Month: November 2017

The Brainerd Mission – Mists of the Past – Memories

(chattanoogahistory.net) – I am trying to remember – remember the dismembered past. I walked here before. I dreamed here before. Here I looked for my lost self as a young man, and here I found it. For me this is not just a place on the map. A place made the same as all places by mapping. This place holds something sacred. There’s a meaning here that won’t be lost, though it’s not always apparent, not always seen, and never seen by some who pass by it everyday. READ MORE

Posted by chatthistadmin in Places, 0 comments

The Zarzours: Tennessee Home Cooking, Lebanese-Syrian Style

(chattanoogahistory.net) – The Zarzour family arrived in Chattanooga, Tennessee in the early 20th century as part of the first wave of Lebanese-Syrian immigration, and came to be as “all American” and “down home” Tennessee as any family in the city. They settled in the city, remained there, and flourished as small business owners.

At the time the first immigrants from Lebanon began to arrive in the United States in the mid 19th century, Lebanon was a part of the Ottoman Turkish province of Syria. READ MORE

Posted by chatthistadmin in Businesses, People, 0 comments

Remembering Camera & Craft: Pioneer Chattanooga Photo Store

(chattanoogahistory.net) – The digital era obliterated the photography speciality store. Most people today own no camera other than their smart phone. If they want a dedicated one, they buy it at a “big box” retailer, or order it online, and learn how to operate it watching YouTube.

Yet even as the dot.com internet boom lit up the dawn of the 21st century against a twilight of film photography, in 2000 Chattanooga still had a few “brick and mortar” retailers selling nothing but cameras and film, and staffed by clerks who knew how to operate the equipment, and teach customers how. Regional chains like Wolf Camera, with suburban mall stores in Northgate and Hamilton Place, still offered classes to budding photographers about the photographic craft. In the last 16 years, every one of them closed. Superior Camera Service was the last, in 2015, and when it did, the era of the full service photography speciality shop ended in Chattanooga, probably forever.

Superior Camera may have been the last, but Camera & Craft was one of the first stores opened in Chattanooga with a business model, from the beginning, to sell both camera equipment and offer photographic instruction to it’s customers. READ MORE

Posted by chatthistadmin in Businesses, 0 comments

Memorial project to honor legacy of Ed Johnson

(nooga.com) – A group of citizens has formed a collective to honor the memory of a man who was lynched on the Walnut Street Bridge in 1906.

The Ed Johnson Memorial Project seeks to promote “racial healing and reconciliation in Chattanooga by creating a permanent memorial.”
The memorial would also honor the work of the attorneys who stood up for equal justice and the legacy of the landmark United States Supreme Court case that “established federal oversight of state-level civil rights issues then and now.” READ MORE
Posted by chatthistadmin in News, 0 comments

Chattanooga’s Riverwalk adds 3 miles through city’s abandoning “rust belt”

(Chattanooga Times-Free Press) – As a naturalist at the Tennessee Aquarium, John Dever said, he often served as a guide on the River Gorge Explorer cruises up the Tennessee River pointing out features on the riverbank. But Friday morning he got a chance to see the riverbank up close, as a new $16 million, three-mile section of the Tennessee Riverpark officially opened to the public. READ MORE.

Posted by chatthistadmin in News, 0 comments

Picnooga eyes nonprofit expansion, museum, archives for local history

(nooga.com) – Chattanooga’s history is a microcosm of the American story: controversial; violent; filled with ambitious leaders, tremendous successes and abject failures.

And as city leaders continue to plan for a technology-based thriving future for Chattanooga, the lessons of the past serve as reminders of how far we’ve come. Those history lessons, when viewed in hindsight, can help determine the best path to where we’re going.
Picnooga, an online history organization, thinks Chattanooga’s history is worth preserving. READ MORE.
Posted by chatthistadmin in News, 0 comments

Officials Mum On What Happened To $10 Million Donated For Chattanooga History Museum

(chattanoogan.com) – Officials associated with the Chattanooga History Center have been mum about what happened to some $10 million that was donated for a world class facility that never materialized. Kim White, president of the River City Company, said the downtown development group is looking for a new tenant for the valuable space by the Tennessee Aquarium.

She said History Center officials “have let us know they don’t have the funding to proceed.”  The facility, under former director Daryl Black, was touted as a state-of-the-art presentation of Chattanooga’s compelling history. READ MORE
Posted by chatthistadmin in News, 0 comments