Participants strolled along Franklin’s Main Street Saturday while learning local women’s history with a “Passport to the Past.”
The scavenger hunt-style event was born out of a collaboration between the Folk Heritage Association of Macon County’s Women’s History Trail and the Franklin Downtown Merchants Association to celebrate Women’s History Month.
Merchants association chair Nicole Vachon said the association was looking for ways to expand the reach of the “Sip and Shop” held the second Saturday of each month and to celebrate women’s history. The event saw the participation of 16 local businesses.
Participants first dropped by the Macon County Historical Museum to collect passports directing them to different stops along the Women’s History Trail with downtown businesses “stamping” their passports.
Theresa Ramsey, FHAMC treasurer, said 14 stops within walking distance of downtown businesses were selected and connected with relevant downtown businesses participating in the event. People could take photos of the trail markers or use information learned there to fill in clues on their passports to prove they had been to the site.
Ramsey said the event resulted in good exercise and attracted participants of all ages. “I saw elderly couples, husband and wife, participating together and I saw young couples,” she said. “Then we had families, we have several families that had all these children, and the children were getting in on trying to go to each of the sites and figuring out the clues. And then, inter-generationally I saw a lady and it looked to be like her mother and her aunt. So it was an inter-generational mix of people, male and female, that were genuinely interested in doing the trail and to walk it and to learn more.”
Ramsey estimated between 30 and 40 people participated. Becky Peeling and Heather Dehn were the winners of the prize baskets filled with items from the merchants.
Marie Roberts of Trail Mix said of the event, “It was great overall. I’m hoping we can do it again.” She said hopefully she will not be working next time so she can participate. Trail Mix saw some new customers and gave out coupons along with punches to keep customers coming back. Roberts said the event could have benefitted from running through the afternoon, since not all the customers who learned about the event while visiting downtown later in the day had enough time to fill out their cards before it ended. The majority of visitors came by in the morning.
While the FHAMC developed the activity and passports, Ramsey said the project started from Vachon’s initiative.
Ramsey said the event “would be a way for people to not only be able to go into some shops along Main Street maybe that they haven’t been to in a while, but it would also give them as they were walking about town – walking in her steps – to learn more about these ladies on the Women’s History Trail. Or groups of women. It’s not just ladies, it’s also groups of women like the milliners and the beauticians and the mica workers, the people of the original library, the social workers.”
“Our passion is to uplift women in the past who have worked in the early days to help form Macon County’s rich heritage, and there’s still lots of other groups and areas that are associated with groups of women that would still be a feasible addition to our trail,” Ramsey said.
She said she would like to do something similar in the future with a focus on downtown history.