by Marcus Washington
SPRINGFIELD, Tenn. - The Cracker Barrel rocking chair is just about as famous and the Old Country Store's food. It's been a staple there for more than 50 years and all of those chairs are hand made here in the mid-state.
It's called the Old Country Store and the handmade rocking chairs out front add that welcome home feel that millions of customers, like Peggy Mills, enjoy.
"I'm meeting a friend here, so I thought I'd just enjoy myself and sit in one of these wonderful rockers," said Mills as she waits in the white wooden rocker.
These rockers were rocking people more than a century before anyone thought of Cracker Barrel as a place to eat.
In 1834, the Hinkle family from Pennsylvania started farming and making chairs out from their tobacco barn in Robertson County. More than 130 years later Hinkle Chair Company partnered with Cracker Barrel in making rocking chairs.
"They wanted to purchase a couple of rockers to sit on their porch for their guests to sit (on). That was the initial idea for them to do and as they set them, people started requesting to buy them," said Jeff Hinkle, Vice President of Hinkle Chair Company.
To supply nearly 200,000 rockers for Cracker Barrel each year, it takes loyal employees like Lois Henley and Betty Lucas who have been working at the company for more than 30 years.
Lucas sits here day after day making sure each rocker is constructed to perfection.
"It helps put the cords together so you hardly see as many cracks as it was when it came off the machine," she said.
From one station to the next, 45 in all, employees put their magic touch on each chair. It's a job that offers a reward that isn't summed up in the amount of money you make.
"It makes me feel good because I know I helped put something together that somebody can use and I can see my work in different places and on people's porches and stuff. It feels good," said Lucas.
It's the visible appreciation that is seen after these rockers are packed up and ship off. Making their way to homes or just making people feel like they are there.
"It's very comfortable. I wouldn't mind having a couple of these on my front porch," said Mills.
The chair company has been run by five generations of the Hinkle family since 1834.
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