Franklin County Towns

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The incorporated towns of Franklin County include:

Sewanee as the University of the South is chartered by the state as a corporation but is not incorporated as a town even though its population is above 2000.

Another index of the residential clusterings is given in the list of fire departments. Besides those located in the towns listed above, there are now organized fire departments in:

These fire departments have mostly been created in the last ten years. The existence of these departments reflects the new clusterings of population as the county continues to develop. Unlike the incorporated towns--generally characterized by the presence of surveyed streets and lots--the areas represented by these fire departments are communities . Fire districts have boundaries--usually agreed upon in a kind of directly democratic meeting between the volunteer firemen and interested parties. (A good recent example of this process is the negotiations to create the Jumpoff Mountain Fire Department carved out of and partially overlapping the district of the Sewanee Fire Department.)

Fire districts, however, often do not have functional centers. An area that becomes a fire district undergoes a period of piecemeal growth: a few houses down that road, a few more here, a couple there where the children divided the old farm among themselves and built houses. As lake property is developed some very tight clusterings of houses emerge. The result overall is an increasing density of settlement and rising property values, but no clear focus, no center that yet would lead to the election of a mayor along with a fire chief. The absence of a district center is typically reflected in the location chosen for the fire station. The site is selected for geographic centrality for the responding firemen, but often the building is on donated land along the roadside with little else around it. [Lexie FD image]

Another kind of index of development is the appearance during the 1990's of an increasing number of "Convenience Centers" for the county. In the past, there was no garbage service in the rural areas. Individuals often burned their trash in backyard barrels or dumped it into a ravine or down a steep slope. A decades old, but still active slope dump is visible on the Alto Road just below the "hairpin" turn below Sewanee. Recent improvements in county services combined with increasing regulatory interest led to the creation of the Convenience Centers. Generally about a half acre in size and secured fenced, these collection points function as important resources for solid waste disposal in the county. Since the centers are also open only when a paid county employee is present, human scavengers are no longer to be found as they are at some of the unregulated sites in neighboring counties. The county now boasts some sixteen centers. Although the presence of these centers has not abated the ditch trash common along the roads, the centers have relieved solid waste problem of the increasing number of new "rural" houses.

The towns of the county must be understood in relation to these fire districts and convenience centers that are growing up around them. The long-term--but, given the present character of county politics, surely not short-term--outcome of this kind of non-centered growth will be an increasing demand throughout the county for the more equitable distribution of funds and services. Eventually, the inability of Winchester to supply services throughout the county will lead to county municipal government in order to find a way to distribute tax revenues in a way that is directly proportional to property values. The fire districts then are indicators of a trend in county development that finally will see the transformation of the political structure of the county.

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