Over the Middle Tennessee area, Legion Posts from Inglewood, Nashville’s Post 82, to Pulaski, TN’s Legion Post 60, all have their supports and second stories, and sometimes it’s mutually beneficial where both connect, or concern one another.

On July 27th, 2024, Jack White, of Third Man Records’ ambiguous, “No Name,” album release bubble eventually ran a seemingly Dice-app driven, “locals only” algorithm at the ticket purchase checkout, checking zip codes, but sold out nonetheless and benefitting Inglewood’s Legion Post 82 with a new, $40,000 sound equipment re-vamp, much in need, according to the Legion Post 82.

There are Veterans of Foreign Wars posts, as well, promoting area-touring, and tex-mex staple, Los Swamp Monsters (who are driven by the sentiment of entertaining the veterans, as members of that madman/accordian/saxophone/ brotherly love quartet, and vice versa), down at Lewisberg, TN’s VFW 59.

Now, on August 9, 2025, coming up this weekend

Reporter, Andy Bruce: So, are they actively trying to restore the American Legion, right now? Or are they just trying to fix this [pointing at the spiral staircase of the American Legion Post 60, at 425 Legion Dr., Pulaski, TN]? 

Cochran Pruett: Just sustain the building… 

Tasha, Legion Post bartender: -just sustain… 

Pruett: I’m a member of the American Legion –a veteran… interested in preserving the pl..  

Tasha: We’re actually fixing to host a concert. We’re selling tickets, if you’re interested in that. 

Jamie Duncan, of YouTube’s Milk, Honey, and Mayhem: Let me know the information on that, baby, yes! Anything I can do to promote the town, I’m about it.  

6:50, Tasha: You see this wallpaper? This looks awesome, but it’s the [same] wallpaper they had when I was growing up. And that’s why… 

7:22, Jaime: How much do I owe you for these? 

Tasha: They’re 25 a piece. I don’t even know how many is there… 

F&P: Can I take a picture of those, and I’ll just put it on Instagram? 

Tasha: Yeah. Yeah. 

[August 9^th][Tyler Warner] 

Tasha: He is a veteran. His songs are a lot about his experience in the service. He uses it for therapy for his PTSD. 

F&P: I call it venting. 

Tasha: A lot of our veterans do, playing music as a way to [vent] and  

F&P: I love covering American Legion Posts up and down Middle Tennessee [Inglewood, Colombia, Pulaski], going to shows, bc [some] people [from the Nash./Murf. Scene] play American Legion Posts [Los Swamp Monsters, Jack White, Chuck Mead, The CowPokes and Erica Case!]… 

Tasha: We are trying to do a museum upstairs… 

F&P: Okay. 

Tasha: And so a lot of our fundraising may go for that. 

F&P: To benefit the museum upstairs.  Do you have a goal for that? Is it still an idea, or an opening date set? 

Tasha: We had hoped to have it open by March, and then we pushed back to May, and now we’ve pushed it back even further. 

F&P: So now it’s just benefits to benefit the not pushing back of it?? 

Tasha: Yesss.  We’re down to small things: getting power run up there.. For whatever reason that room doesn’t have lights or power in it –most of upstairs does- I assume that was pulled out at some point.  

Tasha: I’m sure you noticed as you were driving up that one of the storms we had recently busted out one of our windows, which would have been in our museum. So, that needs replaced. 

Tasha: And we’re a non-profit, so we run purely off donations.  

Tasha: Our canteen generates a little bit of funding, but not a lot. We’re only… 

Jaime: What do you need to do to be a member? Is there a process? 

Andy: You gotta have  -fill out an application, and have proof that you’re withing one generation or two generations [of someone who served]? [room chatter]. 

Tasha: They’ve pulled that back. Pretty much if you’ve got anybody that’s been in the service. It’s pretty open. I’m… 

[Andy:  My wife, she let her membership run out, but her dad was a Navy member. It was real easy, and I it was, like $25 a year, or something like that. ]

Tasha: We have almost….  

Pruett: It used to be that… generational, but… 

Tasha: No, and it used to be you had to serve in a time of war, but that’s been covered by the VFW, now, so… 

Jaime: How much is the yearly fee? 

Tasha: For veterans, its $55. ANd I thought, man we should be covering them for free, until I kinda got in and knew about it.  

Tasha: We have legal services for them. We have life insurance that covers them. That covers the military burials. And so, there’s so much coverage we’re able to offer them.  

Tasha: We offer them mental health support, obviously. That covers a lot for them. 

Tasha: And, I’m in for my grandfather. It’s called an auxiliary member. It’s $45/year.  -We don’t keep a whole lot of to-do’s. Most of that money generated goes to our funds to help our service members. 

Jamie: And  you can come in and get some good food, right? 

Tasha: We currently don’t offer food… -Well, let me pull back… 

Jaime: *Every now-and-again. I know Landon comes up here and cooks some fish. 

Tasha: On Wednesdays mornings, we do Veterans Breakfast. Every Wednesday morning, and that’s completely free to them. The only thing is that you serve. And that comes with fellowship with other veterans. 

THat also runs off donations, and we have Great benefactors that cover that. 

Jaime: I’ve got a content creator friend, she does a military podcast/broadcast every week. I’m gonna get her involved with this… 

Pruett: The American Legion was founded for War World 1 veterans, so it was after World War 1, the veterans got together –actually, it was still in Europe when they had the first legion meetings. And then they formed the American Legion Federation for World War 1 veterans, and it’s continued going since then… 

Jaime: I love it.  

Andy: I’ve got a distant relative… was it my grandmother? -No, great grandmother? Or her brother, or one of their uncles, he was World War 1 veteran. He’s actually one of the founding members of the American Legion post over in Franklin Co. Ernest Zimmerman. Yeah, he was a marine. 

Tasha: Diana is way more knowledgeable about this than I am. Y’all caught me, I’m just a bartender [room laughs].  

*The Second Sentence of Pulaski, TN is, “Support Your Locals,” making these People One of a Kind.

Pruett:  Well, one of things that I always tell, ‘cause I left here, y’all, and went to the army, and I was gone for twenty something years, and came back. Proud to be from here. Proud to be back here. Um… But one of the things that happen when I was traveling around it that people would ask me where I’m from 

First thing I would say was, “Tennessee.” 

“Well, where from in Tennessee?” 

“Aw, I live near Nashville.” 

“Well, where at near Nashville? 

“South of Nashville.” 

“Where’s south of Nashville?” 

“Well, Giles County, y’know.” 

“Well, where at in Giles County?”  

“I’m from Pulaski.” 

“Ohhhhhh….” 

“Y’know, that’s all anybody know, if you’re not from here.”  

“And then I would have to explain, ‘no, I’m not a member of the Ku Klux Klan.’” 

“No, I’ve never been a member of the Ku Klux Klan.” 

“I wouldn’t ever Want to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan.” 

Jamie: But did you ever tell anybody about how the mayor flipped it around? Because I love that story… 

Cochran Pruett: Well, this is what I was going to say. I’ll quickly tell the story of 1989. 

I was a young man growing up here. Y’all that were here know very well what happened in ‘89 and ‘90, which is when this community came together unlike anything I’ve ever seen –anywhere- in opposition to a planned march of the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan nation on the downtown square, here, in Pulaski.  They had done this march the year before, and I’ll never forget it because my brother was high school –I was in eighth grade- and I just remember going to football practice of his, and there was this group of guys he played ball with –all black guys- and they were frickin’ Livid. I mean, Livid.  

And the discussion was, I mean, ‘this shts about to go down…’ 

And, um –there was a worry that this could go sideways, real fast, and it was on the verge of doing that.  

Jaime: And then they tried to get it held out there at the High School. 

Pruett: Yep. And it wouldn’t get… 

Pruett: So, uh… 

Tasha: I was little. I can only remember the fear 

Pruett: Yeah. Right. I was scared, too. I was a little kid. I was scared. 

I remember that there was a group of people really centered on the chamber of commerce, and the Presbyterian church.  

Jaime: Yup 

There were some lawyers in town. They organized themselves into a group called Citizens United. And this is all in newspapers. This isn’t anything you can’t find out. 

Jaime: I’ve still got pens from that. 

Cochran Pruett: They came up with an idea of how to counter protest this march, that is deemed –in my view- the most effective way… 

F&P: Alternative protesting/alternative action. 

Jaime: They couldn’t even get gas. Every convenience store was shut down. 

Cochran: Yeah…to deal with these types of things. …And we just shut down the town. Shut it down. And when you don’t have a place to eat, and when you don’t have a place to get gas, and when you don’t have a place to, excuse my language… 

Jaime: Go to the bathroom! 

Cochran: ..a place to piss, and the media doesn’t show up because there’s no ruckus (Jaime: nolstalgic about the event, rejoicing “’heeey, bye-bye!’; K bartender: “…then what’s the point?). 

***Cochran: …And they haven’t been back since. -At least not on the same scale. 

Jaime: Look, I’m not ashamed to admit –you know, statute of limitations- I’m the one that tossed all the nails to pop their tires on the way out of town. That was me.  I ain’t ashamed 

Cochran: Yeah. Yeah. 

Cochran: So, you know, that story –we’re talking about people from Democrats, Replicans, y’know. We had sitting senators –state senators from tops of parties writing letters -and to the community- letters of support. The Sons of the Confederate Veterans sent in letters of support, y’know (for the town. Not the march.)    

Cochran: So, what I’m driving at, this town [Pulaski, TN] effectively turned their back on that legacy in 1989, and its been that way ever since. 

F&P: There were tiny resurgences back in the mid-nineties, and ’96, ‘97, and stuff. I’d be riding bikes around [East Hill (Morningside Dr. and Sam Davis, down to the old, abandoned hospital we used to play in that’s ironically the health department, now; all the way up to the Rec.Center and Maplewood Cemetery, down to Jefferson, where the ice cistern is, and to Reeve’s and the pool hall… I mean, floating through people’s back yards at 75 mph to Bismark when cicadas from the mid-ninties erupted out of bushes like bombs, before parking lots took over) -East Hill..], we’d roll up, catch’m putting little [single page], white flyers up, and we’d roll around behind them and take them down. So, it’s that generational push. 

Cochran: And we’re now old enough –I’m old enough, now, that people have forgotten that history, y’know. WHich is the more important history…. 

Jaime: And that’s why I’m on YouTube talkin’ about it, baby! 

*F&P: We’re out here trying to evolve that second sentence so we can evolve properly, and we’re not held to that. [The KKK sentiment is] trying to become tradition. We’re bucking that second sentence of being “home of the KKK.” It’s an odd way… 

Cochran: You’ll never get rid of that, y’know. That’s always there. I mean, my dissertation, in-part –a part- is all about that: Why here? Like, the question I went into was, “Why here?” 

I mean, out of all the places that this kind of a thing could’ve started, why here? Well, there’s a historical answer. It’s very complicated, and I’m not gonna go into it, but there’s a ton of reasons why that happened here and not somewhere else. It very quickly gets replicated. 

F&P: I bet that’s fun to read [Cochran looks at me weird].    -Covering this stuff, or legislation stuff, you have to get down to local-local –what [Andy] is into- and understanding each level, just to get the bigger picture, is a fascinating thing. Send me that dissertation, if you want, and I’ll read it (Cochran: “Yeah, sure…I mean…”) because it covers the railroad [Nashville + Decatur, op: 1866], in federal, and all the way down to contraband camps and then the generation after that… It’s nuts, man.

Cochran: That’s right. That’s right. That’s the history of it. And, there’s a whole story there, too that’s worth the telling, and the only reason why is it’s a true story. 

But anyways, I think that anytime you’re in public -I always did this- I told the story of 1989. 

Jaime: Oh, yeah. I try to, too, man. 

Cochran: And my involvement –my little involvement, my little, eighth grade involvement –you know, you’re talking in your churches and just trying to generate community support, y’know- 

F&P, to K, the bartender: That’s a good question. You were talking about the The fear that was involved –sorry to bring this up, I know fears not the best thing to bring up- but the fear that was involved among the community, was that mentioned in the churches, that Sunday? 

K: So, I was in Kindergarten. 

Andy, to K: You graduated in 2003? 

K: O2 

Andy: Ok, [to me], we weren’t… 89? We were four years old. […] Our parents did a good job of shielding us at that age from that kind of worry. 

Cochran: I think for a long time, folks, here, think that they got past all that. 

Jaime: Yeah, we did! 

Cochran: Y’know, because we really did…but periodically these things come back up. 

Jaime: I’ve heard of a few instances, recently, with a buddy of mine, and that’s just making me really sick. 

Cochran: Well, you just got to keep telling the story. Keep telling it to- 

F&P: What would be a good word to use for ‘keep telling the story,’ in your opinion? 

Cochran: The word I use is ‘reframing.’  

We’re reframing the history of this community, is what it needed. That’s what happened in ‘89. We claimed a legacy that turned its back on the Ku Klux Klan, and so the ‘reframing,’ in my view, if I were crafting the narrative –reframing- that’s the legacy we want to focus on.   

F&P: It’d be coincidental if we found an entrance at a frame store… 

…And The Pulaski Tunnels:

21:44, Jaime: It’s good to finally meet you. I’m just going to tell you, John told me, if you got down there, you’d go in first. 

Cochran: Yeah. […] When Andrew told me about it, I wanted to go, but I knew the safety challenges, and you’ll run into that everywhere you go. And those are real. You actually can’t ignore those. 

Andy: I was at WAL-Mart, this morning, and the managers got a little frustrated with me going through the camping section looking for glowsticks. I was like, ‘you know, like the classic, crack’m, about six inches long and a quarter inch…” [room laughing].

[Wal-Mart manager, in Andy’s story: I don’t think we carry those anymore. We’ve got some [rings] over there in ‘Celebration [section]’… ].

Andy: I was just like, naw… I’m going underground. I’d feel safer knowing I had at least one glowstick in my pocket. […] I’m sorry I’m old school Eagle Scout 

Cochran: In the Army, we call them chem-lights. I love chem-lights. They’re great. 

F&P: This is awesome.  

F&P: She was mentioning a push back to March or May, this year, so if I publish a paper on this situation, it won’t be until March or May, of next year… 

Jaime: Y’all are amazing. I’m telling you.  […] -I’ve got another thing I’ve gotta shoot today, so I’ll be live tomorrow at 11.  

F&P, about Milk, Honey, and Mayhem: If you’re in my feed when I’m just jumping on at night, but want to catch you going live, do I set a reminder on YouTube, or…?? 

Jaime Duncan, Milk Honey & Mayhem: I will go in and schedule it, and it will be on that feed, and you can click that bell, and it’ll pop up a text message when I go live. So, I’ll be scheduling that tonight, if you want to check. 

F&P: That’s awesome. 

Jaime, Milk, Honey, & Mayhem: And then just click your bell, and when I go live, I’ll have one of my friends, there, on with me, so… 

F&P: Yeah, I’m [subscribed] to the channel. I’m keeping up with it. 

BH: Yeah, we get so excited. We’re like, ‘is there a new one?!’ 

Jaime: Yeah. 

F&P: Mucho appreciation for the Bodenham coverage. BUdenHaimer!! 

Tasha: Do you have the newspaper article, too? 

F&P: The one on the wall? 

Article pic… 

24:14, F&P, to Cochran: I don’t know where you came from, man, but it was great to meet you.

24:20, Cochran: I teach history at UT Southern. [He moved back here ten yrs ago? From serving for twenty years… 

[We get small town; Andy: You probably know his dad… That’s Gaines’ boy; Cochran: Yeah. Yeah. … I know Rachel well 

F&P: Oh, you know Rachel? (Apparently, Cochran was in the little red car Rachel coincidentally wrecked at McKay’s [an intersection literally at the bottom of the hill of The Legion Post 60, next to an engine shop called McKay’s that’s taken care of us for years).

[…] 24:37; F&P, looking at the framed article on the wall, “Pulaski Citizen, ‘Lifestyles,’ (pics) 

F&P: My buddy Tyler and I got caught in the snow, and we –we were 12, or something- but we got Big Wheels, like, three- or four-year-olds would ride [to off-road in the snow. A journalist passed on Sam Davis Ave. and made a ‘Lifestyles,’ about us, on a snow day, when school was out. Steve Lake laminated a copy and sent it to us, I think]. A couple of goofy kids. 

Tasha: Oh, were you from here? 

F&P: Yes, ma’am. I used to live on Morningside Dr., over there (Tasha: okay!) 

Tasha: Did I hear you say you worked for the paper?  

F&P: Yes, ma’am. Not the Citizen –that’d be awesome- but, up in Murfreesboro, I work for the Murfreesboro Pulse, and a paper called Folk & Proper News, that we run out as a quarterly (Tasha: Ok!)  (F&P, about article on wall, “This is incredible. Let me see if I can read this [in the picture, on the phone]… 

Cochran: Something happens when you get, about, 45, I think. (Jaime: Yyyep. Lisa: It happens)… 

Cochran: Your eyeballs start to go… 

Jaime: Oh, just wait until you get 48. There’s fun, new ones (laughs). 

–Tasha: You might be able to find it online somewhere.   

[All of this is within a few miles of one another]. 

25:56, Cochran: So, Rachel is your sister? 

F&P, snapping last pic of Pulaski Citizen, ‘Lifestyles’: I heard you say you know Rachel. I’m sorry.  

Cochran: No, no. We grew up together.  

F&P: Class of ‘96? (Cochran: graduated in ‘93).  

F&P: Stacy’s milk truck would pull up in the driveway, he’d hand me cigars, and Rachel would yell at’m? (room chuckles) -yeah, it was all part of that crowd. 

26:23 – Andy: Cochran I’m sorry it’s a bust… 

Cochran: Oh, no, it’s -I kinda knew we probably weren’t gonna get down there, but… 

Jaime: You never know until you try! Y’know? 

Cochran: That’s right. That’s right. Keep trying. 

Jaime: I’ve got some time in the week, if it’s not raining out, I’m just gonna go searching for places. 

F&P: Jaime, it is good meet you… 

[[[If there’s nothing here, and we do have to go searching, that’s when we’d want somebody with us (Jaime talking about Andy’s prep to the extent of having an EMT in the parking lot while we’re in there), for sure, because I’m getting in there.  

I’m putting out a call to EVerybody on the channel, if you have access to any bit of this tunnel, anywhere, please let us in. Like….. 

–F&P: The Butch Stuff,  

We’ve got –I’ve here in Pulaski, and (pointing at Andy) he’s been here all his life. We’ve been around long enough to have met Butch, and have plenty of [his] hear-say stuff, because the man is a staple [walking, Giles Co. Encyclopedia] 

Jaime: Right? That’s Lisa’s (Jaime’s partner’s) stepfather. 

F&P: Good to meet you!  -My brother-in-law, Jay, came into Pulaski and started working for him at the Hickory House for a long time, so he was around Butch to hear stories about the tunnels and even [Whitney’s] Cotton Gin that he found. C’mon! 

Jaime: Yeah! 

F&P: It’s real unbelievable. 

F&P: […] I’m trying to pinpoint if you’d know [my sisters], or Jay. And we know Charlie Greenfield, and stuff, who’s a couple of years older than Rachel, and that’s the span of what we have, recently. […]  

Andy: Everybody around town pretty much knows Gaines from his time working at Reeve’s.  

Jaime: I ran around with Kelly Parker, if that tells you anything. And Karen Woodard. It was just us three nerds, just, y’know… 

F&P: We’re Ag. Dept. kids that came out here after the [second world] war and planted the pines on the golf course, and have them out at Bodenham [and both Granddads mapped the soil in Lawrence and Giles counties], so you doing that thing on [Bodenham] mill, last week, I sent it to Dad, and all that good stuff.  We appreciate you doing this.  

Jaime Duncan: I love it. You can’t ask for more (~13:20). 

13:40, Jaime describes this meet-up was pulled together by Lisa knowing the owners/operators of Legion Post 60. The people that pulled up/greeted up were employees, that day, Tasha, and her [daughter? Help?], unaware we’d talked with the owner/operator, Landon. 

14:09, F&P: They’ve got an empty, Little Library. We need to bring some books out. ]]]

Jaime: We’re working with Cochran Pruett, at UT Southern, the history professor, to see if there’s any artifact we can find that might allow us to do some LIDAR. 

Tasha, Sunday, July 20th’s Legion Post bartender (keys jangle and she opens up The Post for us): There’s not a basement. There was where the Women’s bathroom is. It’s covered up, though.  Y’all come in to the air conditioning (Jaime: Thank you, so much) 

15:44, F&P, walking in: The ol’ Post. Andy, I can feel your brethren in here…  

15:54, Tasha: It’s right through here, is where the tunnel was. It ….. 

F&P: What year are we in? ‘58? 

16:15, Cochran Pruett comes in the door, “You’re here to look for the tunnels?” 

F&P: Yes, sir.   Are they back there? […] -You sounded confident [Cochran laughs]. 

17:37,Cochran on phone with Diane: SO you don’t want nobody going down there. Okay. Yeah. WEll, I’m with ya. I’m with ya. I understand. SOmebody told me they wrere going down there, today, and I was like, ‘well, I’ll go with you if you’re going,’ but…. That’s what I said, ‘folks don’t believe you if you don’t let’m look…’ 

Tasha: [Dickey’s] flower shop –this [neighbor], next to us… this [tunnel/cave under us, now] connects to the flower shop, and the homeless people re-tunneled it… 

Jaime: We’ll find somewhere to get in. 

Cochran, on phone: That’s what I’ve said before, but folks don’t -they don’t beleive it. So, okay. I’m just gonna tell them we can’t go under there. Okay. Bye. 

Cochran: That was Diane, y’all… 

Tasha: I think it’s falling, is why… 

Well, what I said before is that, I  -probably twenty years ago; twenty five years ago- I don’t remember it. But I do remember it being walled off. You get under –the basement- but you can’t get very much further… 

Tasha: But this is so unstable that we can’t use this staircase… 

Cochran: That’s what Diane was saying. She’s worried somebody’s gonna get hurt and then there’s the insurance, and all that stuff, associated with it.  

Jaime: I hear ya.  

19:35, F&P: Is the staircase unstable enough just to move those mirrors and pop that lid up, and take a picture, real quick? 

Cochran: I don’t see a problem, no. Just as long as nobody gets down there; gets on the steps, or anything. […] Nobody’s trying to hide anything. It’s just a safety thing. 

Tasha, agreeing: Yeah, it’s unstable. It’s…  

Cochran: If somebody had a telescoping camera, you could, with a light on –just grab that thing and look around a little bit. 

[We move the mirrors and old signs from the crawl space  

Cochran, to Andy: You were ready to go, man (smiling). 

Andy: I was (laughing). I was.  

(Andy’s first speech video) 

F&P: Well, right now […] the story is being pieced together, about just access to these “tunnels,” through hear-say. I’ve got an uncle that’s been down there –It’s great to meet you because we haven’t heard the story about this entrance, yet. There has been a couple other people that’ve been down. I didn’t realize that the homeless people could’ve sort of fashioned their own –That’s an avenue, to get in. So, eventually, we’re trying to see what all connects where, and it kinda fun to figure out if people know these things. 

Tasha, possibly, “[I always heard that even Giles County [high school] was connected by “the tunnels”] (The room chatter picked up as we’re 8 people in the front, grand staircase foyer of an over 100 yr. old house). 

Cochran: Here’s what I’d say, and this is what I told Andrew in the email –So, I teach history here at the university (UT Southern). And I grew up here, so these stories about these tunnels have been circulating for a long time, especially among people who are history-minded. 

Cochran: Marlin McCormmick was my uncle-in-law, and he was one of those that used to tell these stories, because at times, he had been into some of these tunnels. And most of the ones he was talking about are most of the ones up on East Hill, which is where I live –which is where he grew up. 

Tasha: When I was a kid, they took us under the [Public] Library. They had come in and supported them under there, when I was –30 years ago… 

Cochran: So… 

Jaime Duncan, Milk, Honey and Mayhem: Yeahs, that’s been a minute. I work up at the Library –I work at the Historical Society, so that’s.. 

Cochran: Here’s the problem… 

Tasha:   And they -under the library was the most stable point. 

Cochran: -The stories connected with these tunnels, and I keep using air-quotes for a reason. You’ll see here in a second why- is usually connected with people escaping form the jail in the civil war, or associated with things that happened within the community before the civil war. Sometimes you’ll hear people refer to it as part of the underground railroad… Historically, this is something people get wrong all the time. The underground railroad wasn’t underground.  

Jaime: Right. 

Cochran: It’s just a network of people who would support people who were trying to escape slavery, so… 

Tasha: And if you’re researching correctly, these tunnels were never connected to that, either. They’re… 

Cochran:  So, I don’t know if there’s a person, locally, who’s done as much researching Civil War documents of this community as I have. The only reason I say that is because my dissertation is about that, so when I say primary sources, I’m not talking about stories, I’m talking about documents, old maps, etc… 

Cochran: There is almost zero –zero- documentary evidence of these tunnels. None.  

F&P: That’s why we’re here, man. 

Cochran: Zero.  

Cochran: So, in other words, there is no traditional, historical evidence about these tunnels other than the oral stories that’ve been passed down. And I happen to believe that  those stories actually don’t go back more than two or three generations, in my personal opinion.  

Cochran: The things –what I think people get confused- and I had mentioned this on the phone. I was just talking to her is, in the early 1900’s, right? When utilities were going in throughout this community, right? -Running water, septic, right? You know, all of that that happens, y’know, somewhere between 1890 and 1920 –most of it. They’re digging everywhere. All over the place, to lay in septic lines, to lay in electrical lines, sewer lines. Y’know, all that stuff. Underwater drainage for the highway systems, you name it. 

Cochran: And, there are two other things that I think they do date back to the Civil War time period, that are causing confusion to all this –and I mentioned them to Andrew, already. 

This is just my theory. What you’re hearing is my theory.  

So, the first is aural traditions, which gets distorted overtime, and the second is physical evidence that does remain, right? Like this (the Legion climb-down basement/rizer room).  

THere is some.  

But, I think they get misinterpreted. These things get conflated, and they’re not connected. 

F&P: So, you can’t tell [what the truth is] after a few generations. 

Cochran: That’s right… -Well… 

F&P: -Even just two or three generations. It’s wild. 

Cochran: Yeah, but you can tell when someone walk into something that looks like an underground cavern, y’know. And then you’ve heard these stories, and then you start to make those connections. That makes sense to me. We’re not talking about people who don’t know what they’re talk -That just makes sense. It would make sense to me, too. It’s just I’m not sure they’re connected, and there’s no evidence to support that they are. 

(Cochran gets a little into the strength of belief): 

Cochran: Two other things –well, three things, really. ONe, there are naturally occuring caves all over this place. Caves. Not tunnels. Caves, right? THere are two other things.  

Underground cisterns in a house this size and of this age, undoubtedly, there was an underground cistern, at one point.  

F&P: What’s the deal with the tiny park [right outside, at the bottom of the hill, where 31A ends] that has the spring at the bottom of it?  

Cochran:  That’s a spring. Cave Spring. And that’s a spring that’s been there forever. Even to the time of Civil War, right. That spring. But it comes out of a cave that’s underneath what we call Fort Hill. 

F&P: I didnt’ know if we’d end up in that cave if, becaue we’re right on top of it –seemingly- because we’re so close. 

Cochran: Makes sense, in terms of the… You might end up in it. I don’t know. It depends on how you went back there, but… 

F&P: But you said it was walled off and this was 20 years ago? 

Cochran: Yeah. The downstairs, here, and that was for safety. 

Jaime: Well, I’m gonna let Andrew pop this open. Are you okay poppin’ it open for YouTube, baby? 

Cochran: I’m gonna tell you one thing. Underground cisterns are huge, okay? It’s where people held water, so that they could pump water into their house without having to go outside. That’s what a cistern is. It’s a wealthy… 

Jaime: Do they look like a tunnel? 

Cochran: It’s a big hole in the ground. It could be twenty feet deep and twenty feet wide. 

Jamie: Okay, I had one of those under the house I grew up [in], but it was just under my house. There was no access under the stairs.  Like, it was through the basement. 

Cochran: Right. Usually bricked over, like with a pothole top? I’ve been in those, too. 

  Cochran: The other thing –And this is what I think has been causing confusion with most people. They used to call them icehouses.  

So before there were food refrigerators, to keep your food refrigerated, the most efficient thing to do was put it underground, and so, especially over here on East Hill, there are three or four different, what you could call “entrances,” to old ice houses, which served as refrigerators before there were refrigerators, right? 

F&P: Like the one right across [from us], on Jefferson and [Rhodes St.] [pic taken before this conversation].

Cochran: Yeah, so off of Rhodes St. If you’re going up [this is literally going down the hill we’re on, now, and going up the next on, across the “Main St.” of Pulaski, N. 1^st St.], right in the side of those hills, you can see three or four of them. 

Room: “Oh, Okay…” “That’s pretty cool.” 

Cochran: And people have been in those, right? There are doors to them, y’know. Cause that’s what they did, they put ice in there, and then that would serve as their refrigerator, so they could keep meat and other things cool. Milk, whatever –cool. 

Jaime: But that was separated on their own area and didn’t connect to anything. 

Cochran: Yes. Dug out of the side of a hill. 

F&P: To make it personal, we used to live on Morningside Dr., that still had a pie safe in it, and surely in the spot the ice chest used to, and down in the basement, we’d go down and sneak cigarettes every now and again. There was this room that the cave crickets and the dark ruled, but with imagination running wild, now, I want to take an auger down there and see if there’s an old cistern or cave entrance. 

Cothran: Cellars. Functions as the same thing, just old cellars in the basement. A lot of times people walk into old spaces underground, that are somewhat finished off –meaning they have something on the wall to make it look like it was carved out… 

Cochran: So, my theory is… 

F&P: It feeds the conflation theory… 

Cochran: Yeah. People have heard these stories over the years, and then they have walked into these places and make the mental connection, which you can understand. 

Cochran: I’ll just tell you, I’ve seen zero historical evidence. In military reports, in court cases, in claims cases. I mean, I mean these are all in -private letters, personal letters- I’ve never, never seen any of this stuff mentioned. 

Jaime: Can I quote you on YouTube as saying that? And give the people some answers. 

Cochran: Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Jaime: All right. Andrew, get your butt over here and open this. Are you okay doing this on YouTube? 

Andy: Yeah, that’s fine. 

Cochran: Stick that thing under there, see if you can… I think you probably better ask Dianne before you put it on YouTube, though. 

Tasha: She said give us a plug. We need to raise money to reinforce all this. 

Jaime: Yes, baby! 

Cochran: Okay. 

[…]  31:31, somebody walks in the room into what we’re doing, “I don’t know that I’ve ever been in this part. I’m used to being in front a lot, up there where the bar is” [Room laughs]. 

Audio recording, “Gyro Kitchen,” July 20, 2025, 30:00: 

Andy: Oh, I see it. There it is, right there…. 

[[[And, the traveler’s quote, on the outskirts of town, 31A and Lauren’s old road (not morningside) (Wiliam Whitworth Rd at Lewisberg Hwy/31A/11]]]

More information on the Tyler Werner concert at Legion Post 60, 38478 can be found at their Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/BobWalls196771/, with the STAAR Theatre located in Pulaski Square’s classic Antoinette Hall, located at 105 N. First St., Pulaski, TN.

Milk, Honey, and Mayhem, Pulaski-local historian and researcher, Jamie Duncan’s YouTube Channel, can be found at www.youtube.com/@MilkHoneyandMayhem. As the site’s picking up, new topics/local lore, area fascinations, and Pulaski-stuff you should know are consistently updated and greeted, “Hey, y’all.” 

Tickets and information for the August 9^th Antoinette Hall, Legion Post 60 benefit can be found there, too. 

Cochran Pruett is a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel and combat veteran of over 20-years of military service. While serving, he had specialized duties in history and leadership development. He is a public historian with an emphasis on projects at the local level. His academic interests include Public History, Global Conflict, technological applications to historical research, and interdisciplinary collaboration especially in Psychology and Business. Cochran is currently working towards his Doctoral degree at the MTSU History Dept., according to Andrew.

More information and Registration for Cochran’s history classes can be found through UT Southern, https://utsouthern.edu/person/cochran-pruett/ 

Folk & Proper News is an area-quarterly out of Murfreesboro and Franklin, TN presented to Middle Tennessee as a grand section and nothing less.