Visual Instruction by a New Neighborhood

A misty view of Chattanooga, Tennessee, 

from the top of Lookout Mountain, 

which is part of the Appalachian mountain range. 

This past spring, I moved from Hamilton, Montana to Chattanooga, Tennessee to get better access to family members, and for a badly needed change of scene. Of all the eastern cities I’d lived in, I preferred Chattanooga because it supported the arts in many significant ways, and because it felt upbeat with a sense of humor.

The move has been a visual rebirth. Chattanooga is teaching me how to see it. Briefly, my mental image of the city is urban, sprawling, and hazy, with blur, accented with pockets of beauty, sharp focus, interest, and color.

Winter weather comes in extremes: driving rain; dense fog; some days temperatures hover at zero; other days, like spring, in the 50’s, sunny and balmy.

I can feel its history almost as if were recent. Over a century ago floods destroyed the City. An entirely new Chattanooga was built on top of the old. I’m trying to gain access to the old city buildings down there to photograph them, but haven’t succeeded possibly because of liability insurance issues. I’ve heard going down there is illegal.  

Built in 1940, the Chickamauga Dam eliminated flooding forever. It’s one of the most majestic, awe-inspiring monuments to progress I’ve ever come across. Under FDR’s New Deal, the Tennessee Valley Authority was established to improve navigation, control flooding, and provide electricity - of which the Chickamauga Dam was a part. Completed in 1940, the hydroelectric Chickamauga Dam rejuvenated Chattanooga’s depression-era economy, and stopped the floods that had destroyed Chattanooga in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Chattanooga family histories go way back, including mine. My father Jesse M. Trotter was born in Chattanooga and raised on Lookout Mountain. I’d arrived so late in the pursuit of family history and genealogy that I had to hire a local forensic genealogist/licensed private investigator to find my father’s childhood home for me, along with many records of interest. My paternal grandfather John McLane Trotter, a child during the Civil War, watched Sherman’s Union soldiers burn his family’s home to the ground and shoot his uncle to death.