posted June 12, 2005
John Shearer's article about the destruction of the old farmhouse in
Mountain Creek was the perfect companion to a dreary, rainy day. From its very inception, Chattanooga has established a sterling record of disdain for preserving this area's history - particularly in the years
following the Civil War. Prior to the war, during the 25 years since Native American Removal, our home was a lazy little river town with localized commerce. I am sure those were halcyon days for our earliest settlers.
In those days, there were around a hundred Indian mounds along the
river and on the tributary creeks as noted by H.F. Wenning in an early newspaper account. They were largely left alone in those days or simply taken as curiosities left by departed ancients. Today, there are fewer than can be counted on the fingers of one hand. One of these, the Citico Mound, was equivalent to and contemporary with the striking examples preserved today at historic sites like Moundville, Ala., and Cahokia, Ill., and Etowah Mounds in Georgia. These sites are inspiring to the many who travel to visit them and learn about the rise and passage of the civilizations which built them. In Chattanooga, the Citico Mound was dug down and destroyed in the 1920s amid derision as "an artifact of heathen civilizations with no place in modern Christian society."
Amateur archaeologists of the day darted in front of the bulldozers amid scattered skulls and bones to snatch uncovered grave goods and artifacts before they were trucked
off for fill dirt. When the flagpoles were installed at the VFW, the exposed ground was littered with human teeth, bones and artifacts. Even today, this site is not afforded a state historical marker and the thousands of Amnicola Highway motorists who drive over hundreds of native graves every day at the site know nothing of them. Not our best historical footnote.
But we do have markers to such idiotic falsities as "The Old French
Store," claimed to have stood on Williams Island. Of course it never
existed. For many years tourists were amazed to find a state historical marker below Ruby Falls detailing how Lookout Mountain was the scene of "The Last Battle of the Revolutionary War." This utter
fiction, which was debunked years ago, is still published far and wide
in the timeline of Chattanooga history distributed by the Chamber of
Commerce along with mention of "Little Owl's Village" at Audubon
acres. Mere myth. But the silver chalice of historical wizardry goes
to those who have invented the concept that the infamous "Trail of
Tears" originated at Ross' Landing in the shadow of the Tennessee
Aquarium - a gargantuan fallacy right up there with lunar cheese.
One wonders how this could have come to be?
Back in those days prior to 1863, the population of Chattanooga was
around 2,500. When the horrific winds of civil war blew through the
Tennessee Valley, our little river town was utterly transformed. 1863
was the pivotal year. Many of our residents fled never to return.
After the Battle of Missionary Ridge and the retreat of the Confederate Army into Georgia, Chattanooga became a rear-guard supply depot under the control of the Union Army of the Cumberland and its quartermaster corps. A huge influx of refugees including thousands of blacks from all points poured into the city. The army segregated the black refugees, called contrabands, on the north side of the river in what became known as "contraband camps." There were as many as 8,000 of them alone. They established a refugee community. They had businesses and, over time, the Black community of Hill City came into being. Many of Chattanooga's current black families originated there.
These people made lasting contributions to Chattanooga's postwar
rebirth. As necessity dictated late in the war, the Army raised several regiments of troops from these refugees who served with distinction. One regiment was wholly responsible for the layout and
construction of our National Cemetery where Sections I and J are devoted to burials of U.S. Colored Troops (USCT.) The huge trees we value there today were planted by Black Civil War veterans.
Over time, the union quartermasters became acutely aware of the potential for Chattanooga. Many of them were intelligent men, educated in business and industry. They utilized the black refugees to construct the first bridge across the River - called the "military bridge." Divers can see remnants of the piers even today. They built foundries and rolling mills, warehouses, the Cameron Hill waterworks, streets, roads, and railways. At the close of the war, many of these Union officers had become so well established here that they simply stayed, purchasing much of the local infrastructure as war surplus over the objections of Grant himself. J.T. Wilder, an Indiana iron man, became mayor of Chattanooga only a few years after he had shelled the city from Stringer's Ridge putting a cannonball through the roof of Rev. McCallie's church.
It is easy, then, to see that this flood of newcomers had no real
attachment to early Chattanooga and have always felt that they had
created it from scratch. I guess it was natural that they would think
that they could randomly invent its history as well. There have been
several local "folk historians" over the years who have taken great
liberty with the historical record even to the point of completely
inventing stories largely for the benefit of the tourism industry.
For those enriched by building things, the concept of tearing down old structures, bulldozing down Cameron Hill, building highways and
"Heritage Landings" over significant native sites were just business-as-usual. In reality, Chattanooga, unlike cities like Charleston and Savannah, was never repatriated - it remained an enclave of war booty in the hands of northern industrialists, bankers and entrepreneurs whose great-grandchildren regard it much the same
way today from their penthouse offices.
Because these people have always ruled here, the result is that
Chattanooga has been distinguished as having virtually no structures
still standing from the time of the civil war. We talk a lot about
history here, but we have nothing to show. With the exception of the
one old railroad building downtown and Brown's Tavern in Tiftonia,
could the old farmhouse first deeded to Messrs. Rawlings and Green in
1862 have been the last specimen? We've established a "one-stop-shop" for development permits but no mechanism to keep the bulldozers from obliterating our history.
Why was the perceived sacrifice too great for you to have set it aside, Mr. Bennett? Was one lousy acre out of your 91-acre development just too much lost profit?
Such questions beget many others: Why does The Passage commemorate Cherokee Removal through the use of stylized Muscogean (Creek) symbols that predate Cherokees by hundreds of years but not mention Creek removal? Why does Chattanooga fawn over the abuse of a single generation of Cherokees when it owes so much of its success as a modern city to Black slaves, some of whom inhabited this area before the Cherokees came? Why are there no markers or monuments to commemorate the contrabands and the U.S. Colored Troops? Why do articles about the 21st Century Riverfront
give the odd impression that there are no Black citizens in Chattanooga? (I invite you to read the newspaper inserts from the
week of dedication festivities last month and find any meaningful mention of the Black community.) With hundreds of thousands spent on public art projects downtown, why was the Black community given only the dubious prize of a couple of old alley wall murals painted by schoolchildren? Where is mention of the decades of steamboat activity which supported the regional economy before the coming of railroads. Will our people allow history to continue to be abused, ignored and buried by mindless development? Why is there no comprehensive database of area historical sites and no meaningful review board to seek their preservation? Why did one of the oldest and largest trees on the North Shore have to be saved by the man who was hired to cut it down?
I do not believe preservation is a dirty word. I do not believe the
answers are out of our reach. I just believe we need to find the will
to respond to them honestly and in meaningful ways and that such a
path will lead to a more equitable and memorable 21st century.
Bruce Wilkey
Signal Mountain
bwilkey@bellsouth.net
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