How a Craft Fair Saved Morristown's Castle, and Why Mountain Makins Is Free This Year

The red brick building on West Second North Street has a bell tower with an open belfry, two round turrets with cone-shaped roofs, and patterned brickwork that catches the light in late afternoon. Some local kids call it a castle. In 1975 the plan for it was demolition.

That building is the Rose School, and Morristown knows it today as the Rose Center. It is still standing because a group of residents raised money to replace its roof and reopened it as a museum and cultural center. The festival that started as part of that rescue is the Mountain Makins Festival, and this year it lands on Saturday and Sunday, October 24 and 25, with no admission charge.

Most people treat Mountain Makins as a fall event that happens to be held at a handsome old building. The record points the other way. The building is why the festival exists, and this year's free gate says a good deal about how the people running it see their job.

From a Schoolhouse to a Cultural Center

Rose School opened in 1892 as Morristown's first coeducational public high school. The Rose Center's own history page says it is named for Judge James G. Rose, chairman of the school board when planning for the school began. What happened next is easy to lose track of, so here is the sequence as the Rose Center and a Rogersville Review history of the building lay it out.

• 1892: The school is completed near the Hamblen County courthouse and originally houses ten grades.
• 1916: The high school moves into a separate building, and Rose School continues as an elementary school.
• 1950s: The school expands with four classrooms, a cafeteria and a gymnasium.
• 1975: The school closes, and there are plans to demolish it.
• 1976: Rose Center Council for the Arts is established, and the original section of the building is placed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 18.
• 1977: The first Mountain Makins Festival is held, according to the Rogersville Review.

That last line is worth a second look. The Rose Center was organized in 1976, and the festival followed within a year or so. WATE describes the festival as established as a fundraiser to save the old school building. The Rose Center is now marking its 50th year, and organizers are calling this the festival's 50th as well.

A $1 Lease and a Building That Runs on Volunteers

The financial arrangement behind the Castle is one of the most unusual details in downtown Morristown. According to the Rogersville Review, the Morristown and Hamblen County Bicentennial Commission took over the building and leased it from the City of Morristown for $1 per year. That article says the same arrangement is still in effect. The Citizen Tribune has reported that the Rose Center Council for the Arts maintains the building and grounds for the city, which owns it.

A rent of $1 does not make a building free to run. The Rose Center describes itself as a volunteer-driven organization supported by gifts, memberships, program fees and public contributions. It is also a designated agency of the Tennessee Arts Commission. Executive Director Beccy Hamm told the Rogersville Review that one of the main sources of income is renting rooms, and that Mountain Makins is the big event each year.

Hamm summed up what the place means with one line in that same piece:

"I can't imagine Morristown without the Rose Center."

In 1975 that was a live question.

What a Free Ticket Changes

Admission to Mountain Makins was $10 in 2024, with children under 12 free. This year the festival page on Eventeny says there will be no admission fee in celebration of the Rose Center's and Mountain Makins' 50th year, and that organizers are expecting record crowds.

The reason organizers give is specific. They wrote that they hope the free gate will mean a significant increase in sales for their craft vendors. That is a decision about who benefits from the weekend. The door money goes back to visitors, and the bet is that a bigger crowd spends more at the booths.

Those booths are the heart of the festival. The festival is juried, and the application lists categories including fiber, fine art, folk art, glass, jewelry, leather, handmade musical instruments, photography and sculpture. An inside booth is $200 for 80 square feet, and most are 8 by 10 feet. For a maker who pays that fee and drives in to set up, a bigger crowd matters more than a bigger gate.

The vendor schedule also tells you when downtown gets busy. Setup runs Thursday, October 22 and Friday, October 23, so vendors will be arriving at the Rose Center two days before the festival opens.

The Weekend in Practical Terms

Visitors to past festivals have found two stages of mountain music, storytelling, prize-winning dancers, regional authors and children's activities. The demonstrations of traditional crafts, including blacksmithing, basket making and wood turning, are one of the festival's signature features. Those descriptions come from earlier years, so the 2026 lineup is worth checking with the Rose Center before you plan around a particular act.

The festival has also collected some recognition. Southeast Festivals and Events named it the "Best Festival in the Southeast" for 2016 and 2019, and it is a four-time "Top 20 Event in the Southeast" winner. That recognition came to a festival that grew out of the effort to save the school.

The First Friday Concert Series Finale

The Castle has a counterpart downtown in the way it is run. The Morristown Farmers Market is owned by the City of Morristown and managed by the Morristown Chamber's Downtown Program Director. The market season runs May through October, and the event listing named Friday, October 2, as the last night of the First Friday Concert Series.

The event listing named the Lost Creek Band as the headliner. It advertised a free show, with an opener at 6 p.m. and the headliner at 7 p.m. It also listed food trucks and farmers market night vendors, and encouraged visitors to bring lawn chairs. The market is at 130 W. Morris Blvd.

The band formed in the 1970s, the same decade the Rose School was being rescued. Before the concert, Morristown bassist Tim Carpenter said the band was looking forward to playing in town.

Both places show the same pattern. A city owns the space, and a community group or chamber program fills it with events. In 1975 that pattern kept a red brick school from being torn down. This October it fills the same building with a free festival.

Making a Day of It

Festival parking is the courthouse lot on Jackson Street, several city lots downtown, and the streets surrounding the festival. The Rose Center sits near the Hamblen County courthouse, so the courthouse lot is the natural first stop.

Anyone who has driven past the Castle for years without going inside has a natural reason to go this year, since the cost of getting in is nothing. The Rose Center's website tells the building's story, and Beccy Hamm calls Mountain Makins the center's big event each year.

If you are planning your Mountain Makins weekend and want a fellow Morristown local's suggestions for the blocks around the Rose Center, Michael Turner is happy to swap notes. Let's Connect.