Early’s Honey Stand is easy to miss on Main Street in downtown Franklin, but hard to forget about.
The business, originally founded by Erskine Early in 1925 in Spring Hill, was saved and rehabilitated by father and son Curt and Curtis Gibbs in 2010. Two years later they opened at 209 E. Main Street, in the historic Dr. McPhail building, built in 1815 as a doctor’s office and used by the Union as its headquarters in the Battle of Franklin. It now sits, as the town grew around it, across from Baskin Robbins and on the edge of the currently-under-renovation First Tennessee Bank building.
They now have three locations: 209 E. Main Street in Franklin, 5075 Main St in Spring Hill and 300 N. Maple Street in Lebanon, and also operate the oldest mail-order service in the South, selling their range of southern comfort foods.
In 1925, Early’s was just a simple roadside honey stand under a big shade tree on U.S. Highway 31 in Spring Hill. During the summer they sold their rich golden and come winter slow-smoked country meats.
Today they have added jams, mixes, cheeses, nuts, and other sausages and country fixins.
Their first customers came from people driving along 31, which until Interstate 65 came in the 1960s was the main north-south route, who stopped in on their way through. Eventually people started calling in to ask Early’s to send their products to them, and thus their mail-order business was born.
Today they can boast of having shipped off cheeses, country-cookin’ mixes and thick-sliced bacon to Supreme Court justices, Fortune 500 CEOs and even celebrities the likes of Elvis Presley, back in the day.
“This area has always had a serious appreciation for its heritage and a devotion to the town’s legacy,” Curtis said. “We think that sense of community really mixes well with our mission and the story behind the business.”
Learn more at https://www.earlysgifts.com. They are open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
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