I have to say, the mural in downtown Franklin looks really, really good. Although, I’ll have to admit I was skeptical when the project first started.

I was in the office when someone first told me that an artist had been hired to paint a mural on the side of the Coldwell Banker building and the painting would be based on what the area looked like in the early 1900s. I supposed I had never really thought about what Franklin looked like all those years ago, and I just assumed that the picture would be kind of plain and not-detailed.

However, I am more than pleased to see that the outcome of the mural is anything but plain, ordinary or lacking in detail. I think Happy the Artist has done an absolutely fantastic job and I know I’m not the only who thinks so.

From the wagons, people, newspaper boy, cars, clothing, train and everything else, the mural not only makes you wish you could have lived during that time period, it almost makes you feel like you are actually there.

There is not a day that goes by that I don’t see people stopping to look at the wall and admire each individual detail of it.

While interviewing Happy, as well as the Director of the Downtown Franklin Association Dan Howe, I learned that this mural will be the first of many. Dan said that the association would be hiring different artists to paint murals on other buildings, representing other images from the past, the present and even the future.

I’m sure many of you are thinking the same thing I am … how is someone going to paint what the future of downtown Franklin? I certainly wouldn’t be able to do it.

But I supposed that whoever the painter is will have an idea of what they hope this area will look like 50 or even 100 years from now.

I will not doubt this idea, as I did the mural to begin with though, because I was clearly proved wrong before. However, I will say that future painters have their work cut out for them, because Happy has set the bar pretty high.

I think I speak for many when I say we are looking forward to the outcome of the next several months and the art that will come to downtown.

REBECCA CHAPPELL is a staff writer at The Tidewater News. She can be contacted at 562-3187 or rebecca.chappell@tidewaternews.com