David Moon In 2014, David Moon had an idea to bring more Chattanooga history online by crowdfunding to acquire photographs from Chattanooga’s past and share them through social media. Images could be purchased for just as little as a few dollars on auction websites like eBay, which helped build a sizable archive of images and artifacts that … Read more
March produced a major amount of photography saved and shared from your generous contributions. These are just some of the few examples. I’m digitizing many more collected this past month. Your help is appreciated in keeping the project in motion. Thank you!
One of Chattanooga’s biggest laments is the decimation of Cameron Hill, separating the city’s west side from downtown. At one time, the hill was an active community with beautiful homes and mansions dating back to the Civil War. Cameron Hill couldn’t escape the urban renewal of the late 1950s and 1960s, and the local government … Read more
The following three images appear to be taken the same day at Lula Lake on Lookout Mountain, GA. The images from glass plate negatives show the falls from above and a nearby picnic scene. It’s dated about 1899. The negatives are consistent with a larger collection discovered by David Moon in 2015, but this project … Read more
There are at least thirty glass plate negatives to go through, and there could be more. Here’s the first one scanned. Zoom in on the image using your mouse scroller or the tools below the image. This one is easily identified as the front lawn of the Lookout Mountain Inn, which once sat just above … Read more
Over the years, I’ve handled several original Adolph Ochs documents, including some early construction receipts for work done on an annex of the Chattanooga Times Building. However, this letter is most fascinating, as it’s addressed to Major Shipp. Sherrif Joseph F. Shipp would some years later be indicted for, in effect, aiding and abetting the … Read more
I love Real Photo Postcards! So much so that I’ve collected hundreds from the Chattanooga area. Real Photo Postcards (RPPs) were limited-run postcards, usually produced by amateur photographers who sent their undeveloped film in to have their photographs produced to mail to family and friends. Unless they were sent and postmarked, dating them can be … Read more
The Lookout Mountain Hotel was built on Jackson Hill in 1928, a few miles south of Lookout Point. The newly opened Scenic Highway connecting Gadsden, Alabama, to Chattanooga eventuating the hotel’s construction. Nicknamed “The Castle in the Clouds,” the 200-room hotel included lavish amenities, such as red velvet carpet, heavy gilt floor candelabras, overstuffed velvet … Read more
*Originally published in November 2015 It began in the 1970s when Dr. Jeff Brown, a professor of archaeology at UTC, popularized an idea of a long-forgotten city beneath the current street level of Downtown Chattanooga. The “Underground Chattanooga Concept” was primarily based on visual observations; the tops of obscured brick arches showing at street level, … Read more
It was 2015 when I was first introduced to the format of glass plate negatives. It started with one listed on eBay and eventually would lead to about five hundred moments of everyday life captured in the Chattanooga area from 1897 to about 1907. It was quite the triumph to stumble upon the images, especially … Read more