A Mill Town Preserved

Lyrics

Some towns pave it over.
Some towns let it fade.
We just drew a map around the story.
And we live in the thing we made.

Down by Vickery Creek, the brick bones stand.
The Roswell Manufacturing Company, a ghost in the land.
The water wheel is silent, since 1839.
But we kept the walls, we drew the line.
Didn't tear it down for a parking lot.
Didn't call it progress, what it's not.
We left the ruins right there in the woods,
a quiet promise, understood.

This ain't no museum town, gathering dust on a shelf.
This is a choice we made, to remember ourself.
From the Mill to the Hall, the Square to the stream,
living out the Roswell dream.
A mill town preserved, a future deserved.
Every brick and every curve.

Up on the hill, Bulloch Hall still gleams.
You can stand in the parlor of Mittie's dreams.
December 22, 1853.
A Roosevelt story, born right here, you see.
And that old schoolhouse from the 1940s?
It's the Cultural Arts Center now, holding quilters' parties.
We don't just save the past, we give it a new room.
We let the history bloom.

This ain't no museum town, gathering dust on a shelf.
This is a choice we made, to remember ourself.
From the Mill to the Hall, the Square to the stream,
living out the Roswell dream.
A mill town preserved, a future deserved.
Every brick and every curve.

Then in 2005, we put faces on the street.
Bronze busts on the corners, history concrete.
Roswell King watching the traffic go by.
And we built a boardwalk under the sky,
down by the Chattahoochee's flow.
Making new history, just watch it grow.
It's not about what was. It's about what we keep.
A promise buried deep.

Yeah, a mill town preserved!
A future deserved!
Walking the Square with a story to tell.
Yeah, this is Roswell.
This is Roswell.
Living well.