History
The Hard Bargain neighborhood was established in 1875. W.S. McLemore, a freed slave, subdivided 15 acres which he called Hard Bargain because of the difficult land deal that was struck in 1866. Hard Bargain became a thriving African American community. The neighborhood is located on 15 acres, two square city blocks in downtown Franklin and totals over 80 households. For many years Hard Bargain was a thriving African American community.
Pastor Scott and Linda Roley moved into the Hard Bargain neighborhood in November 1997. They purchased a home across the street from Carrie Wilson, a retired Williamson County school teacher. Ms. Carrie’s house was in need of major repairs. Scott shared the need with the Empty Hands Fellowship, an inter-denominational, inter-racial men’s fellowship, and the group decided to get involved.
Ms. Carrie’s house was facing foreclosure, so the Empty Hands Fellowship put down $20,000 to pay off her loan and spent $10,000 fixing up her house. Meanwhile, Ms. Carrie moved to Alabama with her niece where she later died.
The Empty Hands Fellowship decided to turn Ms. Carrie’s house into transitional housing for single mothers moving out of public housing. A single mother and her three children moved in along with her mother and younger brother.
The house continued to need repairs and after a while, a decision was made to tear the house down. At that point the plan of building a new house to help one family grew into a vision of helping restore and redevelop the neighborhood and provide workforce housing. The seed of Hard Bargain Mt. Hope Redevelopment was planted.
A subcommittee of Empty Hands Fellowship began meeting monthly to talk about redevelopment of the neighborhood, purchasing property, and building new homes in Franklin’s vanishing population of homes priced for low to moderate income working families.
A Community Development Corporation was formed in 2004 and in March 2006 Hard Bargain Mt. Hope Redevelopment obtained its 501(c)(3) non-profit status. A board of directors was elected and an advisory board continued to meet monthly. Over time, three properties were acquired on Mt. Hope Street and one on Green Street.
The first house at 613 Mt. Hope Street was built by Crane Builders and had a ribbon cutting on April 14, 2007. Following the ribbon cutting, Town Planning & Urban Design Collaborative facilitated a community design workshop where residents from the neighborhood gave input to help create a master plan for Hard Bargain.
The second house is schedule to break ground in November 2007. In 2008 the plan is to build six new homes and townhouses.