🔧 FRANKLIN FIXTURES: SAYING GOODBYE TO TRUE VALUE

If you’ve driven down Columbia Avenue lately, it’s hard not to notice that sign.
Harpeth True Value.
Soon it won’t be there.

It’s a strange feeling knowing that a place that’s been part of Franklin for more than fifty years is about to go dark. One day — next month, actually — the doors will be closed, the plants won’t sit out front anymore, and that familiar hardware store that has always been there… won’t be.

It never was exactly a destination location, but it was the kind of place that hummed with the rhythm of daily life — the kind of stop you simply assumed would always be around.

Stepping through the front door felt like going backward in time.

Old hardware stores have that personality. Narrow aisles. Shelves full of parts you didn’t know you needed — until you did. That one old guy in coveralls who seemed to know everything. Somewhere inside that building was always the exact washer or oddly sized bolt needed to finish whatever project had stalled out in the garage.

And then there was the garden center.

Plants sat out along the front, colorful and lively, giving the place a welcoming look. For many — present company included — walking through the garden section carried the same familiarity as stepping into grandmother’s backyard. Plants everywhere, the sense that someone had been tending them carefully for a long time.

But in recent months, the place felt different.

The shelves were thinner. The bustling hardware-store energy had faded. To be honest, it felt less like the aging of a Franklin institution and more like the final stage of decay.

Recent news confirmed what many had begun to suspect: Harpeth True Value will close its doors, ending a business that served Franklin for more than half a century.

But what led to this?

The store changed ownership in 2022; the new owner acknowledged what may have been the Achilles’ heel: the loss of contractor relationships tied to the lumber department, which accounted for over 70 percent of the store’s business. Also, the owner acknowledged living in Miami while operating the store — a difficult arrangement for a business built on local relationships.

Regardless of why it happened, none of that changes what the place represented for decades.

True Value was the kind of store where people stopped by to refill propane tanks, grab a drill bit, or wander the aisles looking for the part that might finally solve a household dilemma. It had the rare ability to make a hardware run feel less like a chore and more like a quick trip into a familiar corner of town.

And as the store prepares to close, it’s hard not to notice how much Columbia Avenue has changed over the years.

Just a few blocks away, another hardware store that once operated there is long gone, its brick façade now overshadowed by the Margin District development rising around it. In the same corridor, Bunganut Pig shut down just last year after a long decline. Even Burger King quietly disappeared, replaced by a Chipotle.

Businesses fade. New ones arrive. Roads that once held small storefronts slowly evolve into something different — which isn’t the kind of story currently seen in Nashville, where soaring rents push longtime businesses off the block overnight. Franklin’s changes tend to move at a slower, quieter pace — small pieces gently slipping away.

Soon, when you drive past that corner, the plants will no longer be sitting out front. The propane tank exchange won’t be there. The aisles of spare nuts and bolts — tragically — gone too.

Then, the memories may sneak up: the quick stop on the way home from the soccer fields or a baseball game, kids still dusty from the afternoon, grabbing a snow cone from the little stand in the parking lot corner before heading home.

Places like that accumulate small snapshots — the kind that mean nothing at the moment, and maybe everything later.

But somewhere down the road — toward Thompson’s Station — there’s still another little hardware store buzzing along. Walk inside and it still carries some of that old-time appeal — people coming and going, shelves packed tight with parts, the sense that someone behind the counter probably knows exactly where the thing you’re looking for is hiding. The tradition may not be gone entirely.

Still, the closing of Harpeth True Value marks the passing of something familiar.

Whether it’s changing habits, market realities, or simple timing hardly matters now. A Franklin institution is closing its doors.

So maybe the only thing left to say is thank you.

Thank you to the guy in the coveralls — to the person who filled the propane tanks and worked the cash register. And thank you to whoever kept those plants alive out front year after year.

Harpeth True Value — true value, indeed. You will be sorely missed.