Visitors To Boynton Park On Cameron Hill Had A Grand Vista - But No More

My father HATED what was being done to Cameron Hill… So much history completely lost during that debacle decision. I have a faint memory of my father saying words in Italian…probably bad words…over what had already happened and seeing moved and cleared areas of bare land and piles of earth waiting to also be moved.

Mary Haislip

"I literally get ill when I start thinking about that beautiful two square block of Boynton Park.

That was a thing they took from every citizen and visitor to Chattanooga. Maybe Piedmont Park with the Botanical Garden in Atlanta is the only thing this side of Charleston that could hold a candle to light the way to such a beautiful park in the South. We dig it up and the wonderful homes around it. I went there almost every day for many years. There is no place with a 360 view like that in any city anywhere. It was an unbelievable view of the Tennessee River... all gone.

Gale Weidner Fleming, who spent the first 12 years of her life on Cameron Hill

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Visitors to Boynton Park atop Cameron Hill had a grand vista.

One early visitor said, "Aside from its views of historic ground, the wide panorama of natural beauty and grandeur seen from this new park is worth long travel to look upon."

Another entranced visitor, A.R. McKenzie, said, "From there is no better view of the city and its environs. The river can be seen for miles in either direction as it curves around Lookout Mountain to the south following Moccasin Bend into the Grand Canyon of the Tennessee River between Signal and Raccoon Mountain."

The outlook from the pavilion at the park was "one of the most impressive scenic panoramas in the South."

At the time an incline railway briefly operated to the top of Cameron Hill and there was a gambling casino at its summit, the promoters set aside some park land. But they set a charge to get in and enjoy the view.

In 1903, with the incline and the casino long gone, the city gave its approval to a park at the north end of Cameron Hill that would be open to all the citizens to enjoy with no admission charge.

The park was named for General Henry Boynton, who was the leading light in setting up the national park at the Chickamauga Battlefield. George Washington Ochs, a brother of Adolph Ochs, gave some additional land for the park along the hill's slopes on the condition that General Boynton would be honored with the naming.

A pavilion was erected and cannons were placed along the outskirts of the park as a reminder of when they were in use during the Civil War.

Boynton Park was known for its bandstand and flowering cherry trees. It was often listed as a destination on tourist promotional brochures for Chattanooga.

The highest elevation was the northwest point, and had been used in the communication of Civil War messages from Signal Mountain. Cannons and historic markers commemorated the military history of Cameron Hill.

The Urban Renewal project obliterated the original Boynton Park in 1962, as dirt from Cameron Hill was excavated and hauled away to provide fill for the nearby freeway. Cameron Hill, which some had once called a miniature Lookout Mountain, was transformed into a plateau with 91 feet of the original high elevation gone.

The top of what remained of Cameron Hill was left in a state of bare chert, rocks, and weeds for over 10 years while plans for its use were debated. At the time some wag commented that the best crop that had been produced by Urban Renewal was ragweed.

A new, larger park was proposed at the lowered elevation. It would have included walkways all along the rim of the new Cameron plateau. However, the scope of Boynton Park 2 was eventually greatly scaled back when the Chattanooga Housing Authority decided to sell the scraped-off top of Cameron Hill to Cameron-Oxford Associates. That group planned to erect the Cameron Hill Apartments, which would occupy most of the summit. A pavilion was again erected, and the cannons were returned to the scaled-down park site. There was a small parking area. It was dedicated in 1975. The apartments went forward, though Don Wamp, Mark K. Wilson, Jr., Carl Gibson and Sherman Paul tried to stop them with a lawsuit. The suit, that protested the loss of the popular city park, was dismissed by Federal Judge Frank Wilson after it was transferred from Chancery Court.

The second Boynton Park was knocked down as well when BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee decided to place its headquarters at the top of Cameron Hill.

According to a public affairs manager for BlueCross BlueShield at the time, “At the start of construction the cannons and commemorative tablets that were located at the park were turned over to the National Park Service for safekeeping during construction of our new corporate campus.

"Our planners are deep in discussion about the nature and location of a public park on Cameron Hill. That park may not look exactly like the previous park and it may not be located exactly where Boynton was, but it is part of our planning efforts for the project.”

Meanwhile, the Civil War artifacts from Cameron Hill remain in storage.

BlueCross never made any provision for a Boynton Park 3 and does not allow public access to the scenic spot where Chattanoogans and the city's visitors once marveled at the amazing view of downtown, river and mountains.

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Editor's Note: Thanks for reading our series of articles on Cameron Hill. Some additional articles that are researched may appear on our Memories section. And, thanks to Tony St. Charles who graciously shared photos taken by his father, Pat St. Charles, Jr., who was hired by the Chattanooga Housing Authority to perform appraisals for the West Side Redevelopment Project. This amazing collection of some 375 Cameron Hill homes inspired our new examination of Cameron Hill and a search to discover who were the delightful characters who lived there. These are our main link to the Cameron Hill homes since boxes of files and photos of Cameron Hill homes and businesses that were in the basement of the Chattanooga Housing Authority offices on West Ninth Street later disappeared. A diligent search by current staff of the CHA turned up no files or photos on Urban Renewal.