John Shearer: Remembering New Year’s In Chattanooga 100 Years Ago

When Chattanoogans awoke on New Year’s Day 1915 – exactly a century ago – they were still savoring, or maybe recovering from, all the festive local happenings celebrating the dawn of a new year.
 
They were also concerned with more serious matters such as war, contagious diseases that could affect them, and the humane treatment of animals. Many locals were excited, though, about possible new opportunities for women, better ways to enjoy health and fitness, the local store sales, and even travel into the sky.
 
So what was different from today? While the technology or means we use to go through life now is obviously different, the emotions and feelings that come with everyday experiences were apparently not.
 
As an example, one front-page headline in the Chattanooga Times dealt with the timeless issue of conflict. Former Chattanooga mayor George W. Ochs had resigned as editor of the Philadelphia Public Ledger due to amicable-but-irreconcilable differences with Ledger president Cyrus Curtis over the operation of the paper.
 
At the time, the Curtis family had a big publishing empire that included the Saturday Evening Post and Ladies Home Journal magazines.
 
Mr. Ochs would later go on to work with his brother, New York Times publisher Adolph Ochs, as editor of the Times’ Current History magazine until his death in 1931. By then, he had changed his last name to Oakes to make it sound less German.
 
And speaking of Germany, the situation in Europe – which would later be known as World War I -- did not show any signs of letting up after five months of fighting.
 
America was still more than two years from entering the conflict, but one person, Bob Peel, announced that he was taking a dirigible made be Carl Mourfield of the Chattanooga Aeroplane Co. to England via ship. He was hoping to offer his and the flying machine’s services to the English military effort.
 
Mr. Peel had been an unknown Chattanoogan when he won the inaugural 1913 Chattanooga Times Marathon, which was actually only nine miles long.
 
Chattanooga did have a military unit at the time – the 11th U.S. Cavalry stationed at nearby Fort Oglethorpe. However, they were out in Colorado over the holidays preventing potential problems between some striking mine workers and gun-toting security officials hired by the company.
 
Perhaps the adversary most disconcerting to Chattanoogans at that time was not a country or homeland conflict, but a disease – smallpox. A small number of local people had either died or were being treated at the local contagious disease hospital, while many of the healthy residents remained in a panic mode.
 
As a result, Hamilton County Judge Will Cummings – whose position was like the county mayor of today – announced an emergency treatment plan. Doctors would canvass the neighborhoods in the next day or so offering to vaccinate people.
 
A long line of concerned residents had gathered at the fairly new City Hall Building on 11th Street on Dec. 31 hoping to get vaccinated, but officials ran out of the vaccine.
 
Mrs. Richard (Ethel) Hardy, meanwhile, was concerned about the treatment of the animals at the East Lake Zoo. In a letter to the editor, this wife of the future mayor cited the deplorable conditions and facilities for the animals.
 
She obviously felt strongly about the humane treatment of animals, and later would be instrumental in the founding of the local humane and educational society.   
 
Women by then were evidently finding ways to better voice their opinions, and this was made evident by a meeting scheduled for Jan. 4 at the Hotel Patten for area businesswomen interested in forming a suffrage league. They were trying to get the right to vote, and would nationally in 1920.
 
What many women in the Chattanooga of late 1914 and early 1915 were focusing on, though, was simply making their homes warm and hospitable to family and friends alike.
 
On Dec. 31, Mrs. E.F. Wheland, the wife of the industrialist and foundryman, entertained the St. Elmo Book Club at her home, while Mrs. J.T. Lupton and her Coca-Cola bottling husband had a New Year’s Eve party for 150 at their Lyndhurst mansion.
 
The latter event was for college students Margaret Ochs, Mary Bertha Allison and Martha Davenport, and the rooms at the roughly 5-year-old Riverview home were decorated with poinsettias and roses.
 
Mr. Lupton in 1915 would see Baylor School open a new campus by the Tennessee River with his financial support, and the nearby Chattanooga Golf and Country Club where he enjoyed playing golf would open its new clubhouse. The previous one had been destroyed by fire in January 1914.
 
The architect for the Baylor and Country Club buildings would be the same man who designed Lyndhurst – W.T. Downing of Atlanta.
 
Other nice events in Chattanooga after the first of the year were a program for the children of the Vine Street Orphanage at the Reynolds Art Mart, and a Jan. 1 open house at the YMCA on Georgia Avenue. Organized events planned for the day at the latter included basketball, swimming, volleyball, bowling and – yes – checkers.
 
Also, a number of black people of Chattanooga were to meet at the still-standing 1st Congregational Church at Ninth (M.L. King Jr. Boulevard) and A (Lindsay) streets for an emancipation proclamation anniversary program.
 
There were no college football bowl games to watch at that time, not even the Rose Bowl, which would not start its ongoing yearly tradition until New Year’s Day 1916, although it did have a game in 1902.
 
Chattanoogans could enjoy a few sales around town. A men’s English model overcoat was $15 at Hardie & Caudle at 809 Market St., while a cheval, or full-length, mirror cost $25 at Clemons Bros.
 
The Palace soda fountain at Seventh and Market streets was a popular place at the time to get some ice cream and other food, but workdays, not sundaes, were on the minds of Chattanoogans regarding that business. The reason was that proprietor George K. Brown had charges brought against him by the state factory inspector for working boys after 6 p.m. and for working underage boys without their parents’ consent.
 
Most Chattanoogans had taken a break from working to celebrate the New Year. Some 200 gathered in the East restaurant at the Hotel Patten to sing “Auld Lang Syne” before midnight, and then “America” after Jan. 1 arrived.
 
In the factory district, whistles from plant buildings sounded, while on Market Street, crowds gathered to shoot Roman candles and welcome in the New Year with cheers – and maybe a few kisses.
 
It was time to celebrate and relax, and the pressing matters of the world and Chattanooga could wait just a few hours.                                   
            
Jcshearer2@comcast.net