# BONUS SERIES: Our Town Chapter 1 | Sometimes You Find Silver

An episode of [Bloomberg Tech](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1611767434), 27 Sep 2026, 45 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/41764a4f-fc64-4e11-89ba-ae7c0030ab5e/0a2a4d6d-3c5e-4ee7-98d2-b4cf00a09801/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=9caafc41-289c-4115-995d-ae7c0030ab75

Oh, the things you can find with an inquisitive mind – and a metal detector. Today we’re bringing you Chapter 1 of Our Town, a limited-run series from The Big Take, hosted by Meribah Knight with Bloomberg’s Susan Berfield. The series tells the story of a battle over identity fought on small town soil, where acreage, heritage, and what it means to be an American are all up for grabs. The limited-run series will publish on Fridays in The Big Take. We have a special Bloomberg subscription offer for podcast listeners at Bloomberg.com/podcastoffer. Hosted by Meribah Knight with Susan Berfield Produced by: Rebecca Laks with Julia Weaver and David Fox and help from Laura Newcombe Edited by: Ken Armstrong with Rebecca Laks Original Score and Mixing by: Alex Sugiura Fact-checking by: Annika Robbins Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts.
[0:05] Speaker 2: Radio.
[0:06] Speaker 3: News.
[0:08] Speaker 4: Our story starts with a guy and his metal detector.
[0:13] Speaker 5: I got it as a Christmas present one year. I
[0:15] Speaker 5: was young, 12, 13 or something like that. One of
[0:19] Speaker 5: the cheap ones, but I just liked the mystery of it.
[0:22] Speaker 5: There's this open field, nothing around, but here's a silver coin.
[0:26] Speaker 5: Like that was magical.
[0:28] Speaker 4: Brian Allen grew up metal detecting in his hometown of Gainesboro, Tennessee,
[0:33] Speaker 4: a teensy town in the foothills of Appalachia. People call
[0:37] Speaker 4: it the Switzerland of the Cumberlands. Lush rolling hills, sweeping vistas,
[0:43] Speaker 4: and a lot of history.
[0:44] Speaker 5: I found a lot of moonshine sites, old shotgun shellheads.
[0:48] Speaker 5: You can tell modern ones because they have the plastic.
[0:50] Speaker 4: During the Civil War, the Confederate Army would post up
[0:53] Speaker 4: by Gainesboro. to seize the Union Army's supplies as they
[0:56] Speaker 4: floated by on the Cumberland River.
[0:58] Speaker 5: Horse stuff.
[0:59] Speaker 4: So for the right person.
[1:01] Speaker 1: Broken horseshoes.
[1:02] Speaker 4: It's a treasure trove.
[1:03] Speaker 5: Axes. Just the mystery of just putting something together. I'm
[1:07] Speaker 5: a very quiet person. If I'm talking about something I'm
[1:09] Speaker 5: passionate about, then I can go.
[1:13] Speaker 4: There was one piece of land that backed right up
[1:16] Speaker 4: to a curve in the river. Bryant had been eyeing
[1:19] Speaker 4: it for years. 99 acres of farmland.
[1:23] Speaker 5: Was over by the high school. That's the one that
[1:26] Speaker 5: I really wanted to hit.
[1:28] Speaker 4: A place that's about to produce his biggest discovery yet.
[1:34] Speaker 4: This is the summer of 2024. Bryant goes digging through
[1:37] Speaker 4: public records to get permission from the owner to metal detect.
[1:42] Speaker 4: And he realizes it's been sold recently to a name
[1:45] Speaker 4: he doesn't recognize. Now, Gainesboro is a town of a
[1:49] Speaker 4: thousand people, many of whom are related. So it's a
[1:53] Speaker 4: peculiar thing to find a name you've never heard of.
[1:56] Speaker 5: Because most of the time, you know, he would sell
[1:58] Speaker 5: it to Jim Bob over at the holler. So it
[2:00] Speaker 5: stays in the family, so that intrigued me.
[2:02] Speaker 4: Because if someone local didn't buy the land, then who did?
[2:06] Speaker 5: I have a very inquisitive mind about things. I have
[2:09] Speaker 5: far-fetched ideas, and some of them work out and some don't.
[2:13] Speaker 5: I think that goes back to my metal detecting. Like, yeah, 90%
[2:15] Speaker 5: of the time I'll go out there and find garbage.
[2:19] Speaker 5: But sometimes you find silver.
[2:25] Speaker 4: So he Googles some of the details on the property
[2:27] Speaker 4: record and sees that it was some real estate guy
[2:30] Speaker 4: who bought the land. And that leads him to a company,
[2:34] Speaker 4: one called Ridge Runner USA. He goes to the Ridge
[2:38] Speaker 4: Runner website.
[2:40] Speaker 5: The first thing you see when it pops up is
[2:43] Speaker 5: pioneers in Appalachia.
[2:45] Speaker 4: Pioneers in Appalachia. The website is spare with that single
[2:50] Speaker 4: phrase over an image of an open field with a
[2:53] Speaker 4: winding dirt road. And below, an invitation to learn more.
[2:59] Speaker 4: Bryant clicks.
[3:01] Speaker 5: Ridge Runner is building pioneer communities in the old American heartland.
[3:06] Speaker 4: Ridge Runner appears to be some kind of real estate company.
[3:10] Speaker 5: We see rising demand for new types of communities around
[3:14] Speaker 5: a shared vision for local life in America. I'm like,
[3:19] Speaker 5: hang on, that was when I was like, well, you
[3:21] Speaker 5: know something.
[3:23] Speaker 4: Bryant searches more. and finds that Ridge Runner seems to
[3:27] Speaker 4: be affiliated with a larger company called Newfounding. That website
[3:33] Speaker 4: is packed with even grander pronouncements.
[3:36] Speaker 5: We are forging an alliance to revitalize American civilization, bringing builders, creators,
[3:42] Speaker 5: and concerned citizens together. Build the America you want to
[3:47] Speaker 5: live in. And it's like, but it's already built. I'm like, eesh. Yeah,
[3:55] Speaker 5: that don't sound good.
[3:57] Speaker 4: From what Bryant can discern, Newfounding is involved in all
[4:01] Speaker 4: sorts of things. Venture capital, media, and real estate. That's
[4:07] Speaker 4: where Ridge Runner comes in. Both companies, Ridge Runner and Newfounding,
[4:12] Speaker 4: seem ambitious and filled with big ideas.
[4:17] Speaker 5: Pioneers, Frontier, all the words for oppression and conquering. We're
[4:24] Speaker 5: going to convert these heathens. Like, it gave me that feel. Like,
[4:28] Speaker 5: this was their manifest destiny.
[4:30] Speaker 4: Ridge Runner, new founding, those 99 acres across from the
[4:34] Speaker 4: high school. Bryant is trying to figure out what's in
[4:37] Speaker 4: front of him.
[4:38] Speaker 5: Like, what am I missing?
[4:40] Speaker 4: What was happening in his quiet hometown? In the months following, Bryant,
[4:50] Speaker 4: who is painfully shy... reveals his discovery to only one person,
[4:55] Speaker 4: a co-worker. But he keeps tracking Ridge Runner, the real
[4:58] Speaker 4: estate company, and finds more land getting scooped up in
[5:03] Speaker 4: and around Gainesboro. Bryant had stumbled into something, the beginning
[5:09] Speaker 4: of an ambitious project, to make Gainesboro a new type
[5:13] Speaker 4: of town, filled with like-minded people. This tiny town would
[5:19] Speaker 4: soon realize that, It was part of a much larger experiment,
[5:23] Speaker 4: backed by people with powerful connections and plenty of money,
[5:28] Speaker 4: to build the America they want to live in, starting
[5:32] Speaker 4: with Gainesboro. From Bloomberg News, I'm Maribyn Knight, reporting along
[5:38] Speaker 4: with Susan Burfield, and you're listening to Our Town. This
[5:42] Speaker 4: is Chapter One, Sometimes You Find Silver. A few months
[5:56] Speaker 4: before Brian Allen, the metal detecting enthusiast, started snooping around
[6:00] Speaker 4: about those 99 acres, a new face started turning up
[6:04] Speaker 4: at the stolen coin restaurant. The coin, as it's called,
[6:08] Speaker 4: is a local institution. It's owned by Cassie Kessler and
[6:13] Speaker 4: her husband, who's the chef. Brian Allen goes there often,
[6:18] Speaker 4: as do many day-tripping tourists. It's right on the town square.
[6:23] Speaker 4: The town square, which is one square block with an
[6:26] Speaker 4: old courthouse in the middle, is Gainesboro's social hub. It's
[6:30] Speaker 4: where people come to gossip, to shop, to pick up
[6:33] Speaker 4: a prescription, or eat a plate of biscuits and chocolate gravy.
[6:38] Speaker 4: It's a southern thing. An Appalachian special. It was in
[6:42] Speaker 4: the midst of all this when Cassie saw that new
[6:45] Speaker 4: face at her restaurant. A real estate guy.
[6:49] Speaker 1: I had become.
[6:50] Speaker 6: pretty good acquaintance. He knew my first name basis, would
[6:54] Speaker 6: come in. Anytime he would come in, I would sit
[6:56] Speaker 6: and talk to him.
[6:57] Speaker 4: Cassie is energetic, a fast, urgent talker, flitting from table
[7:02] Speaker 4: to table in the Coyne's cozy dining room.
[7:05] Speaker 3: Hi, Dave baby.
[7:05] Speaker 4: How are you?
[7:06] Speaker 5: Good.
[7:06] Speaker 6: I just like to table touch, like to talk to people.
[7:09] Speaker 6: It's a small town. Like I know everybody in that restaurant.
[7:15] Speaker 4: And this new face, the real estate guy, he was
[7:17] Speaker 4: a great customer.
[7:19] Speaker 1: Very, very personable.
[7:21] Speaker 4: And seemingly interested in investing in Gainesboro. And Cassie had
[7:26] Speaker 4: a hot tip.
[7:27] Speaker 6: My lawyer at the time was looking to sell his spot.
[7:33] Speaker 4: The building was right around the corner from the restaurant,
[7:36] Speaker 4: right off the town square. A prime location and rare find.
[7:40] Speaker 6: And I had mentioned it because some of the other
[7:43] Speaker 6: buildings in town, it's very hard for them to come.
[7:45] Speaker 6: They're passed down through family members. Cassie had learned this
[7:48] Speaker 6: about Gainesboro, that it was tight-knit. She'd moved there about
[7:52] Speaker 6: five years earlier from Florida, and the town had given
[7:55] Speaker 6: her a lot. I could not have been to this
[7:59] Speaker 6: point in my life without the support of this town,
[8:03] Speaker 6: whether it's council members, community members, business members, employees.
[8:07] Speaker 1: Like, it has just been an effort from everybody.
[8:13] Speaker 4: Cassie is a recovering drug user, sober 13 years. So
[8:17] Speaker 4: the idea of having this kind of welcome and support
[8:20] Speaker 4: system to open a business, it meant everything to her.
[8:24] Speaker 1: I was such a bad person for such a long time.
[8:26] Speaker 6: And it's really nice to like take that effort that
[8:30] Speaker 6: I used to be into being an addict and put
[8:31] Speaker 6: it into the good stuff in the community and like helping.
[8:35] Speaker 6: It just is like, I know it sounds cheesy, and
[8:38] Speaker 6: I say, it does. It's better than being high. Like,
[8:40] Speaker 6: it really is. It makes you feel good. It makes
[8:42] Speaker 6: you feel valuable. All the opposite feelings you get whenever
[8:46] Speaker 6: you're an addict.
[8:48] Speaker 4: Cassie loved helping Gainsborough grow, because like her, it too
[8:52] Speaker 4: had struggled in years past. Hollowed out by job losses
[8:56] Speaker 4: and stagnant wages, nearby factories had closed, the shirt factory,
[9:01] Speaker 4: Oshkosh Bagosh. Then came the opioid epidemic. But over the
[9:06] Speaker 4: past decade, people like Cassie had started opening restaurants and
[9:11] Speaker 4: stores that drew tourists. So when this real estate guy
[9:14] Speaker 4: showed up in town and bought the building that Cassie
[9:17] Speaker 4: tipped him off to, she was delighted. He bought it
[9:21] Speaker 4: along with his son, who'd just moved from Texas to Gainesboro.
[9:25] Speaker 4: He was becoming a regular, too. His name was Josh Abitoy.
[9:31] Speaker 4: Soon he'd started coming in with other men. men who
[9:34] Speaker 4: also seemed new to the town. She wasn't sure if
[9:37] Speaker 4: they were colleagues or friends.
[9:40] Speaker 6: As many times as they came into my restaurant or
[9:42] Speaker 6: did anything, they never would talk to me. But that
[9:46] Speaker 6: didn't deter Cassie from chatting Josh Abitoy up. After I'd
[9:52] Speaker 6: found out that they had bought it, Josh, his father,
[9:55] Speaker 6: and another gentleman were sitting at the restaurant.
[9:57] Speaker 1: And I can remember, I remember it was table 10.
[9:59] Speaker 6: And I was sitting there talking to them about, you know,
[10:03] Speaker 6: what are you guys doing? And, oh, it's an appraisal business.
[10:06] Speaker 6: Just very, like, not putting a direct stamp on it. Like,
[10:09] Speaker 6: we're still trying to figure out, it's going to be
[10:11] Speaker 6: a couple different things.
[10:13] Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, I'm going to have to
[10:14] Speaker 1: come down and check it out.
[10:16] Speaker 4: All the Gainesboro business owners were close.
[10:20] Speaker 6: Here in town, like, all the businesses on the square, we, like,
[10:23] Speaker 6: do so many things together.
[10:24] Speaker 1: We just are each other's biggest cheerleaders.
[10:27] Speaker 4: But that was not the response she got from Josh Abitoy.
[10:30] Speaker 1: And I can.
[10:31] Speaker 6: Remember him looking up at me and saying, we're just
[10:33] Speaker 6: going to have to wait till it's done. We're not
[10:35] Speaker 6: going to let anybody in there till it's done.
[10:37] Speaker 1: From right then, it was, like, closed off.
[10:40] Speaker 6: It went from open conversation to, like, now I'm just
[10:43] Speaker 6: not going to talk about what this place is anymore.
[10:46] Speaker 1: I should have been like, well, that's kind of weird.
[10:49] Speaker 4: Then, a couple months after Abitoy purchased that building by
[10:52] Speaker 4: the square, the town would find out why. Nothing was
[10:56] Speaker 4: quite the same for Gainesboro after that. More after the break.
[11:05] Speaker 7: A friend of mine texted me about three o'clock.
[11:10] Speaker 4: It was a Friday in mid-November when Mark Dudney, a
[11:13] Speaker 4: preservation planner and historian for the area, received a message
[11:17] Speaker 4: from his friend. It was about an upcoming news story.
[11:21] Speaker 7: Phil Williams was going to have a piece on Monday night.
[11:25] Speaker 4: Phil Williams is an investigative reporter with News Channel 5
[11:28] Speaker 4: in Nashville, been on the air for decades, and has
[11:32] Speaker 4: a well-known series called Confronting Hate.
[11:35] Speaker 2: New data appear to reveal a disturbing trend, the rise
[11:38] Speaker 2: of hate in Tennessee.
[11:40] Speaker 4: And the next story in the series, Mark learned, was
[11:43] Speaker 4: going to be about Gainesboro.
[11:45] Speaker 7: I felt like my blood pressure ramped up. I don't
[11:48] Speaker 7: have an alarmist personality. I'm a really flatline on an EKG.
[11:54] Speaker 4: Mark had grown up in Gainesboro, then left after high school,
[11:58] Speaker 4: but had recently moved back.
[12:00] Speaker 7: Well, this is sort of getting into personal stuff, but
[12:02] Speaker 7: I got divorced last year.
[12:05] Speaker 4: For Mark, like Cassie, Gainesboro was a place to recover,
[12:10] Speaker 4: to breathe.
[12:11] Speaker 7: My family has been here seven generations. I grew up
[12:15] Speaker 7: going to a little church right down the road here,
[12:17] Speaker 7: very tight-knit.
[12:19] Speaker 4: Mark's dad had also passed away that year, Dr.
[12:22] Speaker 8: Dudney.
[12:23] Speaker 4: He was Gainesboro's beloved local doctor, delivered many of the
[12:26] Speaker 4: town's babies. So Mark had a lot to process. Being
[12:31] Speaker 4: home helped. So had turning off the news.
[12:34] Speaker 7: I was listening to a lot of Allman Brothers. And
[12:36] Speaker 7: so that was just a pleasure to be back here.
[12:41] Speaker 7: That lasted about six weeks.
[12:43] Speaker 4: More specifically, until November 18, 2024, the night the TV
[12:49] Speaker 4: news story about Gainesboro aired.
[12:53] Speaker 7: That Monday night, I watched it with my sister.
[12:57] Speaker 2: Tonight, News Channel 5 Investigates special report reveals the Christian
[13:02] Speaker 2: nationalists who want to turn a small Middle Tennessee community
[13:05] Speaker 2: into their base of operations.
[13:07] Speaker 1: Phil, you found that longtime residents.
[13:10] Speaker 9: Didn't even know this was happening. This has very much
[13:12] Speaker 9: been developing under the radar.
[13:15] Speaker 7: I was glued to the television.
[13:16] Speaker 4: Mark pulled a chair right up to the TV.
[13:19] Speaker 9: In many ways, the views of some of these people
[13:22] Speaker 9: are not so different from the white supremacists we've seen
[13:25] Speaker 9: marching down Nashville streets in the past year, although they
[13:28] Speaker 9: dress up their ideas with intellectual buzzwords and call it Christian.
[13:33] Speaker 9: And they've announced that Gainesboro, the Jackson County seat, will
[13:37] Speaker 9: be the focus of their efforts to resettle like-minded people
[13:40] Speaker 9: from around the country.
[13:43] Speaker 4: The goal, from what Mark understood, was to turn Gainesboro
[13:47] Speaker 4: into their own type of Christian town. The report focused
[13:51] Speaker 4: on two newcomers, a pair of podcasters who had already
[13:54] Speaker 4: moved to Gainesboro.
[13:56] Speaker 9: They say they, quote, hate democracy, they're rooting for a
[13:59] Speaker 9: partisan dictator, and they think God made men to rule
[14:03] Speaker 9: over women.
[14:04] Speaker 4: Williams described the two podcasters as ambassadors for the larger venture.
[14:09] Speaker 9: The two Christian nationalists denounced the efforts of civil rights
[14:12] Speaker 9: leader Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in general.
[14:16] Speaker 9: They celebrate images of whites-only diners in the 50s, and
[14:19] Speaker 9: they mock historical incidents.
[14:21] Speaker 4: As Mark watched, he learned the real estate group running
[14:24] Speaker 4: the whole venture had already bought 100 acres right in Gainesboro,
[14:28] Speaker 4: and another 500 acres somewhere in the Appalachian Hills, all
[14:33] Speaker 4: to build the community.
[14:35] Speaker 7: We were all flat-footed. We didn't have a clue where.
[14:41] Speaker 4: The report, a mere 10 minutes, shook the tiny town. Mark,
[14:46] Speaker 4: despite his usual flatline EKG demeanor, was feeling all sorts
[14:50] Speaker 4: of feelings.
[14:53] Speaker 7: I do remember getting hot. The arrogance, the hubris is mind-blowing.
[15:03] Speaker 4: There was a phrase in the news report that hit
[15:05] Speaker 4: Mark especially hard. Christian Nationalist. With his penchant for constitutional history,
[15:11] Speaker 4: he was familiar with the term Christian nationalist, though many
[15:15] Speaker 4: of his fellow residents were not.
[15:17] Speaker 7: To me, Christian nationalism is fundamentally un-American. Really, this is
[15:22] Speaker 7: just about white supremacy.
[15:24] Speaker 4: One important note, the podcasters do not call themselves white supremacists.
[15:29] Speaker 4: They've called their podcast, quote, the number one Christian nationalist
[15:33] Speaker 4: podcast in the world. But one of them told us
[15:36] Speaker 4: he doesn't describe himself that way. and the guy in
[15:39] Speaker 4: charge of the larger venture, says he's not a Christian nationalist.
[15:44] Speaker 4: Christian nationalists believe that America is a Christian nation and
[15:49] Speaker 4: should be led by Christians for Christians, and more specifically,
[15:53] Speaker 4: Christian men. Gainesboro, the Jackson County seat, may have seemed
[15:59] Speaker 4: like a good fit. The county is overwhelmingly white, 96%.
[16:03] Speaker 4: It's also Christian and conservative. 81% voted for Trump. So
[16:10] Speaker 4: it might be easy to stereotype.
[16:12] Speaker 5: What people commonly think about Jackson County, they think we're
[16:15] Speaker 5: all backwards, hateful, racist, and, oh, he's from Jackson County. Like,
[16:19] Speaker 5: it carries something around here.
[16:21] Speaker 4: Brian Allen, the guy with the inquisitive mind and the
[16:24] Speaker 4: metal detector... had also watched the report and felt an
[16:28] Speaker 4: odd combo of emotions.
[16:30] Speaker 5: In a weird way, like vindication.
[16:32] Speaker 4: But he also felt.
[16:33] Speaker 5: Terror. This can't be real. I guess a here we
[16:36] Speaker 5: go moment. Like, you know, this isn't a fly-by-night LLC
[16:40] Speaker 5: that will be shut down. And they're here to, I guess, homestead.
[16:43] Speaker 5: To make a town. And I didn't know how the
[16:46] Speaker 5: community would react.
[16:47] Speaker 4: The town was practically vibrating.
[16:50] Speaker 1: Talking. Texting.
[16:51] Speaker 4: Googling. It was all the talk at church on Sunday.
[16:55] Speaker 4: Days later, Phil Williams returned for a follow-up story, a
[16:58] Speaker 4: sort of town hall on the square. About 40 people came.
[17:03] Speaker 9: When you hear them talking about coming here to build
[17:06] Speaker 9: a town, what's your reaction? This town is not for them.
[17:14] Speaker 4: The vice chair of the local Republican Party spoke up.
[17:17] Speaker 4: It scares me that they are very clear about taking over.
[17:26] Speaker 4: Bryant stood in the back of the room, his mind racing.
[17:30] Speaker 5: It was more like, wow, is this really happening?
[17:34] Speaker 4: It was all making sense now. He thought back to
[17:37] Speaker 4: the 99 acres across from the high school that he'd
[17:40] Speaker 4: investigated months before. Back then, he'd worried he was being
[17:44] Speaker 4: a little paranoid. Now he realized he'd been onto something.
[17:49] Speaker 4: That real estate company, Ridge Runner, the one Brian had Googled.
[17:54] Speaker 5: We see rising demand for new types of communities around
[17:57] Speaker 5: a shared vision for local life in America.
[18:02] Speaker 4: They were the ones who'd purchased those 99 acres. That
[18:06] Speaker 4: land was their start to building their community, to remaking Gainesboro.
[18:11] Speaker 5: Build the America you want to live in.
[18:14] Speaker 1: It was all a.
[18:15] Speaker 4: Part of this plan. Inside the town hall, Bryant was
[18:22] Speaker 4: relieved to hear his neighbor's objections.
[18:26] Speaker 9: What message would you have for these people?
[18:28] Speaker 3: We all want to be a part of a racial
[18:30] Speaker 3: hate community.
[18:35] Speaker 5: The bond that formed was almost magical.
[18:38] Speaker 4: This was the Gainesboro he knew. Meanwhile, Mark Dudney, the historian,
[18:45] Speaker 4: sat second row in the town hall, listening and making
[18:50] Speaker 4: all kinds of wild connections.
[18:52] Speaker 7: It was so close to Halloween. I've been watching horror movies,
[18:56] Speaker 7: and I shot my mouth off and made some reference
[18:58] Speaker 7: about Salem's Lot.
[19:00] Speaker 4: Salem's Lot, a novel-turned-film by Stephen King, in which a
[19:05] Speaker 4: man returns to his hometown only to discover that a
[19:08] Speaker 4: strange businessman has also arrived. along with an ancient vampire,
[19:13] Speaker 4: to take over the town.
[19:15] Speaker 7: And as far as I'm concerned, Mr. Barlow and Mr.
[19:17] Speaker 7: Straker can load up the coffin and get out of
[19:20] Speaker 7: Salem's lot. You've got somebody coming in who is trying
[19:26] Speaker 7: to recruit and multiply. And it was not that far
[19:32] Speaker 7: off as an analogy.
[19:34] Speaker 4: The town now believed it was part of a plan
[19:36] Speaker 4: to build a far-right community. that outside money was flowing
[19:40] Speaker 4: in to make it, and that podcasters, far-right Christians, were
[19:45] Speaker 4: already here and promoting it. Everything else was still a mystery.
[19:50] Speaker 4: What exactly was Ridge Runner? Who were these guys? And
[19:54] Speaker 4: how many were already in Gainesboro? There was one person
[19:59] Speaker 4: at the town hall, standing in the back near Bryant,
[20:02] Speaker 4: who had some answers. Cassie Kessler, the restaurant owner. She'd
[20:06] Speaker 4: recognized the two podcasters from the TV report. She knew them.
[20:11] Speaker 4: They'd eaten at her restaurant. And what's more, the real
[20:14] Speaker 4: estate guy, the one she'd helped find the building for,
[20:18] Speaker 4: his son, Josh Abitoy, who'd moved from Texas, he was
[20:22] Speaker 4: the leader. He was the CEO of Ridge Runner, the
[20:26] Speaker 4: company behind this whole thing.
[20:28] Speaker 6: Like, I instantly shot back to the night of the election.
[20:34] Speaker 4: The night of the 2024 presidential election, just two weeks earlier.
[20:39] Speaker 4: The last time Cassie had seen Josh Abitoy, he'd come
[20:42] Speaker 4: in for lunch that day and again for dinner.
[20:45] Speaker 6: We made sure a nice table was set up for them.
[20:48] Speaker 6: You know, Abitoy's family, they're all there with their whole family.
[20:53] Speaker 4: She and Abitoy even made a friendly wager.
[20:55] Speaker 1: I was like, who do you think's going to win?
[20:57] Speaker 1: And it was just like me just being like funny.
[20:59] Speaker 6: Like I can remember him leaning back like this and going,
[21:02] Speaker 6: it's going.
[21:02] Speaker 5: To be Trump.
[21:03] Speaker 1: He's going to take it.
[21:04] Speaker 6: And I was like, I'm going to buy you a
[21:06] Speaker 6: beer if he wins. He's like, okay, I'm going to
[21:08] Speaker 6: hold you up to that. And we just, you know, chuckled.
[21:12] Speaker 4: While Cassie headed home from the restaurant for an early bedtime,
[21:15] Speaker 4: a very different night was ahead for Josh Abitoy, who
[21:19] Speaker 4: left the coin to go be on a podcast.
[21:25] Speaker 8: Hello and welcome to Contra Modem.
[21:27] Speaker 5: It is election night.
[21:28] Speaker 8: I'm Andrew Isker. This over here is CJ Engel.
[21:31] Speaker 4: The hosts were the two podcasters, the ones who'd already
[21:34] Speaker 4: moved to town to help Josh Abitoy with the Ridge
[21:36] Speaker 4: Runner development. To many people in town, they'd become the
[21:40] Speaker 4: voice of the venture.
[21:42] Speaker 8: Awesome. All right, CJ, what are your thoughts?
[21:44] Speaker 1: I am ready to doomscrone.
[21:46] Speaker 8: Doomscroll Twitter all night long?
[21:47] Speaker 10: All night.
[21:48] Speaker 4: Cassie hadn't seen this live stream when it aired, but now,
[21:52] Speaker 4: after the TV news story, she watched some. It was
[21:55] Speaker 4: nearly nine hours.
[21:57] Speaker 6: So I was just very angry, and I knew that
[22:00] Speaker 6: I was going to see them at some point.
[22:02] Speaker 4: Many others in town now also watched, eager to learn
[22:05] Speaker 4: what they could about these newcomers. The two podcasters wore
[22:09] Speaker 4: matching blue suits and ties, thanks to their wives.
[22:12] Speaker 8: Yeah, they bullied us into matching.
[22:14] Speaker 4: They already seemed giddy.
[22:15] Speaker 5: You didn't get the pocket square.
[22:16] Speaker 10: I have the pocket square.
[22:17] Speaker 4: They're Trump supporters. Andrew Isker was new to Tennessee. He
[22:22] Speaker 4: said he fled Minnesota for its wokeness.
[22:24] Speaker 8: We will win.
[22:25] Speaker 4: His co-host, C.J. Engel, left California for the same reason.
[22:30] Speaker 8: I'm pleased as punch.
[22:34] Speaker 4: And now here they were, live streaming their podcast from Gainesboro,
[22:38] Speaker 4: from the same building Cassie had tipped Josh Abitoy and
[22:41] Speaker 4: his father off to. It was now Ridge Runner's headquarters.
[22:46] Speaker 4: The name of the podcast, Contramundum, is Latin for Against
[22:50] Speaker 4: the World.
[22:51] Speaker 10: I don't see any reason why things will continue to
[22:54] Speaker 10: justify women going more and more to college. Like women's
[22:58] Speaker 10: liberation or emancipation and the career women, that's only led
[23:01] Speaker 10: to despair. And I think that women are starting to
[23:03] Speaker 10: recognize that.
[23:04] Speaker 8: It will probably be easier to get rid of democracy
[23:06] Speaker 8: as a whole before getting rid of the 19th Amendment.
[23:10] Speaker 4: The 19th Amendment, the women's right to vote.
[23:13] Speaker 10: And women are basically going to revert back to their
[23:16] Speaker 10: natural station, like a natural order correction system.
[23:20] Speaker 6: It's so crazy to me that it's freedom for them,
[23:24] Speaker 6: but only people that like seem like them.
[23:27] Speaker 4: All their talk about women's natural order. Well, Cassie was
[23:31] Speaker 4: not a mother. She had tried, really tried, but she
[23:35] Speaker 4: wasn't a mother. She was a wife, an entrepreneur, a voter.
[23:40] Speaker 4: She served her community in all sorts of ways.
[23:43] Speaker 6: If you really did your research, almost every business on
[23:46] Speaker 6: this square is run by a woman.
[23:49] Speaker 4: A stroll around the town square reveals how many women
[23:52] Speaker 4: anchor the Gainesboro economy.
[23:53] Speaker 1: Myself, Miss Sally's, Nostalgia, Gib Flo.
[23:57] Speaker 4: The pharmacy, the realtor next door, Faye's Cafe, the gift
[24:02] Speaker 4: shop down the street.
[24:03] Speaker 6: And then we have a woman judge and we have
[24:05] Speaker 6: a woman attorney and we have women aldermen. We're all
[24:08] Speaker 6: women and we're all just keeping our heads down and
[24:11] Speaker 6: we're trying to grow this town.
[24:13] Speaker 8: Starting with our 8 o'clock ad read here. The 8
[24:16] Speaker 8: o'clock hour is sponsored by PaxMail. Fellas, get off of
[24:21] Speaker 8: gay email. Join PaxMail.cc instead. Keep the money with the brothers.
[24:28] Speaker 8: The Muslims, Dearborn.
[24:35] Speaker 5: Thank you for your service, but you're going back.
[24:37] Speaker 9: Sorry, you can be deported last.
[24:40] Speaker 4: By hour four, it was clear that Trump was going
[24:43] Speaker 4: to win. That was Josh Abatoy, the CEO of Ridge Runner,
[24:49] Speaker 4: chiming in.
[24:50] Speaker 5: This is our democracy.
[24:51] Speaker 6: Our democracy.
[24:52] Speaker 5: Yes, it's ours now. This is our democracy. We are
[24:53] Speaker 5: the captain now.
[24:55] Speaker 4: By hour eight, it was confirmed. Kamala Harris had lost
[24:59] Speaker 4: to Donald Trump.
[25:00] Speaker 8: He is the atlas holding up the world of the
[25:03] Speaker 8: patriarchy right now, yes.
[25:05] Speaker 4: And that's when.
[25:06] Speaker 5: I've got the glass ceiling. Ten inches thick.
[25:09] Speaker 4: The glass ceiling jokes began.
[25:10] Speaker 8: The glass ceiling just got ten feet taller.
[25:15] Speaker 5: Heritage America won.
[25:16] Speaker 8: That's the only kind of America there is, man.
[25:20] Speaker 4: The podcasters finally signed off by talking about their new hometown.
[25:24] Speaker 10: This is really cool, though, to be able to do
[25:26] Speaker 10: this from Gainesboro, Tennessee. We've been building up for this
[25:30] Speaker 10: moment for months, and we're here. We made so much plan.
[25:33] Speaker 10: We have great families here. We have great guys here.
[25:36] Speaker 10: It's just really great to connect with a small town
[25:38] Speaker 10: of Trump-loving Americans.
[25:41] Speaker 8: So 7,000 of you watching, come here. Go to RidgeRunnerUSA.com.
[25:45] Speaker 8: Come move here to be with us.
[25:46] Speaker 10: This is just the beginning of a lot of things.
[25:48] Speaker 10: I couldn't have asked for anything better.
[25:49] Speaker 9: Yeah, it's crazy.
[25:53] Speaker 4: After listening to this, Cassie felt duped.
[25:56] Speaker 6: Then it's like one of those like retrospects in a
[25:58] Speaker 6: movie where like you find out something and then you
[26:00] Speaker 6: go back and all the flashbacks of like, oh my gosh,
[26:03] Speaker 6: that makes sense.
[26:04] Speaker 4: Conversations Cassie witnessed in her restaurant months earlier now had
[26:08] Speaker 4: an entirely different meaning. They're trying to sell these plots.
[26:11] Speaker 4: So they bring people in, give them a tour of
[26:14] Speaker 4: the town, and then they would bring them to lunch together.
[26:17] Speaker 4: And because they get great service, they say, look.
[26:20] Speaker 6: We're welcome here. Look, when you move here, you can
[26:23] Speaker 6: get this. Look how much they like us. They're all
[26:26] Speaker 6: like us here.
[26:27] Speaker 4: Like in that moment, you're just thinking that some people
[26:29] Speaker 4: having a conversation. Oh, they like my restaurant.
[26:31] Speaker 6: Do not use my hard work and my businesses and
[26:35] Speaker 6: my staff and everything that they do to sell your bullshit.
[26:41] Speaker 4: As news of the real estate venture continued to spread
[26:43] Speaker 4: through the town, so did anxiety about who might come here.
[26:47] Speaker 4: After all, Josh Abitoy had been pretty explicit.
[26:51] Speaker 5: The whole point of it is to plant a flag
[26:55] Speaker 5: and say this small town is where our people are gathering.
[26:59] Speaker 4: After the TV news story dropped, Abitoy laid low.
[27:02] Speaker 1: I remember not even really seeing them around town.
[27:06] Speaker 4: But one of the podcasters, C.J.
[27:08] Speaker 3: Engel.
[27:09] Speaker 4: did make an appearance, a virtual one.
[27:12] Speaker 5: All right, thanks for calling. I'm going to go ahead
[27:14] Speaker 5: and give you to CJ, okay?
[27:16] Speaker 4: On a YouTube show called Truth With Proof, hosted by
[27:19] Speaker 4: a local preacher, Engel's new neighbors were eager to talk
[27:23] Speaker 4: to him.
[27:24] Speaker 11: So, are you really an American or are you a
[27:27] Speaker 11: spy from Russia? I mean, what's your deal, buddy?
[27:29] Speaker 10: Yeah, I'm American, and I love this country, and I'm
[27:32] Speaker 10: here because I think it represents the American ethos much
[27:35] Speaker 10: better than California did.
[27:37] Speaker 4: I got a question.
[27:38] Speaker 11: Why are you in Jackson County?
[27:41] Speaker 10: I'm buying in Jackson County because I like the region,
[27:43] Speaker 10: and it seems like a good place to raise families,
[27:46] Speaker 10: and this is where my friends decided to go.
[27:49] Speaker 11: Who's your friends?
[27:51] Speaker 10: Well, Josh Abitoy and Andrew and people like that, and
[27:54] Speaker 10: we have friends here that have grown up here as well.
[27:56] Speaker 11: How'd you make them?
[28:00] Speaker 10: On the Internet. That's where you meet people these days.
[28:04] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[28:05] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[28:05] Speaker 10: Well, look, well, I appreciate your cynicism and I don't
[28:10] Speaker 10: take it offensively. So thank you for calling in. And
[28:12] Speaker 10: I hope to, you know, you know, earn a better
[28:15] Speaker 10: reputation over the next couple of years.
[28:17] Speaker 11: And here's another problem, buddy.
[28:19] Speaker 2: Sure.
[28:19] Speaker 11: With y'all coming in buying land from Jackson County paper,
[28:22] Speaker 11: you're taking that land away. You're marketing that land. to
[28:26] Speaker 11: people from Minnesota, California, Wyoming, Colorado, wherever it is you're
[28:30] Speaker 11: trying to get them from. That land will never be
[28:33] Speaker 11: able to be back in the hands of young people
[28:36] Speaker 11: from Jackson County who want to buy a house of
[28:38] Speaker 11: two acres, five acres, 15 acres, whatever. They'll never be
[28:42] Speaker 11: able to get it because it's going to be in
[28:43] Speaker 11: y'all's little Nazi party. I don't understand how you think
[28:46] Speaker 11: that's good for our people. You're not welcome.
[28:51] Speaker 4: Not everyone who called or texted was opposed to Ridge Runner.
[28:54] Speaker 7: Someone says, hey, CJ, you're handling all the calls well.
[28:57] Speaker 7: Those who watch the podcast in full will see your
[28:59] Speaker 7: fruits and your intentions.
[29:01] Speaker 4: But by and large, people were suspicious and very confused.
[29:05] Speaker 3: OK, I have a question about you all stating that
[29:10] Speaker 3: you were going to plant a flag and start a town.
[29:13] Speaker 3: I don't understand that exactly because we are currently a town.
[29:17] Speaker 3: So I wasn't really for sure what that meant.
[29:20] Speaker 4: That's what everyone wanted to know. What did it mean
[29:23] Speaker 4: when they said they were building a town and would
[29:26] Speaker 4: plant a flag?
[29:27] Speaker 10: It's probably analogous. I don't have any plans to start
[29:32] Speaker 10: a town.
[29:33] Speaker 4: Instead, he brushes it off as just talk.
[29:36] Speaker 10: But I don't have any plans. And I say this
[29:38] Speaker 10: very very seriously. Our plan is to assimilate into the
[29:42] Speaker 10: culture of the area and to participate in making Gainesboro
[29:46] Speaker 10: a better place to live.
[29:51] Speaker 4: Engel was as civil as can be, even said he'd
[29:54] Speaker 4: gotten plenty of sympathetic messages in the weeks after. But
[29:57] Speaker 4: those who wanted more details were frustrated. His answers on
[30:01] Speaker 4: the show didn't reveal much. Then he and the others
[30:05] Speaker 4: seemed to disappear from public life in Gainesboro. So residents
[30:09] Speaker 4: decided they needed to take matters into their own hands.
[30:13] Speaker 4: That's after the break. The Gainesboro Resistance, as it's come
[30:21] Speaker 4: to be known, started with 70-year-old retired art teacher, Nancy Pruitt.
[30:27] Speaker 12: My family goes back to, you know, when Gainsborough was formed.
[30:31] Speaker 4: Nancy knows the town gossip, even has a police scanner
[30:35] Speaker 4: on her kitchen counter, always chattering in the background.
[30:39] Speaker 1: Nancy actually was the one who came and told me
[30:41] Speaker 1: about it. You know, Nancy can tell you.
[30:43] Speaker 5: That Nancy was talking about that at one point.
[30:45] Speaker 1: If she wants you to know something, she will make
[30:46] Speaker 1: sure you know it.
[30:48] Speaker 4: Nancy taught in the local public schools for many years.
[30:51] Speaker 4: Since retiring, she's been living her best life, traveling the world, volunteering.
[30:57] Speaker 12: This town is very special. To think that people wanted
[31:00] Speaker 12: to come in and change everything, I was very disillusioned.
[31:04] Speaker 12: It was a very sad day, and it changed my
[31:07] Speaker 12: life forever.
[31:09] Speaker 4: Nancy, who grew up staunchly Republican and voted as one
[31:13] Speaker 4: until 2016, had never heard the term Christian nationalist. And now,
[31:18] Speaker 4: the two men behind the so-called number one Christian nationalist
[31:22] Speaker 4: podcast were living on her street.
[31:25] Speaker 12: CJ lives down here, four houses from me.
[31:29] Speaker 4: Nancy worried about how the town might be fooled by
[31:32] Speaker 4: Ridge Runner, not because they were uninformed, but because they
[31:35] Speaker 4: had other things on their mind. Jackson County, where Gainesboro
[31:39] Speaker 4: is located, is one of the poorest in the state.
[31:43] Speaker 12: And I did not know how many people were going
[31:46] Speaker 12: to be concerned because they had to figure out how
[31:49] Speaker 12: they were going to get their next meal. I couldn't
[31:51] Speaker 12: get people to understand the gravity of the situation.
[31:55] Speaker 4: Gainesboro has a live and let live kind of attitude.
[31:59] Speaker 4: There were some folks who had concerns at first, but
[32:01] Speaker 4: those faded. Some weren't worried at all. Others likely couldn't
[32:05] Speaker 4: pass up a top dollar offer for land.
[32:08] Speaker 12: We have such a low voter turnout in the city
[32:12] Speaker 12: that they knew that this was a place that they
[32:14] Speaker 12: could take over and plant their flag, as they said.
[32:18] Speaker 4: Gainesboro has just 605 registered voters.
[32:22] Speaker 12: And if they move 50 families in, then they could
[32:25] Speaker 12: take over the politics and the government. And I was
[32:30] Speaker 12: a city alderwoman, okay? And I know that I had
[32:37] Speaker 12: a landslide with 130 votes in. And the next person
[32:41] Speaker 12: was 100 votes. So if they got 50 people to
[32:44] Speaker 12: move in here, yes, they could take over our little town.
[32:52] Speaker 12: Gainsborough's protests kicked off with a small gesture. One of
[32:56] Speaker 12: the podcasters had gone to social media to say how
[32:59] Speaker 12: much he hated what white, educated women had done to America.
[33:04] Speaker 12: So Nancy, being Nancy, walked to the square and and
[33:08] Speaker 12: asked the owner of a local gift shop to print
[33:10] Speaker 12: a t-shirt with a slogan on it. Dangerous, educated women.
[33:15] Speaker 4: She wore it around town. It was her first public
[33:18] Speaker 4: act of resistance. I just was trying to figure out
[33:22] Speaker 4: what I personally could do. Nancy began contacting her neighbors,
[33:27] Speaker 4: old co-workers, a local pastor, restaurant owners. She estimates she
[33:32] Speaker 4: spoke to 50 people.
[33:34] Speaker 12: And then slowly people started getting on board.
[33:39] Speaker 4: Nancy was consumed. She spent an hour every morning researching
[33:43] Speaker 4: while she had coffee, and in the middle of the
[33:45] Speaker 4: night when she couldn't sleep.
[33:48] Speaker 12: My closest friends, they were concerned because they said, you're
[33:52] Speaker 12: so obsessed by this. I said, I think we all
[33:55] Speaker 12: need to be.
[33:56] Speaker 4: Nancy realized she needed to do even more. Something that
[34:00] Speaker 4: the podcasters on her street would be sure to see.
[34:03] Speaker 12: We need to let them know that everybody on their
[34:06] Speaker 12: street and surrounding them are not okay with their views.
[34:10] Speaker 4: So in came the lawn signs.
[34:12] Speaker 12: They said Haight has no home in Gainesboro.
[34:15] Speaker 4: On November 30th, 10 days after the town hall, Nancy
[34:19] Speaker 4: posted on Facebook, Anyone want a yard sign?
[34:22] Speaker 1: Message me.
[34:24] Speaker 4: The requests rolled in. Yes, please.
[34:27] Speaker 5: Amen.
[34:28] Speaker 4: I want one. I need six of them.
[34:31] Speaker 12: We had signs all over this town, in everybody's yard,
[34:35] Speaker 12: on the side of the road.
[34:37] Speaker 4: 300 signs in all. In a small town, it felt
[34:41] Speaker 4: like they were everywhere. Someone put up a billboard, too,
[34:45] Speaker 4: right on the main road into town. It read, Small
[34:49] Speaker 4: Town Big Heart. Here, nasty notions play no part.
[34:54] Speaker 1: Gainesboro.
[34:55] Speaker 4: Where all are welcome. A few weeks passed. The holidays
[35:00] Speaker 4: offered a bit of quiet and much-needed normalcy for the town. Then,
[35:05] Speaker 4: at the start of the year, Josh Abatoy, the head
[35:09] Speaker 4: of Ridge Runner, made a surprising overture, an invitation to talk,
[35:14] Speaker 4: not to Nancy, but to her neighbor, who promptly shared
[35:18] Speaker 4: it with Nancy.
[35:19] Speaker 12: And he said, I'm reading, quoting, I moved to Gainsborough
[35:22] Speaker 12: over the summer. Phil's mistaken reporting is not how I
[35:27] Speaker 12: would have chosen to be introduced to my new neighbors.
[35:30] Speaker 12: I would love to grab coffee sometime and dispel what
[35:33] Speaker 12: Phil has said about me and my company. Hopefully the
[35:36] Speaker 12: warm welcome to all people.
[35:38] Speaker 4: Abitoy has denied being a Christian nationalist. He says the
[35:42] Speaker 4: podcasters are not Ridge Runner ambassadors. They're customers, and they
[35:46] Speaker 4: don't speak for the company. Ridge Runner says its community
[35:50] Speaker 4: will be built around a shared ethos of land, liberty,
[35:55] Speaker 4: and legacy. As Nancy kept reading Abitoy's invite, she saw
[35:59] Speaker 4: an opportunity.
[36:01] Speaker 12: We've been happily invited several times to the Dairy Queen
[36:04] Speaker 12: morning coffee and have gotten the ability.
[36:06] Speaker 4: He was talking about a weekly coffee clatch of local
[36:08] Speaker 4: veterans that he and CJ, the podcaster, had been joining.
[36:12] Speaker 12: Ability to meet people, so you're welcome to come as well.
[36:16] Speaker 12: And so we did.
[36:17] Speaker 1: We just took more than one person.
[36:20] Speaker 4: It would be the first time everyone who had been
[36:22] Speaker 4: anxious and alarmed would gather. in the same place as
[36:25] Speaker 4: their new neighbors, and they'd have breakfast at the local
[36:29] Speaker 4: Dairy Queen.
[36:30] Speaker 7: A group of people in the community wanted to just
[36:33] Speaker 7: do a show of community unity.
[36:36] Speaker 4: That's Mark Dudney, the historian. What's your mindset like walking
[36:41] Speaker 4: in that morning?
[36:42] Speaker 7: We need some bacon and eggs.
[36:45] Speaker 12: Dairy Queen is not yours, and we are aware of
[36:49] Speaker 12: what you're doing.
[36:51] Speaker 4: That same morning, Brian Allen, the metal detector guy, got
[36:54] Speaker 4: a text from a friend telling him, go to Dairy
[36:57] Speaker 4: Queen now.
[36:58] Speaker 5: Okay, I'll go get a sausage biscuit, I don't know.
[37:01] Speaker 5: But I walk in and I'm like, all these people say,
[37:03] Speaker 5: what is going on? Is it Free Dilly Bar or something?
[37:07] Speaker 5: Free Blizzard?
[37:09] Speaker 4: The place was packed, every booth taken.
[37:12] Speaker 5: I was like, what's going on? Oh, there's a sit-in.
[37:16] Speaker 4: It would come to be known as the DQ sit-in.
[37:21] Speaker 5: People that I argued with on Facebook politically are there,
[37:25] Speaker 5: and they're mad. And I'm like, oh, God, thank you.
[37:29] Speaker 5: Both sides of the political spectrum being there was chill-inducing.
[37:33] Speaker 5: It was like, all right, we got this.
[37:36] Speaker 7: We were expecting about 30, 35 people, and about 75
[37:40] Speaker 7: showed up. I've never been so proud of my community.
[37:43] Speaker 7: The one thing that you have to process is that
[37:49] Speaker 7: this is so foreign. to us. There is no guidebook available,
[37:55] Speaker 7: you know, about what to do.
[37:56] Speaker 5: I come in and so I see Abitoy standing over there.
[38:01] Speaker 4: Josh Abitoy, the CEO of Ridge Runner.
[38:04] Speaker 5: Just seeing him like a jump scare.
[38:08] Speaker 12: Abitoy came in and I went straight to him.
[38:11] Speaker 4: Nancy wanted to talk about the house across the street
[38:13] Speaker 4: from her, where one of the podcasters lived.
[38:16] Speaker 12: I introduced myself, and I said, I know you purchased that.
[38:19] Speaker 12: And he goes, no, I didn't purchase that.
[38:22] Speaker 4: Josh Abitoy's right. Actually, his dad bought it. But to Nancy,
[38:26] Speaker 4: all Abitoys led to Ridge Runner.
[38:28] Speaker 5: And I said, yes, you did.
[38:30] Speaker 12: He said, how do you know that? And I said, well,
[38:33] Speaker 12: I give one hour of my life to you every
[38:35] Speaker 12: morning over coffee, doing research. So I called the owner
[38:40] Speaker 12: that sold it to you.
[38:41] Speaker 4: Nancy decided it was time to say her piece.
[38:43] Speaker 12: And she told me, no, she sold it to you.
[38:45] Speaker 12: So obviously you purchased it and then you did a
[38:48] Speaker 12: quick deed and put it in their name for whatever reason.
[38:51] Speaker 5: I said, I don't know.
[38:52] Speaker 12: And I said, and then Iskra moved in that next day,
[38:55] Speaker 12: I guess. And that's when he got frustrated and didn't
[38:59] Speaker 12: want to talk to me anymore.
[39:01] Speaker 1: I sat down next to CJ.
[39:04] Speaker 4: Cassie Kessler, the restaurant owner, slipped into a booth next
[39:08] Speaker 4: to the podcaster.
[39:09] Speaker 6: And I said directly to him, I'm like, you know,
[39:12] Speaker 6: why are you here? And he said, you know, we're
[39:15] Speaker 6: from all different parts of the country. You know, we
[39:17] Speaker 6: have a bunch of woke people that got elected into
[39:20] Speaker 6: office and then came in and changed the whole town
[39:22] Speaker 6: and it just didn't align with us anymore.
[39:24] Speaker 1: So we left. And I'm like, so what's the difference
[39:29] Speaker 1: in what you're doing now?
[39:30] Speaker 3: To us?
[39:31] Speaker 6: And he goes, well, you know, we're not trying to
[39:33] Speaker 6: change your town. I looked right at him. I said,
[39:36] Speaker 6: you say all these things about women. I said, but
[39:38] Speaker 6: I own my building. I pay local tax. I pay
[39:41] Speaker 6: sales tax. I pay liquor tax. I have employment. I
[39:44] Speaker 6: have a nonprofit, but because I can't physically have children,
[39:49] Speaker 6: I'm not worth anything. And he says something, oh God,
[39:53] Speaker 6: something to the effect of, I have different beliefs than you.
[39:56] Speaker 6: And I will tell you, and I hope he's listening,
[40:00] Speaker 6: you were shaking like a leaf.
[40:05] Speaker 4: Josh Abitoy declined to speak with us for this story,
[40:09] Speaker 4: but you'll hear directly from the podcasters, CJ Engel and
[40:12] Speaker 4: Andrew Isker, later in this series. A couple weeks after
[40:19] Speaker 4: the sit-in came the biggest standoff to date. Ridge Runner
[40:23] Speaker 4: applied to join the local Chamber of Commerce, guaranteeing them
[40:27] Speaker 4: public ribbon cuttings and gripping grin photos with the town's
[40:30] Speaker 4: business leaders. Cassie Kessler, who was on the chamber's board,
[40:35] Speaker 4: said the news landed with a thud.
[40:38] Speaker 6: As a board, we were not fans of letting them on.
[40:43] Speaker 6: But we live in a democracy, so we wanted to
[40:46] Speaker 6: leave it open to the people.
[40:47] Speaker 1: We held an open.
[40:48] Speaker 6: Meeting, and there was not one member in that room
[40:53] Speaker 6: that wanted them to be a part of it.
[40:55] Speaker 4: Next, the board hired an attorney.
[40:58] Speaker 6: He said, you don't have to accept it, because things
[41:00] Speaker 6: that they were saying discriminatory, that went against pretty much
[41:04] Speaker 6: everything in our morality clause.
[41:07] Speaker 4: So the chamber rejected Ridgerunner. From what folks remembered, the
[41:10] Speaker 4: chamber had only denied a few businesses. Some years back,
[41:14] Speaker 4: it rejected a topless auto repair shop called Boob and Lube. Now,
[41:18] Speaker 4: the chamber was denying Ridge Runner. It was Gainsborough's first
[41:22] Speaker 4: official repudiation of the venture.
[41:25] Speaker 6: We had a certified letter drawn up, and we sent
[41:28] Speaker 6: it to them with a full refund. I think they
[41:31] Speaker 6: thought we were going to all cower with our tail
[41:33] Speaker 6: between our legs and run away.
[41:37] Speaker 4: After the denial, the chamber received a letter from a
[41:39] Speaker 4: lawyer in Missouri, notifying it that Ridge Runner intended to
[41:43] Speaker 4: sue the chamber and possibly individual members, who it claimed, quote,
[41:48] Speaker 4: knowingly discriminated or conspired to discriminate against Ridge Runner.
[41:53] Speaker 6: That we were infringing, we were discriminating, we were discriminating
[41:57] Speaker 6: against them.
[41:59] Speaker 4: The letter demanded the chamber preserve all communication regarding its
[42:03] Speaker 4: decision to deny Ridge Runner. All emails, texts, faxes, floppy disks, metadata, video, audio,
[42:10] Speaker 4: thumb drives, everything.
[42:13] Speaker 1: Then you're going to sue us.
[42:15] Speaker 6: So then we're going to tie up whatever little money
[42:17] Speaker 6: we have in legal fees, which means our Christmas parade
[42:22] Speaker 6: gets canceled. Our tree lighting gets canceled because we have
[42:25] Speaker 6: no funding to do that. So now you get to
[42:27] Speaker 6: go tell the town that you canceled Christmas.
[42:30] Speaker 1: Go ahead.
[42:30] Speaker 6: As a bunch of Christians, tell this town that all
[42:32] Speaker 6: of our Christmas festivities cannot be put on because your
[42:36] Speaker 6: feelings are hurt because you didn't get into the chamber
[42:38] Speaker 6: and you didn't get your propaganda picture.
[42:40] Speaker 1: Get the fuck out of here.
[42:43] Speaker 4: The threat letter hung over Gainesboro. So did Ridge Runner's
[42:47] Speaker 4: growing stockpile of land, which they almost always paid for
[42:50] Speaker 4: in cash. Then, exactly a week after the DQ sit-in,
[42:55] Speaker 4: Ridge Runner announced its largest land purchase yet. 450 acres.
[43:01] Speaker 4: An old family farm they'd acquired for $ 2. 5 million. A
[43:05] Speaker 4: stunning price by local standards.
[43:08] Speaker 1: All told.
[43:09] Speaker 4: Ridge Runner now controlled upwards of 1,200 acres in the
[43:12] Speaker 4: county and beyond. Ridge Runner's footprint was growing so rapidly
[43:18] Speaker 4: it now eclipsed the size of Gainesboro itself. Locals would
[43:22] Speaker 4: soon discover that this venture was connected to something much bigger,
[43:27] Speaker 4: a vision of turmoil, collapse, and a new America. Next
[43:35] Speaker 4: time on Our Town.
[43:37] Speaker 1: Tell us the response to this. This dangerous venture of yours.
[43:41] Speaker 4: Has someone already bought the land?
[43:42] Speaker 9: Yes, yes.
[43:43] Speaker 5: It's being divided up and sold, you know, as we speak.
[43:45] Speaker 5: We need cities on a shining hill.
[43:47] Speaker 13: There's no question that they were brought here intentionally.
[43:50] Speaker 1: It means I was chosen by God.
[43:52] Speaker 13: The old order was all coming to an end.
[43:55] Speaker 5: She was determined to see what they were about.
[43:58] Speaker 13: They're pouring money into this and they have a lot
[44:01] Speaker 13: more to pour. They will start with one state and
[44:04] Speaker 13: they have chosen Tennessee as that state.
[44:14] Speaker 4: Our Town is written and reported by me, Mara Benight,
[44:17] Speaker 4: and Susan Burfield. Rebecca Lacks is our senior producer. Ken
[44:21] Speaker 4: Armstrong edited the show, with additional editing from Rebecca Lacks.
[44:26] Speaker 4: Original score and sound design by Alex Aguirre. Fact-checking by
[44:30] Speaker 4: Annika Robbins. Additional production and editorial support from Julia Weaver,
[44:35] Speaker 4: David Fox, and Laura Newcombe. Special thanks to Bloomberg's Alana Susnow,
[44:40] Speaker 4: Bob Blau, Kristen Powers, Anthony Mancini, the Big Take podcast team,
[44:45] Speaker 4: and Will Pearson at iHeart Podcasts. Our executive producer is
[44:49] Speaker 4: Nicole Beamster-Boer.

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