Yesterday, on a beautiful summer day, we traveled about an hour and a half way to Chestnut Hill, TN. On a previous trip home from Gatlinburg we happened to be routed past the Bush Bean factory, but had arrived too late in the day to tour the museum, store, and most importantly to eat at the cafe there. So we put it "on the list" of places that we needed to go back to. Yesterday was the day!
First of all, it was a beautiful drive through the mountains to get there. Chestnut Hill is near the lake area that was created by a TVA dam project to capture water from the French Broad River for the production of electricity, part of the history of the area that we learned about from the bean museum.
There were several nice photo ops outside the museum which sits on the site of A. J. Bush's general store. This photo shows the old Bush homestead over my left shoulder and part of the bean canning factory over my right shoulder.
And here's Russ with the dog and Jay:
I'm sure I took a picture of Russ with the blue truck, but I couldn't find it on my photo stream, so you will have to settle for a nice picture of the truck. It's a beauty.
We were greeted at the door of the general store by one of the many friendly docents and directed to the auditorium to watch two interesting films. The first gave a nice overview of the family history and how the original A. J. Bush went from being a teacher and general store owner to contracting with Stokley to can tomatoes. Within a few years he bought the cannery from Stokley and they canned a variety of items, including sauerkraut, before settling on becoming bean experts. The film also gave a nice "factory tour" to show all the steps and technology being used in the cannery today. Then there was a short, funny video, starring Jay and Duke, outlining the history of outdoor grilling. Chuckling, we left the auditorium and toured the museum. It was remarkably interesting. There was more family history and some interesting archival photos of the early cannery. You could step on a scale and see your weight in beans. There was information, very nicely displayed about beans around the world. You could view 1950's TV commercials as well as get a preview of the newest commercials being planned for the Bush company. You could easily spend an hour or more and not see or do all the interactive, up-to-date displays. I guess I didn't take many pictures in the museum... I always wonder if it's allowed.
I did take a photo of this quilt, made in the 1800's by Sallie Bush's grandmother. It's an Irish Chain which was a popular design of the time. It was one of several textiles that was on display.
In the advertising, Duke, a talking dog, is always trying to "spill the beans" about the family's secret recipe for their original beans. (It actually was based on a family recipe they say.) Anyway, as you leave, they show the book containing the recipe being protected by fake laser lights.
Oh, darn, I don't have time to upload that photo, but you'll have to take my word for it, it was clever!
And of course, we had to eat at the cafe. Here's the local catfish:
And we saved room for pinto bean pie!
