The History of the Scenic City
The name Chattanooga…
The name “Chattanooga” comes from the Creek Indian word for “rock coming to a point.” This refers to LookoutMountain which begins in Chattanooga and stretches 88 miles through Alabama and Georgia.
The city itself started out with two different names: Ross’s Landing and LookoutCity. In 1838, the city officially took the name of “Chattanooga.”
Ross’s Landing was established in 1816 by John Ross, a Chief of the Cherokee Indians. This area consisted of a ferry, warehouse and landing. With the organization of HamiltonCounty in 1819, Ross’s Landing served not only the Cherokee trade but also as a convenient business center for the county. In 1838, Cherokee parties left from Ross’s Landing for the West on what became known as the Trail of Tears.
A Timeline of Chattanooga’s History
• 1540 to 1541 – Hernando DeSoto travels along the Tennessee River in search of gold and adventure and stops in Chattanooga on his journey.
• 1600s – The Tennessee River is an important part of the French trade route between the MississippiValley and Charleston, South Carolina.
• Early 1700s – The French have established trading posts along the river.
• 1760 - There is conflict between the French and the English for control of trade with the Indians, resulting in the French and Indian War. The end of this war leaves the English in control of the area.
• 1782 – In September, the last expedition of the Revolutionary War takes place. Col. John Sevier is ordered to attack the Chickamaugas in the HamiltonCounty country. Early historians say he fought a battle on LookoutMountain.
• 1788– Gen. Joseph Martin fought a battle with the Indians on the “War Path,” the present site of the highway leading to the top of LookoutMountain. This was the second battle of LookoutMountain, and the Indians were victorious.
• 1794 – Major James Ore battles with the Chickamaugas at Nickajack and Running Water. The power of the Chickamauga tribe is destroyed and the Indian Wars come to an end. The Chickamauga tribe return to the Cherokee Council and sue for peace.
• 1810 – Chief John Ross of the Cherokee Indians and Timothy Meigs enter into a partnership as “Meigs and Ross” and establish a store on the Tennessee River at the present site of Chattanooga.
• 1812 – The lake on Walden’s Ridge, now called Montlake, is formed by the same earthquake that formed ReelfootLake in ObionCounty.
• 1816– Ross’s Landing is established by Chief John Ross.
• 1819 – HamiltonCounty is erected by Act of the General Assembly of Tennessee on October 25.
• 1836 – A military post is established at Ross’s Landing, and the treaty of New Echota, which was procured in 1835, is finally proclaimed.
• 1837 to 1850 – The Western & Atlantic Railroad is being built, routed to end in Chattanooga. An initial street grid is laid out extending nine blocks south of the Tennessee River and connected by two roads, Mulberry Avenue and “The Road” (Market Street).
• 1838 –Chattanooga becomes the official name of the city, as suggested by Capt. John P. Long. The name was chosen between June 1 and August 11, when the citizens of Ross’s Landing met in the log schoolhouse was built in 1836. A Methodist-Episcopal church currently sits on the lot where the schoolhouse stood.
• 1838 – Cherokee parties leave on their journey West along the Trail of Tears.
• 1840s – Completion of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad ended the cotton market in Chattanooga, but by that time, other industries had moved to the area including charcoal iron industry, the forerun of the city’s steel mills.
• 1840s – Robert Cravens builds the Bluff Furnace, a replica of which stands in the original location next to the WalnutStreetBridge.
• 1860– Chattanooga’s population reaches 2,000, making it a large city for the time period.
• 1863 – The Campaign for Chattanooga brings a struggle between the North and the South to the banks of the Tennessee River and the surrounding mountains.
• 1866 – Tennessee is the third in the nation to ratify the 14th Amendment, ending its “Reconstruction.” While much of the state was against this measure, many in the Chattanooga area were relieved by the action.
• 1867– The Chattanooga VA National Cemetery was created. General Thomas of the Civil War helped to create national cemeteries after the war ended. The Chattanooga VA National Cemetery was the first national cemetery to open.
• 1867 – The FirstCongregationalistChurch of Chattanooga becomes the first church in the South to welcome both African-American and Caucasian members.
• 1868 – Robert Cravens returned to Chattanooga to find his home atop LookoutMountain and his business destroyed. He began building a new empire of iron, introducing coke-fired iron processing into the area.
• 1878 – A Yellow fever epidemic kills nearly 400 Chattanoogans and is part of a much larger epidemic which claims more than 5,000 lives statewide.
• 1890– Due to large iron manufacturing industry including machine shops, boiler shops, plow makers, stove works and at least two pipe manufacturers, Chattanooga becomes known as the “Pittsburgh of the South.”
• 1890 – The nation’s first national military park is established, Chickamauga-ChattanoogaNationalMilitaryPark.
• 1891- WalnutStreetBridge is built.
• 1894 – Bessie Smith, Empress of the Blues, is born in Chattanooga.
• 1895 – The LookoutMountain Incline Railway is completed and competes with two other area railroads for traffic to the top of LookoutMountain. The other two are quickly forced out of business.
• 1899 – The worst snowstorm in more than 100 years hits the city.
• 1908– The Chattanooga Choo Choo Terminal Station is built.
• 1909 – The Terminal station opens its doors to the public in December.
• 1916 – After Ernest Holmes, Sr., and ten helpers spent all night using only ropes and blocks tied to trees to recover a friend’s overturned Model T from a Chattanooga creek, Holmes went back to his garage and invented the tow truck.
• 1917 – American enters World War I, dramatically affecting Chattanooga thanks to the men being trained in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, just a few miles down the road.
• 1918 – An outbreak of Spanish Influenza causes movie theaters, pool halls and other popular gathering places to close. The epidemic continued to infect the city until February 1919.
• 1921 – The Tivoli Theatre opens on March 19, following two years of construction. Construction costs are close to $1 million — a lavish sum for its day.
• 1924– Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Auditorium opened on February 22 as a living memorial to HamiltonCounty war veterans.
• 1925 – LakeWinnepesaukah, a family-owned and operated amusement park, opens on the Tennessee/Georgia border, just down the road from Chattanooga.
• 1926 – The Tivoli Theatre became one of the first public buildings in the country to be air conditioned. Also in 1926, Paramount Studios bought the Tivoli, making it part of the Paramount-Publix theater chain
• 1928– RubyFalls is discovered.
• 1932– RockCity opens.
• 1933– Tennessee Valley Authority is formed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to stop flooding that devastated the area on a regular basis.
• 1941 – The song Chattanooga Choo Choo by Glenn Miller becomes the first gold record. The song was introduced in the 1941 movie Sun Valley Serenade.
• 1944 – Chattanooga Audubon Society is created by naturalist and writer Robert Sparks Walker.
• 1948– The city became the first major southern city to have African-American police officers.
• 1951 – Eccentric decorative art collector, Anna Safely Houston, bequeathed her entire collection, which at one time included 15,000 pitchers, to the city of Chattanooga. The city would later create the Houston Museum of Decorative Arts to display the enormous collection.
• 1952– George Thomas Hunter Gallery of Art was created.
• 1961 to 1965 – A record number of visitors flock to Chattanooga to see RubyFalls, The Incline, RockCity, the Chickamauga-ChattanoogaNationalMilitaryPark, and the new Confederama (now the Battles for ChattanoogaMuseum).
• 1961 – Wanting to preserve the railroad’s proud heritage, a group of Chattanoogans formed the TennesseeValleyRailroadMuseum.
• 1967– Construction of Brown’s Ferry, the largest nuclear power plant in the world at that time, begins.
• 1969– Walter Cronkite announces on the CBS Evening News that Chattanooga is America’s dirtiest city, a remark that will spur on Chattanooga’s citizens to change the direction the city is heading.
• 1973 – A group of Chattanooga businessmen come up with idea of resurrecting the now boarded up Terminal Station as a combination tourist attraction and hotel – the refurbished Terminal Station opens as the Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel and complex.
• 1976– MillerPark is opened.
• 1982 – The first Riverbend, a nine-day music festival held at Ross’s Landing, takes place.
• 1982– The Vision 2000 project is formed to develop recommendations for how to revitalize the riverfront and downtown.
• 1989 – A key year in the turnaround of downtown Chattanooga is marked when a second group of businessmen purchase and improve the old Terminal Station. In addition to the reworking of the Choo Choo, construction begins on the Tennessee Aquarium.
• 1992– Tennessee Aquarium is built.
• 1992– BluffViewArtDistrict is created.
• 1993– Reopening the WalnutStreetBridge as the world’s longest pedestrian bridge.
• 1994– GeorgeThomasHunterGallery of Art was renamed the Hunter Museum of American Art.
• 1995 – The world’s only museum dedicated to the towing industry opened in Chattanooga – the InternationalTowing & RecoveryMuseum and Hall of Fame.
• 1995– CreativeDiscoveryMuseum opened.
• 1996 – IMAX® 3D Theater opened to augment the enormous success of the Tennessee Aquarium.
• 1999– CoolidgePark opens in October.
• 2003– ChattanoogaConvention Center completes expansion, increasing meeting and convention space to 298,000 gsf.
• 2004 – Historic Read House hotel completes $10 million renovation and became a Sheraton property.
• 2005– 21st Century Waterfront Project, a $120 million transformation of downtown, was completed. The shores of the Tennessee River now boast a $30 million expansion to the Tennessee Aquarium, $19.5 million expansion and renovation to the Hunter Museum of American Art , $3 million renovation and addition to the Creative Discovery Museum and $61 million on enhanced public spaces including a pedestrian pier and bridge, boat slips, vast green spaces, wetlands park, adventure playground, waterfront dining and retail, a dramatic passageway leading to the river in celebration of Native American culture, riverfront condos and so much more.
• 2007– On August 5, the MarketStreetBridge, a historic and architectural treasure, was re-opened following a two-year/$13 million renovation. It is the only drawbridge in Tennessee and one of only a handful across the nation.
• 2009 – The Chattanooga Choo Choo celebrates 100 years (official opening date was Dec. 1, 1909).
