95 Fun Facts About Chattanooga

Chattanooga is the seat of which Tennessee county?

Hamilton County, named for Alexander Hamilton, had its seat at Harrison until 1870, when Chattanooga, which had far outgrown it, took over.

What is Chattanooga's official nickname?

The Scenic City is the official nickname, a nod to the mountains, ridges and valleys around the town; River City is one of several unofficial ones.

The name Chattanooga is thought to come from a Native American phrase meaning what?

Rock rising to a point is the usual reading, though the origin is uncertain; the rock is thought to be nearby Lookout Mountain.

The landing that became Chattanooga was established by which future Cherokee Principal Chief?

John Ross's riverside warehouse supplied Cherokee and settlers alike, and the settlement that grew around it was called Ross's Landing until it took the name Chattanooga.

Which Union general led the November 1863 Battles for Chattanooga that broke the Confederate siege?

Rosecrans's Army of the Cumberland had been bottled up in the city since its defeat at Chickamauga in September.

Which Confederate commander besieged the Union army in Chattanooga in autumn 1863?

Braxton Bragg took the blame when his army was routed from the heights above the city, and he gave up its command only days later.

The supply route Grant opened to feed the starving Union troops in Chattanooga was nicknamed what?

The Cracker Line stayed open because Joseph Hooker's men beat off a Confederate counterattack at Wauhatchie, and food began reaching the hungry garrison.

On November 25, 1863, Grant's army routed the Confederates in a charge up which high ground east of the city?

Missionary Ridge fell when George Thomas's men, ordered only to take the rifle pits at its base, kept charging to the top without orders.

Ed Johnson's 1906 lynching in Chattanooga led which court to hold its only criminal trial?

The US Supreme Court had agreed to hear Johnson's appeal; when a mob lynched him anyway, the justices tried Sheriff Joseph Shipp for contempt and sent him to jail.

Which Chattanooga bridge, closed to cars in 1978, reopened in 1993 for pedestrians only?

Walnut Street Bridge sat in disrepair for years after it closed to traffic, until a renovation turned the old truss into a walkway between downtown and North Chattanooga.

By the 1930s Chattanooga's factories had earned it which nickname?

The Dynamo of Dixie was the boast of a factory town that had boomed since Union officers returned after the Civil War to exploit the region's iron.

Which bandleader's orchestra took "Chattanooga Choo Choo" to number one in December 1941?

Glenn Miller and his orchestra introduced the song in the 1941 film Sun Valley Serenade, and the record reached number one on December 7, the day of Pearl Harbor.

"Chattanooga Choo Choo" holds what distinction in music-industry history?

First song to receive a gold record: RCA Victor presented the award in 1942, after the single had sold more than a million copies.

In the lyrics of "Chattanooga Choo Choo", where does the singer board the train?

Track 29 is the lyric's platform, yet New York's Pennsylvania Station, where the singer boards, had only 21 tracks.

The Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel is housed in which renovated building?

Terminal Station opened in 1909, lost its passenger trains in 1970 and was reborn three years later as a hotel complex named for the song.

In 1969 the federal government gave Chattanooga what unwelcome distinction?

Dirtiest air in the nation: the mountains that ring the city trapped the smoke from its factories, which settled over the streets.

In September 2010 Chattanooga became the first US city to offer what through its city-owned utility EPB?

Municipal one-gigabit internet rode on the fibre-optic network EPB was building for a smart electric grid, and it earned the city the nickname Gig City.

Which German carmaker opened a $1 billion assembly plant in Chattanooga in 2011?

Volkswagen had built no cars in America since closing its Pennsylvania factory in 1988; the Chattanooga plant ended that 23-year gap with a Passat designed for the US market.

In 1899 Chattanooga businessmen won the exclusive rights to bottle which famous soft drink?

Coca-Cola's owner Asa Candler saw so little future in bottles that he signed the rights away for a dollar he never collected, and Chattanooga got the first franchised bottling plant.

Which marshmallow-and-graham-cracker snack is made by the Chattanooga Bakery?

The MoonPie, the bakery's story goes, was born in 1917 when a Kentucky coal miner asked a travelling salesman for a snack "as big as the moon".

MoonPies are traditionally paired with which drink?

The pairing is a Southern classic; coconut MoonPies appear for Mardi Gras.

The Tennessee Aquarium opened on the Chattanooga riverfront in which year?

Its Ocean Journey building was added in 2005; it houses more than 12,000 animals.

The Tennessee Aquarium's original 1992 building is called what?

River Journey traces the Tennessee River from its Appalachian headwaters downstream to the Mississippi Delta; the saltwater Ocean Journey building was added beside it in 2005.

Ruby Falls, found inside Lookout Mountain in 1928, was named after its discoverer's what?

Wife Ruby gave the falls her name: her husband was sinking an elevator shaft toward a cave cut off by a railway tunnel when his crew broke into an unknown passage that led to the waterfall.

Which chemist and cave enthusiast's company found Ruby Falls while drilling for another cave?

Leo Lambert wanted to reopen a storied cave that a railway tunnel had sealed, so he sank an elevator shaft from above and struck a new cavern on the way down.

Rock City's long-running boast is that a visitor at Lover's Leap can see seven what?

States is the claim, though a University of Tennessee geography professor asked to check it knew of no study that proved it and doubted the farthest ones could still be seen.

From 1935 Rock City advertised itself across the South with "See Rock City" painted on what?

Barn roofs were Clark Byers's canvas: hired in 1935, he painted the slogan on more than 900 barns across the South and Midwest over the next three decades.

Rock City is actually across the state line in which state?

Georgia holds far more of Lookout Mountain than Tennessee does: the mountain leaves Chattanooga, crosses Georgia's northwest corner and ends in Alabama, and Rock City sits just over the line.

The Lookout Mountain Incline Railway has a maximum grade of about what?

That makes it one of the world's steepest passenger railways; it opened in November 1895.

The Incline Railway runs from which historic Chattanooga neighbourhood to the summit of Lookout Mountain?

St. Elmo, at the foot of the mountain, takes its name from Augusta Evans's bestselling 1866 novel St. Elmo, which she set in the area after visiting it.

In December 2024 what shut down the Incline Railway for months?

A rockslide that started a wildfire: tumbling boulders threw off sparks that set the slope alight, and the fire severed the cables, shutting the line until July 2025.

Which blues singer was born in Chattanooga in the 1890s?

Bessie Smith, later billed as the Empress of the Blues, lost both parents young and sang on Chattanooga street corners for change while her brother played guitar.

In 1931 Jackie Mitchell, a 17-year-old girl pitching for Chattanooga's Lookouts, struck out which two Yankees back to back?

Ruth and Gehrig went down on just seven pitches in an April exhibition game, Babe Ruth throwing his bat aside as he stomped back to the dugout.

Chattanooga's tallest building, at 21 storeys, is which tower?

The James Building was the city's first skyscraper.

Chattanooga's worst flood, in 1867, came long before which federal agency, created in 1933, dammed the river?

The Tennessee Valley Authority came 66 years too late for 1867; after that flood the city set about raising its downtown streets, burying old ground floors now known as Underground Chattanooga.

Which science-fiction and fantasy convention ran in Chattanooga from 1976 until its organisers ended it in 2025?

Chattacon began in January 1976 with just 81 guests and lost money; its board called time in 2025 when its hotel closed for renovation and no other venue fit.

Sports teams at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga compete under which nickname?

The Mocs were the Moccasins until the 1990s, when the school dropped its Native American imagery and recast the short name as a nod to the mockingbird, the state bird.

Which dam impounds the river just north of downtown Chattanooga?

Chickamauga Dam, finished in 1940, was built to protect a city that the river had badly flooded in 1867, 1875, 1886 and 1917.

Which R&B star, raised in Chattanooga, came back to the city to record his 1999 album Live?

Usher was born in Dallas but spent most of his childhood in Chattanooga, where he joined a church youth choir at nine; Live was taped at two free hometown concerts in 1998.

As the birthplace of which vehicle does Chattanooga host a dedicated Hall of Fame and Museum?

The tow truck was invented in Chattanooga in 1916 by garage man Ernest Holmes, after he needed blocks, ropes and six men to haul a car out of a creek.

In 2012 a crowd-funded campaign gave Chattanooga a custom-made what of its own?

Typeface: Chatype was paid for by public donations and then put to work on city signs, from the library to downtown banners.

Production of which breath mint moved from a factory in Wales to Chattanooga in 2005?

Altoids, long made in Britain, sell mostly in America, so Wrigley shifted production to its Chattanooga plant to be closer to the people who buy them.

Which snack-cake brand does McKee Foods bake at its headquarters in Collegedale, just outside Chattanooga?

Little Debbie was named in 1960 after the founders' young granddaughter, whose childhood photo became the face on the box; she grew up to be a company executive.

Which publisher of the Chattanooga Times went on to buy The New York Times?

Adolph Ochs was deep in debt in 1896 when he gambled on buying the nearly bankrupt New York Times, then rebuilt it with lessons learned at his Chattanooga paper.

Which locomotive did Northern raiders steal near Atlanta in 1862 in a failed bid to cut the railway to Chattanooga?

The General was chased first on foot and finally by the engine Texas running in reverse, until it ran out of fuel short of Chattanooga.

In 1931, 17-year-old Chattanooga pitcher Jackie Mitchell struck out Lou Gehrig and which other Yankees slugger?

Babe Ruth swung at two pitches, let a third strike pass and flung his bat away in frustration. Mitchell, one of the first women to pitch professionally, had been signed by an owner known for publicity stunts.

Which actor, among the highest-grossing in film history, grew up in Chattanooga and attended Riverside High School?

Samuel L. Jackson played French horn, piccolo, trumpet and flute in the orchestra at Riverside High, one of several segregated schools he attended while growing up in Chattanooga.

Which Southern fast-food chain, known for small square hamburgers, was founded in Chattanooga in 1932?

Krystal opened in the first years of the Great Depression after its founder toured a rival burger chain in Chicago taking notes. It kept its headquarters in Chattanooga until 2013.

Garnet Carter, who opened Rock City above Chattanooga with wife Frieda, earlier patented a version of which pastime?

Miniature golf boomed after Carter patented his Tom Thumb course in the late 1920s, and within a few years thousands of copies had opened across the United States.

Which union boss was convicted of jury tampering in 1964 at the federal courthouse in downtown Chattanooga?

Jimmy Hoffa was sentenced to eight years for the Chattanooga conviction, but the Teamsters president stayed free on appeal and did not enter prison until March 1967.

Which silent-film comedian starred in The General, based on an 1862 Union raid on the railroad to Chattanooga?

Buster Keaton based his comedy loosely on a raider's memoirs. The real stolen locomotive ran out of fuel just 18 miles short of Chattanooga, and its hijackers scattered.

Chattanooga's riverfront was an 1838 embarkation point for which forced removal of the Cherokee to Indian Territory?

The Trail of Tears began for more than 1,500 Cherokee on June 6, 1838, when they were loaded onto steamboats and barges at the landing where downtown Chattanooga now stands.

Which Emmy-winning Will & Grace actor, raised in Chattanooga, became an Instagram sensation during the 2020 lockdowns?

Leslie Jordan won his Emmy in 2006 for playing Beverley Leslie, Karen Walker's pretentious rival. His pandemic posts won him 5.8 million followers.

The state railroad built north to Chattanooga began at a settlement named Terminus, which grew into which capital?

Atlanta was founded as the end of the line, the spot marked by a zero milepost, and was briefly incorporated as Marthasville in 1843.

Andrews' Raiders, several buried in Chattanooga National Cemetery, included the first soldiers awarded which decoration?

The Medal of Honor was newly created when Private Jacob Parrott, a train-stealing raider abused as a prisoner, received the very first. Six of the raiders then met President Lincoln.

Which Hall of Fame defensive end, nicknamed the Minister of Defense, was born and raised in Chattanooga?

Reggie White was an ordained evangelical minister who had already picked up the nickname by his senior year of college. Chattanooga named a boulevard after him in 2008.

Which Hall of Fame wide receiver played both football and basketball at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga?

Terrell Owens drew so little notice at a small school with no winning season in his time there that he slid to the third round of the 1996 draft, the 89th player chosen.

Which media mogul, later owner of baseball's Braves, attended the McCallie School, a boys' prep school in Chattanooga?

Ted Turner left McCallie for an Ivy League university, where he captained the sailing team and horrified his father by choosing to major in classics.

The Tennessee River loops through Chattanooga and finally empties into which larger river at Paducah, Kentucky?

The Ohio takes in the Tennessee, its largest tributary, only about 46 miles before it meets the Mississippi itself.

Chattanooga sits just east of the boundary where which two United States time zones meet?

Eastern and Central time split Tennessee in two: Chattanooga keeps Eastern, while the counties directly to its west, like Nashville and Memphis beyond them, run an hour behind.

Which country star, raised around Chattanooga, built his audience by posting cover songs on social media in 2014?

Kane Brown was sometimes homeless as a child before his family settled in Red Bank, a town entirely surrounded by Chattanooga. His cover of a Lee Brice song was an early viral hit.

Chattanooga-born actor Dennis Haskins was best known for playing which character in the teen sitcom Saved by the Bell?

Mr. Belding was first played by Haskins in 1988 on Good Morning, Miss Bliss, the Disney Channel series that was retooled into Saved by the Bell. Haskins studied at UT Chattanooga.

Which future Hall of Famer began his professional baseball career as a teenager with the Chattanooga Choo-Choos?

Willie Mays made the Choo-Choos his first professional team, playing briefly one summer before he joined the Birmingham Black Barons. The Negro Southern League club played its home games at Engel Stadium.

Which future five-star general's father, then 18, planted his regiment's flag on the heights above Chattanooga in 1863?

Douglas MacArthur's father seized the colours from a fallen comrade during a spontaneous uphill charge and rallied his Wisconsin regiment at the crest.

Debbie McKee, namesake of the Little Debbie snack cakes baked near Chattanooga, was what relation to the founders?

Their granddaughter was four when the founding McKees put her name on a product in 1960. The artist who painted the logo was told to make her look older, around eight or nine.

Which Union general, beaten at Chancellorsville that spring, led the 1863 assault on Chattanooga's Lookout Mountain?

Joseph Hooker sent his men up slopes so thick with fog and mist that the fight became known as the Battle Above the Clouds.

Which Virginia-born Union general took over the Army of the Cumberland shortly before the 1863 Battles for Chattanooga?

George H. Thomas stayed loyal to the Union although his home state joined the Confederacy, and within weeks of taking command his troops stormed the enemy line east of the city.

Which Chattanooga theatre, opened in 1921, was among the first air-conditioned public buildings in the United States?

The Tivoli, nicknamed the Jewel of the South, cost $750,000 to build and was designed by the Chicago firm Rapp and Rapp with Chattanooga architect Reuben H. Hunt.

Which antique ride, built by the Dentzel company in 1894, is the restored centrepiece of Coolidge Park in Chattanooga?

A carousel from 1894 turns beside the river in the North Shore park, which is named for Charles Coolidge, a decorated soldier of World War II, and not for the president.

Which amusement park near Chattanooga, opened in 1925, was still owned by its founding family a century later?

Lake Winnie, in full Lake Winnepesaukah, drew more than 5,000 visitors on its first day for boating, fishing and picnics. Its Boat Chute water ride dates from 1927.

Which Chattanooga music festival began in June 1982 with five evenings of concerts?

Riverbend long put its headline acts on a barge converted into a full-size concert stage, moored just offshore from amphitheatre seats built into the hillside. It went on hiatus after 2023.

Which sport fills the Tennessee River at Chattanooga every November during the Head of the Hooch?

Rowing crews first raced the regatta on the Chattahoochee River, which gave the event its name, before it moved north to Chattanooga in 2005.

Which river city financed and owned a railway to Chattanooga, completed in 1880, and kept it until 2024?

Cincinnati voters approved $10 million in bonds in 1869 to begin construction, creating the only long-distance railway in the country owned by a city government.

Which Chattanooga hotel, founded in 1872, markets its Room 311 as haunted by the ghost of a 1920s guest?

The Read House, whose main building dates from 1926, restored Room 311 to its 1920s look, clawfoot tub included. The ghost said to linger there is named Annalisa Netherly.

Which actor played Jackie Robinson in 42, the 2013 film that used Chattanooga's Engel Stadium as Ebbets Field?

Chadwick Boseman landed his breakout role in the film, which was shot in 2012 in Chattanooga and Birmingham with Harrison Ford in a supporting part.

Lookout Mountain begins at Chattanooga and runs southwest across two state lines into the northeast of which state?

Alabama holds the southwestern end of the mountain, whose northern tip overlooks Chattanooga from the Tennessee line; it clips the corner of a third state on the way.

The Incline Railway that climbs Lookout Mountain from Chattanooga, opened in 1895, is which type of railway?

A funicular hauls its cars up the slope by cable, and this one's cable system was made by the Otis Elevator Company. It was the second of two inclines built on the mountain.

Which Union general set out from Chattanooga in May 1864, months before his famous March to the Sea?

William T. Sherman could drive south because the Union victories of November 1863 had opened Chattanooga, a city known as the Gateway to the South.

Chattanooga baseball owner Joe Engel once traded his shortstop to another club in exchange for which bird?

A turkey was the price, and Engel roasted it and served it to the local sportswriters. He also raffled off houses and cars and put singing canaries in the grandstand.

When it opened in Chattanooga, the Tennessee Aquarium was the largest in the world devoted to which kind of habitat?

Freshwater was a practical choice: planners reasoned that conventional salt-water exhibits would be hard to raise money for and unlikely to draw travellers to Chattanooga.

The I-24 freeway from Nashville ends in Chattanooga at a junction with which highway linking Michigan and Florida?

Interstate 75 meets I-24 at an interchange known as the Split, then heads south from Chattanooga on its long run to the Miami area.

Chattanooga became North America's first National Park City in 2025, six years after which capital led the way?

London signed its charter in July 2019 after a grassroots campaign. Chattanooga was the fourth city worldwide to earn the status, following a two-year vetting process.

Which American outdoor-sports magazine has twice named Chattanooga its Best Town Ever?

Outside honoured a city set where the Cumberland Plateau meets the southern Appalachians, with rock climbing, mountain biking and adventure racing close at hand.

The Chattanooga Medicine Company, founded in 1879, supplied the US Army with 34 million of which item in World War II?

K-rations poured out of the drug maker from 1942 to 1945 and earned it five E awards for supporting the war effort. The firm later became Chattem, seller of Icy Hot and Rolaids.

Which Chattanooga-born novelist, from the family that owns The New York Times, wrote Memoirs of a Geisha?

Arthur Golden is a grandson of Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the paper's longtime publisher, and was born in Chattanooga in 1956. His novel, published in 1997, became a bestseller.

Which peninsula in a Tennessee River loop at Chattanooga is the Park Service's only National Archeological District?

Moccasin Bend holds traces of 12,000 years of continuous human habitation, yet it won protection only in 2003, after decades of campaigning and of industrial building on the site.

Which senator, once a Chattanooga lawyer, campaigned in a coonskin cap and ran for vice president in 1956?

Estes Kefauver practised law in Chattanooga for twelve years before entering politics. He was Adlai Stevenson's running mate on the ticket that lost to Eisenhower and Nixon.

Which Union officer shelled Chattanooga in 1863, later settled in the city and was elected its mayor in 1871?

John T. Wilder led the bombardment as a diversion, to make the Confederates expect an attack from the north. After the war he founded an ironworks in the Chattanooga region.

Which Cherokee war chief defied his father's call for peace and led followers to settle near present-day Chattanooga?

Dragging Canoe took about 500 Cherokee out of the Overhill towns in 1777 and fought on as war chief of the breakaway settlements until his death in 1792.

Which country singer topped both the pop and country charts in 1950 with Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy?

Red Foley made it his signature tune, and it held the top of the country chart for three months. Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra released versions that charted too.

Which Chattanooga-born drummer laid down the much-sampled break on the Godfather of Soul's 1970 single Funky Drummer?

Clyde Stubblefield saw his rhythm pattern lifted by hip-hop producers from the 1980s onward, usually without credit, making it one of the most sampled pieces of music in the world.

Chattanooga's Market Street Bridge, completed in 1917, opens its steel draw span by which mechanism?

A bascule with two rolling-lift leaves sits between concrete arches on the bridge, which cost $1.1 million to build across the Tennessee River.

An underground power station west of Chattanooga is fed by a reservoir on the summit of which landmark?

Raccoon Mountain stores energy as water: at times of high demand its 528-acre summit lake drains through a tunnel drilled down the middle of the mountain to drive the generators.

Chattanooga's airport took which name in 1930 to honour the Kiwanis Club president who pushed for it?

Lovell Field opened with an unpaved runway and was named for John Lovell, who also headed the local Red Cross. Its airport code is CHA.

Which Fortune 500 disability insurer has its headquarters in Chattanooga, where its forerunner Provident began in 1887?

Unum took its present shape in a 1999 merger with Provident, which had begun in Chattanooga as the Mutual Medical Aid and Accident Insurance Company.