Today,at the recommendation of our bartender yesterday at Sugar's, we took the Duck tour of the Tennessee River from downtown Chattanooga. Here is what we remember our very knowledgeable driver telling us during the excursion. Chattanooga in the early 70's had 100+ factories between the river and the downtown. A short few years later they had only seven. The city, according to the 6:00 news with Walter Cronkite, was the most polluted city in the country. One new building transformed not only this part of the city but the entire river district for miles in both direction. That new building was the City Aquarium which opened in 1992. At that time people would wait in line for three hours just to get tickets to enter the aquarium. During a survey, asking people about their aquarium experience, over 70% of the people said they disliked the smell from the river and surrounding "run down" neighborhood. That started what now seems like a miraculous transformation in a relatively short amount of time. Today there are new shops, restaurants, biking paths, walking paths, museums, pedestrian bridges, sky walks, and parks all over the place. There are people of all ages walking and biking everywhere. In our short stay we found Chattanooga to be a progressive and fun city to visit especially the downtown area.
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| The outside of Sugar's where we were last night |
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| Huli the super blogger |
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| This is a hotel |
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The aquarium. There are large steps down by the river which are popular spots in the summer.
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| Hunter Museum of Art |
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| Walnut St. Bridge. What used to be the longest pedestrian walking bridge until a longer one was opened in NYC in 2009. This bridge was saved from demolition by three very well off woman who lived on Lookout Mountain. |
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| Me playing with the new camera. The house or church I am taking a closeup of in the next picture is directly over the windshields of the cars in this photo. We aren't sure what it is but it sure looks neat from down here |
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| I am using the side mirror of the truck to try and hold the camera still which really helps on these long shots |
I did some research on this structure and found out it used to be called The Lookout Mountain Hotel or the Castle in the Clouds Hotel and it was the location of Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher's honeymoon. The hotel was very popular in the 1930's and during the prohibition time period. Since Chattanooga and Hamilton county in Tennessee were dry and this hotel is actually just across the Georgia state line it had many visitors from Tennessee. Many years ago the hotel closed down and the property was sold to Covenant College which is still occupying the structure today.
Huli will have some pics and a "few" words to add later. Jack
