Jerry Summers
I am taking the risk of not mentioning some of the outstanding authors of articles and books that will inform the readers and new comers to the history of the Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia areas. Said oversight is not intentional.
Any history of Hamilton County, Tennessee must begin with Dr. James W. Livingood’s 1981 novel “A History of Hamilton County, Tennessee (Memphis State University Press).
The Chattanooga Regional Historical Journal is another excellent publication that comes with a yearly membership to the Chattanooga Area Historical Association that can be obtained with a $20.00 individual membership and purchase of copies of old and new journals for $5.00 and $6.00.
Many of the best historians regularly send in articles and include, Sam Elliott, Kay Baker Gaston, LaVonne Jolley, Smith Murray, Maury Nicely, Micky Robbins, Anthony Hodges and Alex McKeel to name just a few.
The surrounding counties in both Tennessee and Georgia have historical societies that contain much of the history in their area and several have museums that display many items pertaining to local history.
The Chattanooga Public Library under the leadership of Corrine Hill has a wealth of history information including back copies of former and existing newspapers. The staff is always helpful and Suzette Raney is a regular article contributor.
Linda Moss Mines is the current Hamilton County Historian and weekly contributor of an article in the Perspective Section each Sunday in the Chattanooga Times/Free Press. Mark Kennedy is also a member of the local paper that writes timely historical articles.
John Shearer and the author contribute historical articles under the Happenings Section in the Chattanoogan.com web paper of John Wilson. Roy Exum when not writing about politics will also contribute a historical article.
John Wilson is likewise a former Hamilton County historian and his published works, Chattanooga’s Story (1980); Scenic Historic Lookout Mountain (1977); Railroads in and Around Chattanooga (2017); The Remarkable Stokes Collection (2014); Hamilton County Pioneers (2017) and Early Hamilton Settlers (2018) all contain photos and important historical data.
The Paul Heiner’s Historic Chattanooga (2016) contains over 3000 photos of Chattanooga and can be seen on the Chattanooga Public Library website.
Spokesman David Moon’s Picnooga.com contains 16,000 current and 13,000 potential digitized photos that were donated to the Public Library or Chattanooga History Center when the Chattanooga Times and Chattanooga News Free Press were merged in 1999 and are available for viewing on the website.
Sam Hall in 2014 created a website that is now known as Chattanooga History.com that is another source of additional information on the history of our area.
David Carroll, Earl Freudenberg, Harmon Jolley, and Dr. Wayne Shearer often make valuable contributions about the history of the media in our hometown.
If you want to check on history on a statewide basis a $35.00 membership with the Tennessee Historical Society will get you a copy of the Tennessee Historical Quarterly.
The specific information on how to contact each of the sources mentioned in this article can be found by going to Google Chrome and inserting the name of the individual in the publication in Chattanooga.
By logging in on any of the above you will enter a world of knowledge and history about the present topics, persons and events in the State of Tennessee that we proudly call home as well as Alabama and Georgia.
Enjoy your trip.