John Shearer: Looking At R.H. Hunt’s Architecture In A Regularly Changing Chattanooga

  • Saturday, January 11, 2025
  • John Shearer

Architect Reuben Harrison Hunt’s buildings have long been considered among the more handsome structures in Chattanooga by everyone from trained designers to everyday citizens with an aesthetic appreciation for the visual and historical landscape.

His local structures receiving special mention over the years have included Chattanooga City Hall, the Hamilton County Courthouse, the James and Maclellan buildings, the art-deco Federal Courthouse, and the old Lookout Mountain Hotel that is now Carter Hall at Covenant College on Lookout Mountain.

Like a master portrait artist, he was said to be an architect who could ideally replicate popular neoclassical and other styles that evolved during his long career from the 1880s until his death in 1937. His mostly commercial, religious, and governmental buildings also had nice adornments, features and placements without being too overdone.

In addition, this prolific architect’s buildings have a range across the Southern landscape and beyond almost like magnolia trees.

Despite the mostly pleasantness regarding his buildings, though, fans probably changed their normal moods regarding a Hunt building after plans were announced this week for a new Drury Hotel at the old Sports Barn building site at Third and Market streets.

Mr. Hunt’s name has been associated with that collection of bus barn-related buildings on both sides of Third Street, although it is not clear if he was involved with that specific building. So, I looked in the old National Register of Historic Places nomination form written up by longtime historic preservation Garnet Chapin in the late 1970s, but it still did not seem completely clear what architects were involved there, either.

It is known Mr. Hunt was involved with the buildings built on the north side of Third Street shortly after the turn of the 20th century. But Mr. Chapin wrote that the architects were unknown regarding the rest of the complex that was once part of the Chattanooga Electric Railway Co. and housed and serviced streetcars.

At least part of the Sports Barn building is believed to date to the 1880s, however, so that would be considered a real loss for the tangible history of Chattanooga’s built environment among historic preservationists if the structure were torn down, regardless of the architect.

And it has also been somewhat in the public that First Presbyterian Church has been discerning what to do with Mr. Hunt’s 10-story Medical Arts Building built in 1929 on McCallie Avenue as a doctors’ office tower. It had been purchased by the church in 1978 for additional office and ministry space. A representative of the church told Chattanoogan.com this week that the members are still involved in the development phase, and it might be later in the winter before they are ready to make any public announcement about finalized plans.

Although Mr. Hunt’s buildings have not reached endangered species status due to so many of them remaining, historic preservationists trying to shepherd interest in historic preservation and his buildings likely feel hurt at any potentially lost “sheep.”

I have enjoyed writing about Mr. Hunt’s buildings and life over the years and have even tried to visit some of his known structures in other cities when traveling. As a result, I thought it might be fun to look through the old historical folders and pull a few items out again, including what others have thought about him.

I also decided on Thursday afternoon while the sky was still rich blue before Friday’s snow to stop and take a few pictures of some of his buildings around downtown. And I managed to pull into multiple metered parking spaces very briefly without getting any tickets in the process!

Yes, Mr. Hunt even today would not have had to strain his neck much to find his buildings, as they are seemingly everywhere on the horizon around downtown. In fact, I kept thinking of additional buildings while trying to recall them off the top of my head during the photographing process, and then I remembered one or two more after I had already headed home.

Besides those previously mentioned, other Hunt structures near downtown Chattanooga include Memorial Auditorium, an old Sunday school wing of the former First Baptist Church on Oak Street behind the auditorium, the Frances Willard home on Lindsay Street near Vine Street, the Miller Brothers department store building by Seventh and Market streets, the former Carnegie Library on Georgia Avenue, the now-metal-covered First Horizon skyscraper off Market Street, the historic part of Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences on Third Street, the Ellis/St. John’s Hotel at Market and King streets, the under-renovation Park Hotel on Seventh Street, and the also-being-remodeled Chattanooga Bank Building by Market and Eighth streets.

One anecdote I found now that I can more easily look through old newspapers online is that the planned designer of the Carnegie Library was to be Atlanta architect W.T. Downing. He was considered perhaps more the trend setter in style than Mr. Hunt and designed commercial, school, and residential structures for such people as the Lupton and Patten families locally.

But he evidently had some work or personal issues that prevented him from completing the commission, so the job was given to Mr. Hunt in almost a frantic manner by library planners, and he kindly completed the design still pleasantly noticeable and familiar today.

Other Hunt buildings around town include Northside Presbyterian Church in North Chattanooga, the original part of Red Bank United Methodist Church, Bachman Elementary on Signal Mountain, the stone tower building at Ruby Falls, the former St. James, East Lake, Ridgedale and Highland Park United Methodist churches, and the former Brainerd Junior High School, among others.

Some people have also associated him with Second Presbyterian Church, the old First Methodist Church, and the Tivoli, but he was apparently only involved with architectural supervisory roles or designed education additions for the two churches.

Structures of his torn down in recent years or even decades include the First Baptist Church sanctuary by Georgia Avenue and Oak Street where he was a member, an earlier part of Erlanger Hospital, the Pound Building on 11th Street, the Central YMCA on Georgia Avenue, the old Bright School/UTC safety office in Fort Wood, Central High School off Dodds Avenue, the old City High/Dickinson Junior High off East Eighth Street, Richard Hardy Junior High, Ganns Middle Valley Elementary in Hixson, and Highland Park Elementary.

Outside Chattanooga, his still-standing structures include the well-known Tabernacle building in downtown Atlanta, and such other Tennessee courthouses as those in Warren County in McMinnville, Henry County in Paris, Polk County in Benton, and the now-defunct James County in Ooltewah. Other county courthouses he designed include those in Talladega County in Alabama, Elbert County in Georgia, and Chickasaw, Lawrence, and Leflore counties in Mississippi. The Chickasaw, Leflore, and Elbert courthouses are particularly pretty in photographs.

He also designed buildings at such colleges as Mississippi State, Ole Miss, and other schools, although he apparently never designed any structures for the University of Chattanooga/UTC or the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

I have never been able to understand how he designed all these structures, and whether he just did general drawings and would have a large staff of other architects and draftsmen to help him. And he also had to take some time to bid or talk with people about all these projects, some of which, including the churches, he might have done at a free or discounted rate, I read somewhere.

He lived in later years at 37 S. Crest Road on Missionary Ridge, and I once had a chance to interview his daughter, Louise Street, on a couple of occasions both about her father and attending Baylor School when it was initially coed way back around the turn of the 20th century. She was close to 100 when I talked with her both times, but I remember she said the Hamilton County Courthouse was probably her favorite among his structures.

So many others have been praising of his work, too. Bus barns National Register nomination writer Mr. Chapin, a local architect involved in historic preservation dating to the 1970s, referred to him in the sheet as one of the finest architects ever to practice in Chattanooga.

Maurice Nicely wrote in an introduction to a small R.H. Hunt book written by the late longtime Hunt fan and UTC professor Dr. Gavin Townsend and put out by the forerunner to the Preserve Chattanooga historic preservation group, “No single architect had a greater impact upon the urban fabric of Chattanooga than R.H. Hunt.”

Dr. Townsend added in the same book, “Hunt’s legacy continues to this day…He prided himself on delivering durable, fire-resistant buildings on time and within budget – buildings that were stylistically current, that have lasted and are still much admired today. In every state in the South he designed structures that were as sophisticated and solid as any in the North.”

Later in the book, Dr. Townsend added, “No designer has had a greater impact on the development of architecture in the South.”

Yes, his structures seem to have an almost limitless quality to them in number, age, and even appeal with each individual building.

But as history has shown since even before his buildings were new, older buildings are often scrutinized for future viability by an American general populace also interested in new alternatives, no matter how important the buildings might seem to a historic preservationist.

And that seems to be occurring with one or two of his local buildings today.

* * *

Jcshearer2@comcast.net

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