Category: History

art, Chattanooga, community, Daily Life, Entertainment, Family, History, outdoors

What Goes Around: The Coolidge Park Carousel

Written by Caroline Colvin

The Coolidge Park Carousel makes rounds with its 52 hand-carved animals daily. Monday, April 17, 2023. (Photo by Caroline Colvin)

Settled in the heart of Chattanooga’s Northshore neighborhood is Coolidge Park’s antique carousel. For $1, those of all ages can ride the carousel, taking in its unique design. 

The carousel’s journey to Coolidge park began in Pennsylvania where it was constructed in 1894. Shortly after, it was transported to New York state. Many years later, following an unclear path of transportation, the carousel pieces were brought to Chattanooga by Bud Ellis to be restored. 

The Coolidge carousel is a Dentzel model, thus it follows much of the vintage designs of the famous German carousel builder, Gustav Dentzel. 

Bud Ellis was the owner of Chattanooga’s Horsin’ Around woodcarving school, which is now owned and operated by Larry Ridge. Ridge carves many animals himself, and also has a team and students that he teaches at the school. 

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Chattanooga, community, Daily Life, Diversity, Family, Food, History, Immigration

Hecho con amor (Made With Love)

Written by Cassandra Castillo

Valdemar Ibarra and Carmen Torres prepare the grill and prep area for a customers order. The couple has cooked to order upon request since their restaurant’s inception in 2012. Wednesday April 19, 2023. (Photo by Cassandra Castillo)

Natives of Michoacan, Mexico, Carmen Torres and Valdemar Ibarra have been living their American Dream cooped up inside their small orange-painted restaurant nestled within the busy Amnicola Highway.

“All the people from Chattanooga, from Hixson, Redbank, Dunlap, Dayton who are all customers, many of them friends because we were eager to have family, eager to have friends, so we have many friendships now,” Ibarra said. 

He was a businessman from his days in Mexico, but left that behind when he arrived in the U.S. as an immigrant in 1992. Ibarra began working in California but found no steady income, so he moved to the Chattanooga area, where his cousin resided, not long after. 

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Chattanooga, community, Entertainment, Halloween, History, UTC

Ghost Tracks

Written by Sarah Chesek

Filmed by Allie English and Taylor Carmody. Edited by Allie English and Taylor Carmody. Narration by Noah Fernandez.

On an unsettling pursuit for the supernatural, guests of Chattanooga’s Ghost Tours are provided all the necessary ghost hunting equipment for a chilling haunt. Parapsychological Field investigator Alice Stephens educates their visitors on Chattanooga’s rich and eerie history while providing an interactive spiritual experience. 

“I’m kind of a skeptical believer. So I believe in it, obviously [otherwise], I wouldn’t be doing it, but, I’m always like, was that a ghost? Did I actually see that, so I questioned myself too,” stated Stephens.

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Chattanooga, community, Daily Life, Entertainment, History

Tiny Trains

Written By Mason Edwards

Video By Jules Jackson and Seth Carpenter.

For kids, adults and seniors alike, there’s no substitute for the wonder and delight of winding through a model railroad’s path of track and town. The Tennessee Valley Model Railroaders, inc, hand-painted eight real settlements along their custom-made track, which runs passengers and cargo from the rolling hills of eastern Kentucky to its riverside stop near Lookout Mountain. 

The group’s president, Nick Giordano, personally connected miles of wires and assembled dozens of houses. 

“Well, like most kids, as a little boy I was into model trains,” Giordano joked. “And then you get a little older, and you discover girls and cars and model trains go away.”

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art, Chattanooga, community, Diversity, Entertainment, History, Music, women

Heart of Jazz

Written By Ali Lemmons

Lisa Baker is performing at the Barking Legs Theatre with her jazz band, The Knotty Professors. Wednesday, February 8, 2023. (Photo by Kylee Boone)

Lisa Baker’s guitar is an extension of her own body. From the decorative swirls running along its length to the initial “L” sewn on the strap, it’s a tangible display of her love of jazz. And she’s rarely found without it.

“It kind of goes everywhere with me, period,” she laughed. “Going to the beach, take my guitar.”

Baker, a jazz performer and adjunct professor of music at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, has had a heart for jazz music ever since she can remember.

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Chattanooga, community, Daily Life, Family, Food, History, Love

A Family Thing

By Hannah Blair Hurt

Joe “Dixie” Fuller prepares his peach cobbler for his family restaurant Zarzour’s. Sunday, November 20, 2022. (Photo by Hannah Blair Hurt)

Walking through the door of Zarzour’s Cafe on Chattanooga’s Southside feels a bit like walking into a time capsule containing four generations of Zarzour family history, owners of the small brick building for over 100 years. The shelves and walls are adorned with an array of heirlooms and memorabilia, from family photos, celebrity autographs and newspaper clippings to Charles Zarzour’s naturalization papers from 1946, signed in Arabic.

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art, Chattanooga, community, Daily Life, Dance, History

Movements Of The Mill

By Jules Jackson

Video By Jules Jackson. Cover Photo By Alexis McMurtry.

The skeletal remains of the Standard-Coosa-Thatcher mill complex glow as if they were on fire. Inside, the Pop-up Project is going through the final rehearsal for If These Walls Could Talk, an immersive dance performance that seeks to tell the history of the mill before it is lost to the collective memory of Chattanooga.

“It’s just such a beautiful space,” says Jules Downum, director and co-founder of the Pop-up Project. “It didn’t take a lot of work on our part to make the space impactful. And the stories were already here.”

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Chattanooga, community, Environment, History, outdoors, Photography

To Preserve and Protect

By David Whalen

Caleb Timmerman stands at St. Elmo Boulders. Wednesday, April 6, 2022. (Photo by David Whalen)

The Southeastern Climbers Coalition (SCC) is a grassroots non-profit coalition with only three employees. Although, throughout the past 29 years they have had hundreds of helping hands working to conserve and preserve publicly accessible climbing areas in Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.

Caleb Timmerman recently became that third employee in the form of marketing director for the SCC. Here he helps tell the story of climbers and conservationists who have fought to keep public land accessible to all. 

“Access to outdoor rock climbing in the southeast is never guaranteed,” Timmerman says. “It takes a community of people who care deeply about this outdoor resource to come together and form a coalition to protect that access.”

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Chattanooga, community, Daily Life, Diversity, donate, Family, History

The Unseen Battle for Lincoln Park

By Virginia Campbell

Tiffany Rankin walks past the old bathhouse on the edge of Lincoln Park’s baseball field. The bathhouse used to be the only facilities that African American baseball players could use, even when they were allowed to play at Engel Stadium. (Taken on February 19, 2022. Photo by Maggie Weaver.)

Lincoln Park used to be a safe space for the African American community to enjoy themselves. In fact, before integration in the 60s, it was the only park in Chattanooga they were allowed in. The property is currently owned by Erlanger, who have built parking lots over most of the park, reducing it down to just five acres. Compared to the original twenty acre plot, it’s now a mere skeleton.

Tiffany Rankin grew up in the area and remains a resident in the neighborhood adjacent to the park. She has always been a community leader, but she started to get heavily involved and raise awareness for the park when she heard the City of Chattanooga was planning to extend Central Avenue. The road would cut into a boundary of the park, sizing it down further. The plan was to “urbanize” the area, which, to Tiffany and many others in the community, meant displacement and gentrification.

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Chattanooga, community, Diversity, Environment, History

The Untold Story of Native American Activism in Chattanooga

By Virginia Campbell

Tom Kunesh stands on the Chickamauga Mound. Saturday, November 13, 2021 (Photo by Virginia Campbell)

What was once a thriving advocacy group for Native American preservation work in Chattanooga has slowly fizzled over time, but it’s cause still stands. The Chattanooga Intertribal Association (CITA) has existed for twenty years, and Tom Kunesh, the former Public Relations Chairman, tries to maintain the spirit of their work to this day.

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