John Shearer: Exploring And Searching For Greenways, Part 33 – The Unique Woodland Park Baptist Church Campus

After doing this series for nearly two years, I thought I was about finished other than maybe two or three more stories that would at least cover general areas of Hamilton County I have not yet highlighted.

But then I happened to see a news photograph in recent days of a high school cross country race at what was described as “Woodland Park.” I remembered I had also seen a similar picture last fall from the same place and wondered if it was a park or someplace connected to the Woodland Park Baptist Church. It caught my eye mainly because it looked like plenty of grass was around the competitors as they ran.

It also seemed like at some point I had seen someone talking about a nice campus for that church.

As a result of all that, I became quite curious and added one more destination for my greenway series while also feeling guilty that this is the first park story I have written since mid-September, after a Sept. 4 visit to McCoy Farm and Signal Point on Signal Mountain.

Well, as has happened to this longtime resident of Chattanooga several times recently, I stumbled upon a local place I had never been before that had some green space.  And maybe other than the minimally expansive First Cumberland Presbyterian Church off Moore Road in Brainerd, this is basically the first church I have highlighted that has great open space.

And does it ever! In fact, in one or two places the grassy landscaping was either so aesthetically pleasing or well-manicured that I thought while jogging around this contemporary castle for Christ that I was on the grounds of Biltmore.

It is like a suburban-style nice country church in the meadow.

Also, I could not believe I was in a place I had never seen before in this mid-sized city I thought I knew quite well. And as I have said before, I would be willing to bet maybe 90 percent or more of Chattanoogans have not been there either, even though I know the Scenic City area has a lot of Baptists!

I decided to visit the grounds this past Saturday around late morning. While I generally like to go to these places and take pictures when the skies are perfectly blue, rain started appearing after I left my home near Northgate Mall, dropped off my recyclables and began heading toward Interstate 75 on Highway 153.

After exiting on Bonny Oaks Drive and turning right onto Hickory Valley Road across from the Enterprise South entrance, I turned right onto Hamby Circle. The long-familiar area dating back to when I was a teenager and would drive out to Hickory Valley Golf Course to play in junior golf tournaments suddenly started looking unfamiliar.

The setting that had featured older and mostly non-descript buildings by a double railroad track suddenly took on a whole new life, and I felt as if I were entering a grassy fantasyland.

I saw some mowed and handsome bottomland to my left, and suddenly thought I was not in the Tyner area anymore. Soon, what came into sight was a large church which was built in the contemporary style of larger churches today, but with a steeple like area churches of yesteryear, or at least the mid-20th century.

As I found out when I drove away, this steeple can also be seen from hundreds of yards away outside the church grounds.

And surrounding it, except for a couple of large parking lots and entrance and exit roads, were acres of grass and a few trees in about all directions. For this lover of open space, especially in unexpected suburban areas, it was wonderful.

And the fact this was on the grounds of a church was inspiring to this fellow church goer of the United Methodist persuasion and lover of greenways and open space.

There were several mostly flat fields with trees in an area that almost looked more like West Tennessee than East Tennessee, and I could see the low-cut paths for the cross country runners who were the subject of the recent photo.

I also saw a soccer field or two that had no fencing and was being used that day by youth soccer players.

And on the edge of the manicured church grounds can be found a small lake or two as well as a wetland type area farther away with signs saying it was private property but the site of a federally protected nature preserve. And across Standifer Gap Road on one edge of the church grounds was a beautiful farmhouse with a turning maple tree in front of it, and a historic barn a few feet away.

The home was surrounded by fields that also referenced private property and said security cameras were there. And on the church side of Standifer Gap Road was a neat-looking stone home built in the style of a mid-century ranch residence.

Perhaps these homes are clues to the previous owner or owners of the expansive church land, which may total about 170 acres. I have not done any research into this topic.

Some information at the church website did say that Woodland Park had for many years been housed in the nice stone building at Holtzclaw Avenue and Main Street before moving in 1978 to 7501 Standifer Gap Road, which is near Walker Road between Exits 5 and 7 of I-75.

In 2007, the church had its first service at its current expansive campus at 6735 Standifer Gap Road.

I did learn online that the church had been in talks in 2013 and 2014 with Tennessee Temple University for the college to relocate by the church on the expansive campus. But those plans fell through when the former Highland Park school merged with Piedmont International University in Winston-Salem, N.C., in 2015.

So, this big and beautiful campus of open space sits. Since this story is just part a series of my own observations of natural spaces and not a full documentation, complete with exhaustive reporting, I do not know what the long-term plans are for the open space.

If any church expansion or some other school is planned for that site, it has apparently not been announced.

I am also not completely sure how open the grounds are to visitors just coming in off the street and wanting to jog like I did, or those walking a dog as I saw a woman doing while several dozen youngsters and their parents were down by the soccer fields.

I did not see any signs saying one way or the other.

But I would like to thank the church for having -- and at least in a way protecting -- this beautiful bottomland along Poe and Friar branches and letting church members and visitors enjoy some peace amid suburbia.

Here, hearts can be warmed outside and inside.

And if no major expansion or other construction plans are imminent, I would also encourage the church to preserve it permanently, if it is not, while adding some walking trails and signs telling people to enjoy the space.

In other words, maybe they could make it into an even more formal park. Such a move might even draw a few more church members.

I have always thought that the Christian church in general has not been on the forefront of preserving nature as much as maybe it could be, as it is usually focusing on saving souls instead of soils.

But many might say this handsome open space around Woodland Park Baptist Church is part of God’s beautiful creation.

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Note: After this story was originally published, a couple of readers emailed to say that the farmland across Standifer Gap Road from the church property with the old farmhouse is the longtime farm of the Harold Coker family. One of the readers also said that the church property and the ranch-style home on the church side of Standifer Gap Road had at one time been owned by the Dr. Orville Gass family.

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To see the previous story in this series, read here.

https://www.chattanoogan.com/2021/9/14/434720/John-Shearer-Exploring-And-Searching.aspx

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Jcshearer2@comcast.net