"Underground Chattanooga" Featured Along East 7th Street

  • Monday, September 15, 2014

Some of the best remaining features of "Underground Chattanooga"can still be found along East Seventh Street between Market and Cherry streets.

Underground Chattanooga was created when a large amount of fill was added to some low-lying downtown streets after several disastrous floods.

A damaging flood in 1886 apparently led to raising the level of Seventh Street.

That brought feet of new fill along East Seventh by the then-new Central Block at the corner of Market and Seventh, the new McConnell Block along Seventh and a one-story building at the corner of Seventh and Cherry (Home Plate building).

What had been the first floor of the McConnell Block and of the Home Plate building was now underground.

Matt McGauley, whose family owns the McConnell Block and the Home Plate Building, said at the time of the fill a stone wall was built about four feet from the walls of the buildings that were being covered. It was erected along Seventh Street as well as along Cherry.

In the McConnell Block basement he points out an alley that once separated it and the Home Plate Building.

Finished brick is along the wall of the McConnell Block, showing that it was not meant for a basement.

There are doors and windows that would not be needed in a basement.

Attorney Bill Speek, whose law firm has moved into the Home Plate Building, said that when a new power supply was being put in from Cherry Street that the EPB crew ran into the stone wall that was built out from the submerged building.

He pointed out the old electric circuit that was in use until recently.

Still in the Home Plate Building basement (the original first floor) are some interesting compartments that appear to have once been used for sleeping and hanging clothes. Mr. McGauley said he believes the building was once in use as a budget hotel.

Walking along Seventh Street by the Central Block, the tops of arches of windows can be seen, indicating that the windows themselves were covered with fill.

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