Brad Bennett Tells Kiwanis Club His Vision For The Chickamauga And Chattanooga National Military Park

  • Tuesday, March 31, 2015
  • Gail Perry
Brad Bennett
Brad Bennett

In June 2014 Brad Bennett became the newest superintendent of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. At the Downtown Kiwanis Club meeting Tuesday, he spoke of the opportunities and vision he has for the park.

Mr. Bennett’s 24-year career with the National Park Service started at the Grand Canyon in 1991. Since then he has worked at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park, Northwest Alaska, Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield and Andersonville National Historic Site before coming to the Chattanooga area.

In many of those parks, a connection to humans past and present played a big part in his jobs. He has also been instrumental in developing new visitor centers at several of the parks. A lot of the land in the Cedar Creek and Belle Grove Park is not owned by the park service, but is privately owned and is in conservation easements to form a public/private partnership. The Andersonville Park, he said, had a lot of volunteers as there are in Chattanooga. Elements of these past experiences will figure into his work at the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park.

The value of the national parks, said Mr. Bennett, is for recreation and education. Currently there are 400 national parks. One mission of the park service is to save these places for the benefit of all Americans. With the centennial of the National Park Service in 2016, it is launching  a campaign called “Find Your Park,” to rebuild the infrastructure and make improvements to neglected sites. The park service hopes to find ways to attract a younger and more diverse visitor base.

New ways of connecting people to the parks are in the works. Bike tours are being offered and water trails known as “blueways” will be used for kayak tours. In Chattanooga, there is a public/private partnership to connect the park trails to trails outside park boundaries. One exciting example of this effort, he said, is connecting the riverwalk through St. Elmo, up Lookout Mountain, past Covenant College through the Ochs gateway and continuing into Alabama.

The Chickamauga and Chattanooga Park is the country’s oldest national military park, founded in 1890. It is also the largest, consisting of 5,000 acres in multiple locations around the area. "If you look up anywhere you are, you’re likely to see park of this park," said Mr. Bennett. The newest addition to the national park system is also in the Chattanooga area as the Moccasin Bend National Archaeological Area was established in 2003. This park will help preserve 12,000 years of human history.

A new interpretive center is now being planned in association with the volunteer association, Friends of Moccasin Bend. Scheduled for Oct. 20 and 22 are meetings to unveil alternative uses of the park including roads, trails and the type of facilities needed. Already planned for next summer is new work on the Blue Blazes Trail at the site.

Private and public partnerships support these two parks in a big way, the speaker said. Friends of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Park and Friends of Moccasin Bend Park provided 900 volunteers last year. This contributed 13,000 hours of work to support the parks - equating to six added employees, said Mr. Bennett. Additionally, there are organizations, including the Lookout Mountain Conservancy, UTC, the Chamber of Commerce, local governments, and others that partner with the park service. And at this time the park service is recruiting seven high school students as volunteers for the Southeast Conservation Corps that could lead to jobs with the federal government.

The Chickamauga and Chattanooga Park had a million visitors in 2014, which was a 19-percent increase over the previous year. The impact this has on the local economy is well recognized, said the park superintendent. These tourists help to fill hotels and restaurants. They also buy gasoline and souvenirs. In 2014, over $55 million was spent in the area as a result of visitors to the national park.

It is hoped that measures that are being taken now will connect with and create the next generation of advocates for the National Park Service, he said.

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