about eight years when Phillip saw it was up for sale.
"I stopped at an auction one morning," he smiled.
"Phillip literally called me one morning," Alanna remembered. "He said, 'do we want to get in?' I said, 'get in what?' He said, 'I'm gonna bid,' and he hung up."
"We bought it!" said Phillip.
"My gosh, what have we done?" Alanna remembered thinking. "It was in terrible shape. Terrible shape."
"I don't know if it shows how smart we are to do this," Phillip laughed.
Then, the Vaughts realized the potential of the old store. It's now an event venue for weddings, baby showers, you name it.
"It's called The Gathering At Milton," Alanna said.
They've also just restored a 1920 bank building into The Vault event venue. The next project is restoring what used to be a doctor's office. The people around the Milton area just have to stop and tell the Vaughts they love Milton's return.
"Oh, they wave and holler at us," Alanna said. "A lot of them know who we are. 'Thank you so much for what you've done. You've saved Milton.'"
"We were born and reared in this area," said one man who pulled to the side of the road to talk to the Vaughts.
"My father was able to brick this building as part of his classwork," he said, gesturing to the old doctor's office.
"It's such a sense of pride knowing that we made a difference," said Alanna. "We have restored our structures for 200 more years to come. The fact we've saved a piece of history is incredible."
For more on the Milton event venues, visit here.
