Todd Morgan in front of the Choo Choo Terminal building
photo by John Shearer
When Todd Morgan was younger and was on his way to Atlanta with his traveling party from Northeast Tennessee, they instead stopped in Chattanooga.
As fate would have it, that was early May of 1992, when the Tennessee Aquarium by chance was opening. Needless to say, he did not reach Atlanta that time.
While he happened to catch Chattanooga at a time when it was focusing on its future with the key project that started the downtown Chattanooga renaissance, he now has his first job here focusing more on Chattanooga’s past.
Or, at least how the tangible past can continue to fit in viably with the present and future.
He was recently named as the new executive director of Cornerstones, Inc., the non-profit historic preservation advocacy group, after Ann Gray had served in that position for several years.
Interviewed last Friday from his office in the Cornerstones-owned old Chattanooga Choo Choo Terminal Station central dome building that was once a Southern Railway passenger waiting area, he said he was looking forward to getting started.
“I’m very happy to be here and looking forward to working with the folks in Chattanooga,” he said. “Everyone has been so kind and welcoming so far.”
He had served as executive director of the Knox Heritage historic preservation group in Knoxville for the last three years, and he decided to make the somewhat parallel move to Chattanooga when an opening occurred due in part to family.
“My husband, Steven, is from here and grew up here,” he said. “And for the last 10 years I have had a chance to explore the community.”
And he liked what he found in the latter realm as well, he added.
“I think Chattanooga has a fascinating history and beautiful architecture and appears to be very civic minded. There are a lot of people who care about the direction the city is going. All of that is very appealing to me.”
Although he had been on the job less than a week during the interview and was still working on such details as where to park for his job instead of where Cornerstones, Inc., is headed, he said he was planning to meet with the group’s board in the near future. Then, he will start planning some priorities and goals, he said, although he does know he wants to see the organization grow its footprint.
He also gave some leadership style hints, saying he hopes to work amicably with various aspects of the community to help in historic preservation and in educating interested parties where needed. He believes in cooperation and will not be someone who loudly runs and shouts to the media or a governing body when an important and historic architectural structure is threatened with possible demolition, he said.
“I would like for people to look at us as a partner to make sure the architectural heritage of the community and the neighborhoods are well cared for and good economic assets for the community,” he said. “It takes a lot of people working together.
“And we want to help people find viable solutions for difficult problems.”
The former graduate of Morristown West High School emphasized that he hopes to be very engaged and active in the community.
Mr. Morgan comes to Chattanooga more than 40 years after residents first began trying to preserve historic structures collectively through the non-profit realm. After Garnet Chapin, Andy Smith and Ellen “Happy” Yates unsuccessfully fought to save a home at 23 Bluff View from demolition due to some expansion plans by what is now the Hunter Museum of American Art, they did form Landmarks Chattanooga in 1975.
And it began with a “bury the hatchet” cocktail hour event with members of the Hunter board at Rock City, then headed by Mr. Chapin’s father, E.Y. Chapin III.
Other charter members of Landmarks Chattanooga were Kay Gaston and Charlotte Hooker.
The group’s first successful project was the saving and restoring of the Warner House at 800 Vine St. in Fort Wood.
By 1977, the group was led by President Matt Finley and Vice President Mark Hubbuch, and in 1980, it had its first executive director, Ray Manieri, who was 32 years old.
He had an office in the first floor of the Read House, as did later director Ned Pratt, who was often visible in the media in the early-to-mid-1980s.
By the late 1980s, though, as the group was seeing such projects as the preservation and reopening of the Walnut Street Bridge as a pedestrian bridge likely come to fruition, it became dormant.
However, plans to possibly tear down the Central Block at 7th and Market streets led in 1994 to the formation of a new group, Cornerstones, Inc., who helped save the still-standing building.
Mr. Morgan, who has two degrees from Carson-Newman University, has also worked in city planning and as the statewide director of the Main Street program focused on reviving and keeping vibrant downtown communities.
In those jobs he realized that the downtown areas and older neighborhoods near the inner cores of cities are where communities are distinctive and should especially be highlighted, he said.
“Every place looks the same until you get to the historic area,” he said. “There is something amazing in our own backyard, and then we overlook it.”
Although always interested in architecture, he had started in banking, but while looking at some blueprint plans for the bank in Morristown where he was working, he realized how much he was still interested in that fine art, especially as it related to older buildings. As a result, he soon felt a calling to switch careers.
At Knox Heritage, besides forming partnerships, he helped save a couple of houses in the Fort Sanders neighborhood from demolition as the Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center there was expanding. He also helped give the long-vacant Eugenia Williams home located on Lyons View Pike in Knoxville and which was once willed to the University of Tennessee a vibrant future with a sale to the Aslan Foundation. That foundation has since begun restoring it.
He admitted he is still trying to learn more about the stories of all the historic Chattanooga buildings, but he loves what he has seen, including the Main Street neighborhood around the old Terminal Station building and the Chattanooga Choo Choo.
“It’s an amazing neighborhood,” he said. “There are so many great restaurants. And I see people walking in all the time. They are very curious about the building.”
Besides fixing up the Terminal Station central dome building the group owns, he and Cornerstones would also like to see the train-shaped Chattanooga Choo Choo sign above the Terminal dome restored, too.
He is also quite interested in the Chattanooga buildings designed by noted pre-World War II Chattanooga architect R.H. Hunt. Although the late UTC professor Dr. Gavin Townsend had done extensive research on him and worked with Cornerstones to write a minimally published book, Mr. Morgan hopes Mr. Hunt’s work can be showcased and celebrated even more.
The prolific Mr. Hunt designed such buildings as the Hamilton County Courthouse, the James Building, Carter Hall at Covenant College, the former Maclellan Building and Memorial Auditorium.
Mr. Morgan is also interested in Mr. Hunt because he lives in a home on Missionary Ridge that he has heard was designed by the architect. He said he hopes to find out for sure.
But he definitely knows he is excited to be in Chattanooga and hopes he can work with Cornerstones in helping people realize the importance of saving and reusing historic homes and buildings.
“It’s always sad to look back and say, ‘I wish it was still there,’” he said. “That’s why places like Cornerstones exist. We are here to look at every possible angle before it’s too late.”
Jcshearer2@comcast.net