Reuse And Refurbish Downtown Buildings For Local Regional History Center And Museum - And Response

Chattanooga has some extraordinary history. We are home to the first Coca-Cola bottling plant. We can count the Moonpie, Little Debbie, Mayfield, Krystal, Icy Hot and Gold Bond amongst the worldwide brands synonymous with our region. The chopped weiner, Prater's, that provides NBA and college level basketball courts, and formerly Brock ( Brach) Candy all can call the Chattanooga region home.

We have extensive Civil Rights, Native American and Civil War history as well. And yet no history center or museum to share these wonderful stories. John Wilson is just one person that has chronicled many of these stories in his book, The Chattanooga Story.

With TVA’s downtown headquarters and the Courthouse by Miller Park looking to be reused or refurbished, along with the numerous surplus buildings the city of Chattanooga currently owns, the time has come for our city and region to put a serious plan in place to open an adequate Chattanooga Regional History Center and Museum.

It is not that some of our most passionate stewards of history have not tried. David Moon and those involved with Picanooga have long championed this cause. Unfortunately, they were unable to maintain proprietorship of a downtown building they were leasing.

And many of our leading citizens launched an effort over a decade ago. Over $10 million were raised while the history center never came to fruition. This has led to many of our city's major benefactors to "lose the appetite" for such an initiative, as it was explained to me.

Nevertheless, that fundraising was not in vain because it paved the way for the Medal of Honor Heritage Center to become a realization. That center is a jewel in this community and will soon launch a campaign to honor veterans and local Medal of Honor recipients in just a few weeks. The late Hamilton County Major Dalton Roberts was a longtime proponent of that cause. Many of us were visitors at the little building on Georgia Avenue and at Northgate Mall when the Medal of Honor Museum survived on mere donations as an entry fee. For many years the artifacts donated by the families of military veterans were stored in a building at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum that had no storage controlled climate. It was right for our community to correct this and we are better for it.

Distressingly, the former exhibits and artifacts from the now defunct Regional History Museum face a similar fate. The artifacts are unable to be publicly viewed because they are currently split between the public library's basement and UTC's special collections. Likewise, we have been unable to amass new artifacts and exhibits as time moves forward and many of our more notable buildings, artifacts and citizens fade from memory. The railroad tower at the Chattanooga Choo-Choo is just one that comes to mind.

While I may be a lone voice and do note there are many causes that are of more prominence, especially when it comes to the proper care and upliftment of people, this could be ranked as a worthy cause as well.

We should not be satisfied that we are one of the few mid-sized cities that has no adequate history center or museum, and resolve that if there are adequate spaces available such as the downtown TVA site, downtown courthouse, former Hamilton County jail or surplus property, that we can quickly remedy this glaring lack. Whether it is the local citizens currently residing here, or those visiting from abroad, having a center and museum that properly tells our stories will be viewed in the future not as something we did not have the appetite to pursue, but abundant recompense we can be justly proud to say we began.

Eric Atkins

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