Jerry Summers
Any courageous citizen or naïve tourist have enough to attempt to maneuver through the ongoing construction projects including the now funded Tivoli Theater, Chattanooga Bank Building hotel project, narrow bike lanes, dog droppings, street beggars, etc. are entitled to be informed that 2025 is not the first time a battle has occurred over Beautiful Broad Street.
During the term of appointed Mayor Richard Hardy (1923-1927) a historical event of his administration was the successful opening of Broad Street from Railroad Avenue.
The prior thoroughfare was once home to railroad tracks that ran from 9th Street (now MLK Boulevard) to Ross’s Landing at the Tennessee River as a key route for passenger and freight trains (an added benefit was serving as a sewer line for the now Gig City).
The problem with the traffic pattern was that the “street” reached an abrupt end at 9th and the south side of that street was lined with small shops!
Unfortunately the real estate ownership belonged to the State of Georgia and the Southern sovereign was not inclined to negotiate a resolution to the dilemma faced by the local politicos hoping to further “develop” the area (sound familiar?) for the benefit of the expanding population (sound familiar again?)
Negotiations with and pleas to the Peach State for relief had failed and an air of desperation had hovered over Chattanoogans with the town practically being cut in two parts by the Georgia property.
An act of justice only surpassed by the defiant actions of “Kelly Raiders” in seizing “the General” locomotive in 1967 dispute between the two states is duly recorded in Volume II of “The History of Hamilton County and Chattanooga, Tennessee” by historian Zella Armstrong (1940-Lookout Publishing Company):
“Ed Bass, who was serving as Commissioner of Streets, determined, however, to accomplish the apparently impossible task. He gave the shop keepers warning of his intention in the afternoon of May 6, 1926, and they prepared to save their wares. Other- wise his secret was kept and even the fifty workmen who assembled on Broad Street had no idea what their duties were to be. Huge arc lights had been installed and at a signal Commissioner Bass directed the men to demolish the shops and cut a passage through the Georgia property. He swung an axe and struck the first blow. As soon as the walls fell he and a few citizens rode through the gap thus establishing a right of way.
Meanwhile officials of Georgia and the Railways, although the news reached them late, were not idle. They made every attempt to secure an injunction but Commissioner Bass had with intention chosen a weekend and no judge could be located in time to stop the proceedings.
Rumors of the plan began to circulate in the town and before the last wall had fallen thousands of citizens had assembled. The Elks Junior Band was holding a rehearsal when the leader heard the news. He marched the band to the scene and in a spirit of humor ordered the band to play "Marching Through Georgia." The humor, however, was completely lost on the crowd. Many of the absorbed watchers had never before heard "Marching Through Georgia." They failed entirely to see the joke.
Some people who might have recognized the air did not hear the band because of the noise of rams, and hammers, falling timbers and the cheers of people. Many citizens learned next day through newspaper dispatches from Georgia that the song had been played as automobiles and people rushed across the long-forbidden land of "Georgia in Tennessee."
Later the Western and Atlantic Railway, the State of Georgia, and the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway came to an agreement with Chattanooga regarding the route of Broad street, which is now a wide thoroughfare from the Tennessee river to St. Elmo.
(At least it was described accurately in 1940!)