The 1867 flood of Chattanooga is the largest flood in the city's recorded history. The flood followed a period of heavy rain that affected most of the Tennessee Valley and lasted from March 7 to March 11, 1867. [1] At its highest point, the water of the Tennessee River crested 58 feet (18 metres) above its normal level, and it inundated much of the city. [1]
The flood of 1867 took place before reliable methods of meteorological data recording. However, it is known that days before the flood, a large area of Southern Appalachia including Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia experienced the same, large storm. The tremendous amounts of rainwater combined with the melting snow caused the tributaries and rivers of the Tennessee Valley to swell. In Chattanooga, the Tennessee River began to rise on March 4. [2]
Starting March 4, 1867, Chattanooga experienced a four-day-long rainstorm. [3] By March 9, all of Chattanooga's streets were under 4 to 8 feet (1.2 to 2.4 metres) of water. [4] Because there was no warning sent out, most residents of Hamilton Country were unprepared for a calamity of this magnitude. [5] In addition to many lives being lost in the flood, the city also experienced huge structural damage. Military Bridge, which, at the time, was the only bridge that connected the north and south shores, was washed away. Chattanooga's telegraph lines were also destroyed or washed away, leaving the Chattanooga residents unable to communicate with neighboring cities. [6] Low lying croplands and livestock fields were washed away, leaving local farmers devastated, and businesses and homes along the shores of the river were completely destroyed. [7] At night, the city fell victim to looting and violence while the Tennessee River continuously rose sometimes at a rate of one foot every hour. On March 10, the Chattanooga American Union wrote that "the losses of our merchants, businessmen, and citizens cannot be estimated." [8] Though the exact death toll is unknown, many residents in Chattanooga and the surrounding areas were killed. Corpses floated through the city's flooded streets, and a man on the old Lookout Mountain road had claimed that he had seen fifteen bodies float past in a day. [6]
Following the destruction of the Military Bridge, Chattanooga city was without a bridge until the Walnut Street Bridge was constructed in 1891. On March 9, an anonymously written article appeared in the Daily American Union saying that city officials had begun planning to start a major city project that would raise the street level by about one story through the city. [6] The remnants of this massive project are still noticeable to the naked eye. Downtown Chattanooga is filled with tops of old windows and doors protruding out of the sidewalk and what seem to be basement doors that do not lead anywhere. [1]
Chattanooga is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. It is located along the Tennessee River, and borders Georgia to the south. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, it is Tennessee's fourth-largest city and one of the two principal cities of East Tennessee, along with Knoxville. It anchors the Chattanooga metropolitan area, Tennessee's fourth-largest metropolitan statistical area, as well as a larger three-state area that includes Southeast Tennessee, Northwest Georgia, and Northeast Alabama.
Built in 1890, the 2,376-foot-long (724 m) Walnut Street Bridge connects Chattanooga, Tennessee's downtown with North Chattanooga. The bridge's main spans are pin-connected Pennsylvania through truss spans. The top chord of these truss spans are configured in five sections, making the spans similar to the Camelback truss design. The bridge is historically significant as an extremely long and old example of its type; according to the Historic American Engineering Record: "The bridge was apparently the first non-military highway bridge across the Tennessee River."
The St. Elmo Historic District, or St. Elmo for short, is a neighborhood in the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee. It is situated in the southernmost part of Hamilton County within the valley of Lookout Mountain below the part of the Tennessee River known as Moccasin Bend. St Elmo is at the crossroads of two ancient Indian trails, and was first occupied by Native American hunters and gatherers in the Woodland period, then agricultural Mississippians, including Euchee and Muscogee, and for a brief period between 1776 and 1786, the Cherokees in a community called Lookout Town. St. Elmo became part of the city of Chattanooga when it was annexed in September 1929.
Uptown Memphis is a neighborhood located near downtown Memphis, Tennessee. In 1999, the Uptown Partnership renamed the historic North Memphis Greenlaw neighborhood "Uptown" in concert with a public-private revitalization effort that defined Uptown as one hundred city blocks east of the Wolf River and North of A.W. Willis Avenue. The historic Greenlaw section of this neighborhood consists of the thirty city blocks closest to the Wolf River.
The Harahan Bridge is a cantilevered through truss bridge that carries two rail lines and a pedestrian bridge across the Mississippi River between West Memphis, Arkansas, and Memphis, Tennessee. The bridge is owned and operated by Union Pacific Railroad and is the second longest pedestrian/bicycle bridge in the United States. It was built with roadways cantilevered off the sides of the main structure for vehicles. These roadways are owned by the cities of Memphis, Tennessee, and Crittenden County, Arkansas, and were used from 1917–1949, until the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge opened 400 feet (120 m) south of the Harahan. The bridge was named in honor of railroad executive James Theodore Harahan, former president of the Illinois Central Railroad, who was killed in a railroad accident during the construction of the bridge. In February 2011, Union Pacific Railroad officials agreed to the idea of converting the 1917 roadways into a bicycle-pedestrian walkway across the river. In June 2012, Memphis was awarded a $14.9 million federal grant to build the walkway. The overall project was expected to cost $30 million, of which about $11 million was used for the Harahan Bridge portion. Construction was completed in 2016.
Nickajack Dam is a hydroelectric dam in Marion County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is one of nine dams on the Tennessee River owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the mid-1960s to replace the outdated Hales Bar Dam 6 miles (9.7 km) upstream. The dam impounds the 10,370-acre (4,200 ha) Nickajack Lake and feeds into Guntersville Lake. Nickajack Dam is named for a Cherokee village once located just upstream from the dam. The village was the namesake for Nickajack Cave, which was partially flooded by the reservoir.
The Chickamauga Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Tennessee River in Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States. The dam is owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the late 1930s as part of a New Deal era initiative to improve navigation and bring flood control and economic development to the Tennessee Valley. The dam impounds the 36,240-acre (14,670 ha) Chickamauga Lake and feeds into Nickajack Lake. The dam and associated infrastructure were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.
The American Civil War significantly affected Tennessee, with every county witnessing combat. During the War, Tennessee was a Confederate state, and the last state to officially secede from the Union to join the Confederacy. Tennessee had been threatening to secede since before the Confederacy was even formed, but didn’t officially do so until after the fall of Fort Sumter when public opinion throughout the state drastically shifted. Tennessee seceded in protest to President Lincoln's April 15 Proclamation calling forth 75,000 members of state militias to suppress the rebellion. Tennessee provided a large number of troops for the Confederacy, and would also provide more fleeing soldiers for the Union Army than any other state within the Confederacy.
Whiteside is an unincorporated community in Marion County, Tennessee. It was originally settled as a Cherokee town in the late eighteenth century.
The Chattanooga and Tennessee Electric Power Company was formed in 1905 by Josephus C. Guild, Charles E. James and Anthony N. Brady to produce hydroelectric power and improving the navigation of the Tennessee River.
In Tennessee, U.S. Route 64 stretches 404.1 miles (650.3 km) from the Mississippi River in Memphis to the North Carolina state line near Ducktown. The highway, along with US 72, is a major route for travel between Memphis and Chattanooga.
On March 19, 1906, Ed Johnson, a young African American man, was murdered by a lynch mob in his home town of Chattanooga, Tennessee. He had been wrongfully sentenced to death for the rape of Nevada Taylor, but Justice John Marshall Harlan of the United States Supreme Court had issued a stay of execution. To prevent delay or avoidance of execution, a mob broke into the jail where Johnson was held, and abducted and lynched him from the Walnut Street Bridge.
The Great Flood of 1851 occurred after record-setting rainfalls across the Midwestern United States and Plains from May to August, 1851. Hardest hit was the State of Iowa, with significant flooding extending to the Lower Mississippi River basin. Historical evidence suggest flooding occurred in the eastern Plains, from Nebraska to the Red River basin, but these areas were sparsely settled in 1851. Heavy rainfall also occurred in the Ohio River basin.
The Brainerd Mission was a Christian mission to the Cherokee in present-day Chattanooga, Tennessee. The associated Brainerd Mission Cemetery is the only part that remains, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Memphis, Tennessee, US.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States.
Underground Chattanooga is a below-ground area of Chattanooga, Tennessee that resulted from citizen efforts to prevent floods in the aftermath of the flood of 1867. It was rediscovered by Jeff Brown in the 1970s.
The murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, triggered a wave of protests throughout Tennessee in late May and early June 2020. These protests continued throughout the year.
The Hiwassee River Heritage Center is a history museum located in Charleston, Tennessee which was established in 2013. The museum chronicles the region's Cherokee and Civil War history. It is a certified interpretive center on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail.