If one stands on the highest spot of Lakewood Memory Gardens East at 4621 Shallowford Road on the south side of Highway 153, a diversity of sights catches the eye.
Several industrial-like sites including the massive Vulcan Materials Company’s quarry juxtapose against the grass-lined Brainerd Levee and the architecturally praised First Cumberland Presbyterian Church off North Moore Road in the distance.
Almost inconspicuous, though, other than looking like a simple wooded area beginning at the southwest corner of the cemetery, is what Chattanooga Parks and Outdoors administrator Scott Martin called Eden.
It was here about a hundred yards into the undeveloped land on a dirt road off the cemetery grounds where Mayor Tim Kelly officially signed a restrictive covenant Friday morning preserving the land already owned by the city.
“Today’s event is about permanently preserving this lovely 27-acre oxbow,” said the mayor, an admitted outdoorsman and naturalist. “It’s right in the middle of Chattanooga. It’s an amazing asset. If you take a look around, it’s hard to believe you are sitting in the middle of a major city.”
It is being called the city’s first preserve, which officials said is a park “where the primary public benefit is the protection and nurturing of native ecology,” according to a press release.
First noticed on a geographic information system (GIS) map several years ago by Mayor Kelly, who later learned it was city owned, the land is the first of 560 acres of current city-owned land officials hope to convert into park land of some sort.
The land is called an oxbow because it is surrounded on three sides by 1.3 miles of South Chickamauga Creek, which makes a hairpin-like turn around the acreage kind of like the Tennessee River does at Moccasin Bend.
But that is not all that is apparently unique about it, as officials said a survey has unveiled numerous species. “We have found 228 unique species and native plants on this property. We have been really excited about the different ones,” said city natural resources manager Anna Mathis, citing everything from asters to parasitic plants, as well as vernal pools (small seasonal wetlands) inhabited by spring frogs.
Officials added that as soon as a management plan is put in place, it will be accessible to paddlers parking their canoes and kayaks along the South Chickamauga Creek, as well as even other groups coming via water like a Scout troop wanting to have an overnight camping experience.
Since the property by land appears to be accessible only via the private cemetery, officials said it would likely not have a trail or be encouraged for use by those coming on foot or car.
A new paddle or canoe access area at Shallowford Road is being added with the help of the Trust for Public Land.
However one gets there, an old growth and peaceful setting greets you. In the small open area where the press conference was held along the sewer line, a mature black walnut tree and some sycamores were spotted along with such wildflower-type plants identified as a yellowish senna and wild potato vine with a white morning glory-like flower. Raccoons and opossums also inhabit it along with herons and kingfishers, officials said, and a TV reporter said he saw a black snake on the way down the road.
The clearer blue sky and lack of humidity Friday morning gave the setting almost an early fall feel.
Officials were quite glowing in their praise of the land, with administrator Martin giving it biblical-like praise. “We’re in the center of 500,000 people with this breadth of plant life and animal life. It’s like living in Eden,” he said.
Added Lyn Rutherford, the city’s natural resources supervisor, “It’s really diverse, really exciting. Going for a different walk here during different times of the year so far, we have seen some really fantastic spring ephemerals (early wildflowers) like green dragon. And there are all kinds of strange things.”
Regarding the latter, officials pointed out that there are some rock boulders there of which they don’t know the cultural origin. And a short distance from where Vulcan Materials is having to create dust and dirt to produce materials to make life easier for modern Chattanoogans and others, several officials suspected that early Chattanoogans in the form of Native Americans likely settled on the preserved acreage.
Besides what is there, including some invasive species that city workers say will have to be removed, officials also took time to point out what will not be there. Although it is near the creek and building there would have been challenging, it will still serve even more importantly as an oasis among a developing Chattanooga.
“Sometimes cities are defined by what they don’t do more so than what they do do,” said Mr. Martin. “One of the things we don’t do is what we choose not to develop.
“The city has said it’s not going to do something. It’s not going to build on this site, and that’s a pretty big moment. Not a lot of cities do this.”
Mayor Kelly said he understands all sides on the development issue and knows people are saying a lot of development is going on in Chattanooga and that a housing shortage exists here. But he added that he also realizes the importance of preserving this and other lands as part of the 2023 Parks and Outdoors Plan initiative that was developed.
“Not everything needs to be developed,” he said, adding that this preservation will also help Chattanooga take a step forward in becoming the first National Park City in North America.
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