Southern town's economy booming thanks to long-forgotten tween drama

Daily Mail​

22-04-2025

A small Georgia town that served as the backdrop to a 2000s tween drama is still living off the fanfare years later.
Covington is home for only 14,700 people and is not even 14 square miles long, but the tiny town located 35 miles outside of Atlanta has had plenty of shows filmed there, including The Vampire Diaries, featuring Canadian actress Nina Dobrev.
One of the most recognizable spots on the show was clocktower downtown, which appeared in all eight seasons of the CW show, which ran from 2009 to 2017.
In one scene, Ian Somerhalder and Dobrev's characters leap from the cornice of the tower hand-in-hand in the second season.
The show, although set in a fake town called Mystic Falls, was primarily shot in the Georgia town and its fans keep coming to explore the filming locations even years later, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Other shows, such as Dukes of Hazzard, Remember the Titans, and Sweet Magnolias, have all called parts of Covington home while filming.
'I tell people I see gold all over the ground throughout the state, and all we have to do is grab it,' Lynda Lee Smith, the founder of Entertainment Tourism Alliance of Georgia, told The Journal-Constitution.
She sees the small town continue to grow as long as its entertainment business does, as film crews often hire local talent, shop and eat in town, and fill hotels during shoot days.
Nina Dobrev in character at the Mystic Grill. The show's success is such a big win for the town that they see people as far as Australia coming to check out the filming locations
And now fans want to experience these places for real.
In 2014, the Mystic Grill gutted the inside to make it look just like the show, which later prompted its owner, Angi Beszborn, to hope Mystic Mercantile, which sells The Vampire Diaries merchandise, the outlet said.
Beszborn even tracked down some of the set's original builders to recreate Salvatore's living room in the show, where brothers Stefan (Paul Wesley) and Damon (Somerhalder) talked about Dobrov's character, the outlet said.
'I probably had a million dollar's worth of stuff I could have sold that I just put in the dump,' Carpenter, James Wheeler, who worked on the original set, told The Journal-Constitution.
The show's success is such a big win for the town that they see people as far as Australia coming to check out the filming locations.
'Fans come from all over the world. Brazil and Europe. We had some just here from Australia,' Mystic Mercantile Manager, Carin Rutledge, told The Journal-Constitution.
'When I ask them why they came here, they say: "For this."'
Other places, like Ace's Used Cars and Hazzard's Square in Dukes of Hazzard were filmed at First Baptist Church and the town's square, respectively.
Mystic Grill also served as Brooke's restaurant and the Lee-Porter House was The Corner Spa in Sweet Magnolias, among other locations.
Despite several successful shows filming in the town, film productions in Georgia overall are on the decline, according to The Journal-Constitution.
Productions spent 37 percent less in the 2024 fiscal years as they did in the year prior, the outlet reported.
The Peach State also dropped from 412 productions to 273.
So the state is looking to continue to capitalize on entertainment tourism and the fans dying to step foot inside their favorite film sets - or at least as close as possible.
Different hangouts and events surrounding the productions that had previously filmed there are popping up and new souvenir shops too.
Epic conventions brought in more than 15,000 visitors to Covington in 2023, The Journal-Constitution said.
Despite the shows ending years ago, some fans aren't ready to let it go and Covington is making a bunch on that demand.