Kayaking class on creek by Greenway Farm
photo by City Parks
The Greenway Farm off Hamill Road in Hixson has become a popular place for exercisers and nature lovers wanting to escape crowded suburbia, but to Lindee Spangler, it is still home – at least in her heart.
Ms. Spangler, the middle daughter of former owner Dr. Benton Spangler and Dee Kessel, not only lived on the land during most of her growing up and young adult years, she also spent many an hour working on it and exploring it. As a result, she has very deep feelings for the place.
“I always felt as one with this land,” she said. “I still love it. I must dream about it four or five times a week and say I can’t go there anymore.”
Since it was sold in 1990 to the city of Chattanooga for use as a park for passive recreation, it has become a dream come true for those promoting urban or suburban land preservation.
Rhonda Seeber, the spokesperson for the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, said that the park has been a great resource for the city. OutVenture, the programming arm for Outdoor Chattanooga, coordinates a number of recreational activities on the land, including canoeing, kayaking, camping and rock climbing.
The former Spangler home also has a waiting list for rental use by the public.
“It is a great facility,” she said of the entire acreage. “It has a little something for everyone. It does offer a variety of natural settings that make it fun and educational.”
Although it has been preserved, the land has actually changed some since it became a park. For example, the large western field that borders Chickamauga Creek was generally mowed about once a year, although the outer edge has been cut more frequently for walkers and joggers. But in the last few years, park officials have let trees start growing back there and in other areas to return the land to its natural state.
“They decided to let it grow out because there are not many places for wildlife to go,” Ms. Seeber said.
According to Ms. Spangler, the land has also changed in other ways. She said it formerly had a big and historic barn in the area of the current shed, just south of the home and tennis court. It also had no entrance off Hamill Road, as the Gann Store Road entrance was the original driveway.
A small golf course for the family was also located just off Gann Store Road, and the mounds of the greens and tees are still visible. Also, five ponds that were on the grounds have since been filled. Where one of the ponds was, a transplanted log cabin sits, Ms. Spangler said.
According to Dr. Spangler, a retired dentist who lives on another family farm at the top of Roberts Mill Road on Signal Mountain, the Greenway Farm land was bought by him about 1959 from the estate of the Shepherd family, who had owned it for a number of years.
The land was actually bought in two tracts over three years and totaled 170 acres. Located on part of the land is a quarry, from which limestone was extracted when the Chickamauga Dam was under construction beginning in the 1930s.
Both Dr. Spangler and his daughter are full of stories they have heard about what took place on the land in decades and centuries past.
Ms. Spangler said that evidence exists that an Indian village was located in the area between the tennis court and the cemetery at the top of the hill. And Dr. Spangler said Roy Warren of the Red Bank Swap Shop told him some Spanish coins had been found on the land.
They also believe Union soldiers came down the North Chickamauga Creek during the Civil War to the land. This was at the time when Gen. William Sherman’s troops were hiding out in the North Chattanooga/Red Bank area to give the impression they were moving north. Ms. Spangler has heard that they constructed boats on the farm to use while crossing the river as part of the movement prior to the Battle of Missionary Ridge.
Previous families who lived on the land were the Walkers and the Morgans, who are buried at the cemetery. The Ganns had a dairy farm there, as well as a nearby country store.
An old house belonging to the former settlers was located just down from the Gann Store Road entrance, and it was torn down after Dr. Spangler bought the property. Ms. Spangler remembers that she and her sisters, Jan Harley, now of Birmingham, and Dana Bryan of Cleveland, Tenn., used to find old toys and other buried items from the house.
Ms. Spangler says many of her stories about the land came from Hoss Brown, with whom she worked on the land for many years. He died recently at the age of 89. And most of his stories were tales his mother told him. “He worked this land from the time he was a little boy. He worked on it as a dairy farm and also at the quarry,” she said.
Dr. Spangler said that, when his family had the farm, he mostly kept cattle on it and grew hay and soybeans.
Those who used to drive by the land during the 1970s might remember seeing buffalo on it. Dr. Spangler said he ordered the animals out of Oklahoma. Although pretty and unusual for Tennessee, they did break through the fences and would occasionally go wandering for days at a time. “They are crazy,” Dr. Spangler said with a laugh. “They would go through barbed-wire fence like it was paper.”
His daughter remembers one time when they ended up in the pool of a neighbor’s yard. Needless to say, the animals were eventually sent on their way.
The family had built the current home on the farm several years after purchasing the land. Dr. Spangler said its dining room offers a great view of North Chickamauga Creek.
His daughter said she loved the view from almost anywhere on the farm. As a youngster, she enjoyed playing in the creek, going swimming in the quarry, riding her dirt bike around the land, and building forts out of rocks and logs.
“I spent my time on the property,” she said, adding that the family also had all kinds of animals. “I would stay out all day and only come in at night. And I would sometimes go up to the cemetery and sit at night.”
As she grew older, she would often help Mr. Brown maintain the grounds, which included a vegetable garden, a vineyard, an orchard, and well-maintained flowerbeds and grassy areas. “I worked on the farm from daylight to dark,” she said. “It was the most beautiful place in Hixson growing up.”
One gets the idea that what most considered work, Ms. Spangler considered fun.
Although Ms. Spangler envisioned living on the farm the rest of her life, that was not to be. A variety of forces came to the forefront, including $10,000 a year that were being paid in taxes, the fact that Dr. Spangler needed a return on his investment, and that Dr. Spangler and his wife, Dee, were now divorced.
So, about 1990, her father decided to dispose of the land, first by trying to get high-density townhomes built on it. However, that was met with much protest from area citizens, and the zoning request was denied by the city.
One of the leaders of the rezoning fight was Dave Crockett, who would later capitalize on his visibility gained during the farm proceedings to propel himself into elected office as a member of City Council.
Although the initial efforts by Mr. Crockett and the other citizens had been simply to keep high-density development out of an already-growing area, talk soon changed to preserving the farm.
“Dave Crockett said it’s such a pretty place that why don’t we buy it. So I said, ‘Make me an offer,’ ” Dr. Spangler said. “I didn’t need that big a place anymore.”
After disappointingly realizing the farm would be sold, Ms. Spangler figured having it as a preserved area would be much better than as a residential development, so she personally helped Mr. Crockett get hundreds of signatures encouraging the city to buy the land.
Although the Spanglers are glad it is preserved, both say they miss it.
“I wish I had it back,” Dr. Spangler said. “I’ve been sick ever since I sold it. I loved that place.”
Added Ms. Spangler, who is admittedly still getting used to it not being the family homestead. “It bothered me but I know he needed the money and I wanted it to be preserved.”
As a result of the Spanglers and Dave Crockett and the others, the entire citizenry of Chattanooga now can enjoy the scenic place for all time.
A lone kayaker in the Greenway Farm quarry lake
photo by City Parks