John Shearer: UTC’s Patten Chapel Is 100 Years Old This Year

  • Saturday, July 13, 2019
  • John Shearer

UT-Chattanooga Chancellor Dr. Steve Angle could be seen Friday morning walking across the school’s historic quadrangle alongside McCallie Avenue toward Patten Chapel.

He wanted to check and make sure any water that periodically seeps through the brick and mortar walls from the outside was not inside the landmark structure.

It was dry, at least before any heavy rains came across the Chattanooga area later in the day.

Over the years, showers of affection have also been thrust on the structure from admiring students, staff, alumni and others, many of whom, including apparently Dr. Angle, want to help look after the beloved building.

“I think it’s a connection to our past,” the chancellor said of the chapel after gladly offering a perspective when he realized he had stumbled upon a reporter being shown through the building by Laura Cagle, UTC director of university events. “It’s still an active part of life on campus.”

Ms. Cagle had earlier said similarly positive comments. “All of our buildings don’t look this grand, so it’s kind of nice,” she said. “Patten Chapel has definitely stood the test of time. I know very few buildings on campus this historic.”

The Patten Chapel has indeed been the scene of landmark events over the years, from countless weddings, to graduations and required chapel programs in its early decades, to other special happenings.

While people have often been the focus of those events, Patten Chapel itself is in the spotlight this year.  On May 30, it turned exactly 100 years old, as that was the date in 1919 it was officially dedicated.

Although not much has been done so far other than a planned article and other notices in school publications, Ms. Cagle thinks the school will also recognize the anniversary during the annual Founders Week activities in mid-September.

The old building has also gained plenty of attention over the years simply due to its towering Gothic architecture. And its location alongside McCallie Avenue has allowed the rest of Chattanooga along with the campus community to enjoy it visually.

It would likely be considered an eye-catcher just with the nave and its large stained-glass windows, but the castle-like tower adds an even more regal effect.

While the building has been the scene of mostly happy events, other than periodic memorial services, it had at least part of its origin in sadness.

 

It had been named in memory of John A. Patten, who died unexpectedly at a relatively young age. He was the head of Chattanooga Medicine Co. like his uncle, company founder Z.C. Patten, for whom the Patten Parkway and the Hotel Patten/Patten Towers are named.

            

Mr. Patten had gone to Chicago in 1916 to fight a legal attack on the Chattanooga Medicine Co., and while there he died suddenly from complications related to a ruptured ulcer. He was only 48 years old, and much of the Chattanooga community was in mourning upon hearing the news.

 

The Patten Chapel had been designed by noted Atlanta architect W.T. Downing. He also designed Race, Hooper and Founders halls at UTC as well as the older buildings at Baylor School, the Lyndhurst mansion, and the Patten home at the top of Minnekahda Road in Riverview.

 

Mr. Downing loved arches that came to a point, and they can be found on all of these mentioned buildings, including Patten Chapel.

 

The Patten family also came to a figurative point of agreement in helping support causes they embraced, and one of them was what was then known as the University of Chattanooga and its campus. This was due in part to the fact that the Pattens at the time were Methodists, and the University of Chattanooga in the 1910s was a Methodist-affiliated school.

 

Mrs. John A. (Edith) Patten’s father, the Rev. John J. Manker, had also been a Methodist pastor.

 

With the new quadrangle of buildings being constructed on plans drawn by Mr. Downing, who himself died suddenly in 1918 also at middle age after being struck by an automobile on a trip to Philadelphia, the Patten family gave money for the chapel as a memorial gift.

 

Mr. Patten had been on the board of trustees of UC and was treasurer of the university corporation before his death, and his wife was continuing the support.

 

Patten Chapel was the last building of the four constructed in the quadrangle, and was dedicated one day after World War I hero Alvin C. York of Fentress County, Tenn., had been given a grand welcome and tour of Chattanooga.

 

The chapel was also given a salute, based on the news reports. “The memorial chapel, which has just been completed, is considered to be one of the finest specimens of collegiate Gothic architecture erected anywhere in the country,” said the Chattanooga Times. It “occupies the crowning point of the campus on the hill overlooking McCallie Avenue.”

 

The newspaper said the nave, which is also commonly called the sanctuary, featured stone and brick in the chancel area, with interior woodwork of highly ornamented carved oak. The brick walls were trimmed with Bedford stone, and the floors in the aisles and front were made of pottery tile.

 

The chapel, which cost $100,000 at the time, also featured a large pipe organ built by Henry Pilcher & Son Company of Louisville, Ky. It lasted for years, but was damaged by a water leak, as was a subsequent Rodgers electric organ donated by Summit Pianos. Recently, two donors worked with then-provost Jeff Elwell to acquire the current electric organ from a church in Atlanta. All the work moving the organ consoles in and out resulted in workers having to cut through some of the arching woodwork.

 

The organ console has a small plate saying “Allen Digital Computer Organ” on it and opens like a secretary’s desk of old.

 

During the dedication ceremonies that Friday night in 1919, a crowd that included multiple Methodist bishops and school President Fred Hixson packed the new edifice.

 

Dr. Hixson told the audience that he had been on a walk through the woods of the Minnekahda estate with the late Mr. Patten in 1916, when Mr. Patten told him that UC needed larger resources. Further, he told Dr. Hixson that he intended to help with the school’s annual debt.

 

Mr. Patten had also previously led a school campaign, apparently to help construct the new quad buildings to replace the Old Main structure that dated to the school’s beginning in 1886.

 

Also speaking that day was former UC president Dr. John Race, a Princeton graduate and Methodist minister, and Detroit area Methodist bishop Theodore Henderson, formerly of the Chattanooga area.

 

Only about two weeks after the building was dedicated, the first wedding was held in Patten Chapel. In an unusual twist, the first bride was one of Mr. Patten’s daughters, Phyllis, who married James Abshire. Mrs. Abshire recalled in a 1987 interview that they were not sure if Patten Chapel would be ready, so they also planned to have it at First Methodist Church at the corner of McCallie and Georgia avenues.

 

However, when they realized the chapel was going to be ready, they ran an announcement in the paper of the change of venue, and the chapel was filled.

 

Mrs. Abshire, the mother of former NATO ambassador and Ronald Reagan administration adviser David Abshire, lived in her later years in a condominium in the revamped former Minnekahda home.

 

Other children of John A. and Edith Patten were Charlotte Guerry, Manker Patten, John A. Patten Jr., Tarbell Patten, and Lupton Patten.

 

Over the years, Patten Chapel became a popular place for other weddings and school functions, including mandatory chapel services until a few years before UC became the public UTC in 1969. Graduation/commencement exercises had also been held there until after World War II.

 

While mostly young people made use of it over the decades, the chapel itself did not stay in young-like condition. Patten Chapel slowly began to show signs of wear and tear, as it became a photography backdrop as much as the centerpiece of campus it once was.

 

Some restoration work was done in the 1980s, and it was rededicated in 1988, with UTC Chancellor Dr. Frederick Obear presiding. Bishop Clay Lee of the Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church delivered an address discussing the building’s Methodist roots.

 

A plaque outlining the Methodist connections to UC/UTC had been erected inside the chapel in 1972. Other plaques placed inside the chapel are to John A. Patten, to staff/faculty members Dot Bradley, Terrell Louise Tatum and Ruth Clark Perry, and to Joan Reagin McNeill by her husband, Tom, who contributed to the installation of a carillon bell system in 1989.

 

And recently, under the work and research coordination of English literature professor Dr. Aaron Shaheen, a centennial anniversary plaque was installed in memory of five former University of Chattanooga students who died in World War I. They were Frank H. Atlee, Forrest L. Bradley, William D. Faris, Charles W. Loaring-Clark and J. Parke Robb.

 

Other work done in recent years has included re-pointing the mortar around the bricks in the tower, and putting a new roof on the chapel.

 

Dr. Angle said the university has spent plenty of money maintaining the building in recent years, but they think it is worth it.

 

“It’s an important part of our campus that we cherish,” he said.

 

This inanimate goodwill hostess with plenty of charm also still gets used quite a bit, particularly for weddings. “We do a ton of weddings,” said Ms. Cagle, whose department oversees the chapel. “We do a wedding just about every weekend.”

 

It is also used for such other formal ceremonies as sorority inductions and school honor society installations.

 

It gets used some informally as well. Ms. Cagle said sometimes staff or faculty members like to come in and sit and read or contemplate during a break in the day. “Sometimes on a college campus there are not a lot of quiet spots,” she said with a laugh.

 

If you are in there on the hour or half hour, though, you might get your quiet disrupted, although in a pleasant sort of way, by the chimes from the carillon system in the tower.

 

The chapel has made a strong reverberation plenty of other times as well simply through its historic, but timelessly appealing, architecture.

 

“I’m glad to know it’s still here,” said Ms. Cagle. “A lot of campuses weren’t lucky to get to keep something like this for so long.

 

“This is a gem on our campus.”


* * * * *

To hear UTC Chancellor Dr. Steve Angle discuss the significance of Patten Chapel, click here.

 

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