100 Fun Facts About Chattanooga

Chattanooga is the seat of which Tennessee county?

It is Tennessee's fourth most populous city, after Nashville, Memphis and Knoxville.

What is Chattanooga's official nickname?

The others are unofficial; Gig City refers to its claim of the fastest internet in the western hemisphere.

The name Chattanooga is thought to come from a Muskogean or Creek phrase meaning what?

The rock in question is believed to be Lookout Mountain.

The 1816 landing that became Chattanooga was established by which future Cherokee Principal Chief?

In 1838 the US Army used the landing as one of three internment camps before the Trail of Tears.

Which Union general led the November 1863 Battles for Chattanooga that broke the Confederate siege?

Rosecrans's Army of the Cumberland had been bottled up in the city since its defeat at Chickamauga in September.

Which Confederate general besieged the Union army in Chattanooga in autumn 1863?

His men held the high ground on Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge until Grant's assaults of November 24 and 25.

The supply route Grant opened to feed the starving Union troops in Chattanooga was nicknamed what?

Joseph Hooker's men beat off a Confederate counterattack at Wauhatchie to keep it open.

On November 25, 1863, Grant's army routed the Confederates in a charge up which high ground east of the city?

George Thomas's men were only meant to take the rifle pits at the base but kept going to the top.

Chattanooga is one of three defining Union victories that turned the Civil War. What are the other two?

Gettysburg ended the Confederacy's winning streak and Vicksburg split it in half; Chattanooga opened the road to Atlanta.

The 1906 lynching of Ed Johnson in Chattanooga led to what unique event at the US Supreme Court?

Sheriff Joseph Shipp was found to have violated Johnson's rights by letting the mob into the jail.

The 1891 Walnut Street Bridge is the Southeast's oldest surviving example of which bridge type?

Restored as a pedestrian bridge in 1993, it closed again for renovation in March 2025.

Chattanooga's 1930s nickname, which inspired the Glenn Miller song, was what?

Mayor P. R. Olgiati later made it the first Tennessee city with a completed interstate.

"Chattanooga Choo Choo" was written for which 1941 film?

Mack Gordon wrote the words and Harry Warren the music; the Glenn Miller record hit number one on December 7, 1941.

"Chattanooga Choo Choo" holds what distinction in music-industry history?

RCA Victor presented it in 1942 after about 1.2 million sales.

In the lyrics of "Chattanooga Choo Choo", where does the singer board the train?

The route runs from Pennsylvania Station in New York through Baltimore and North Carolina to Terminal Station in Chattanooga.

The Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel is housed in which renovated building?

Downtown's Read House claims to be the longest continuously operating hotel in the Southeast.

In 1969 the federal government gave Chattanooga what unwelcome distinction?

The same mountains that make the city scenic trapped its industrial smog.

In September 2010 Chattanooga became the first US city to offer what through its city-owned utility EPB?

That is the origin of the Gig City nickname; AT&T and Comcast fought EPB's expansion in court.

Which German carmaker opened a $1 billion assembly plant in Chattanooga in 2011?

It was the company's first US plant since the Westmoreland, Pennsylvania factory closed in 1988.

Chattanooga is home to the world's first what?

Other local names include Double Cola, Unum and BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.

Which marshmallow-and-graham-cracker snack is made by the Chattanooga Bakery?

Company legend says a Kentucky coal miner asked a salesman for a snack with graham crackers and marshmallow, as big as the moon.

MoonPies are traditionally paired with which drink?

The pairing is a Southern classic; coconut MoonPies appear for Mardi Gras.

The Tennessee Aquarium opened on the Chattanooga riverfront in which year?

Its Ocean Journey building was added in 2005; it houses more than 12,000 animals.

The Tennessee Aquarium's original 1992 building is called what?

The neighbouring Ocean Journey expansion followed in 2005.

Ruby Falls, the underground waterfall inside Lookout Mountain, was discovered in which year?

Leo Lambert's crew were tunnelling toward the older Lookout Mountain Cave when they broke into it.

Which chemist and cave enthusiast's company found Ruby Falls while drilling for another cave?

He named the falls after his wife, Ruby.

Rock City claims that from Lover's Leap you can see how many states?

A University of Tennessee scientist noted in 2007 that the claim really refers to high points in those states, and predates modern air pollution.

The Lookout Mountain attraction became famous through which advertising campaign?

Clark Byers painted more than 900 barns in 19 states between 1935 and 1969.

Rock City is actually across the state line in which state?

It sits on top of Lookout Mountain, in the town of Lookout Mountain, Georgia, and opened in May 1932.

The Lookout Mountain Incline Railway has a maximum grade of about what?

That makes it one of the world's steepest passenger railways; it opened in November 1895.

The Incline Railway runs from which historic Chattanooga neighbourhood to the summit of Lookout Mountain?

St. Elmo is one of three Chattanooga neighbourhoods on the National Register of Historic Places.

In December 2024 what shut down the Incline Railway for months?

The rails, cables and cross timbers were damaged before the line reopened.

Which blues singer, the "Empress of the Blues", was born in Chattanooga in the 1890s?

Orphaned young, she and her siblings sang on street corners; the city's Bessie Smith Cultural Center honours her.

Chattanooga's Class AA baseball team is called what?

They are affiliated with the Cincinnati Reds and play in the Southern League.

Chattanooga's tallest building, at 21 storeys, is which tower?

The James Building was the city's first skyscraper.

Chattanooga's largest flood, in 1867, came long before which federal agency tamed the river in 1933?

The Chickamauga Dam now impounds the river just north of downtown.

Which science-fiction and fantasy convention has been held in Chattanooga every January since 1976?

It draws around a thousand fans, many of them to the Choo Choo Hotel.

Since 2013 Chattanooga has hosted which endurance event, then held in only about eleven US cities?

The city had already hosted the USA Cycling professional road championships that year.

Erlanger, Chattanooga's main hospital, ranks where among US public healthcare systems?

It is a Level One trauma centre and the only tertiary-care provider for southeast Tennessee.

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is what within the UT system?

UTC had more than 12,000 students in 2025–26.

Which dam impounds the river just north of downtown Chattanooga?

The city lies between the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians and the foot of Walden's Ridge.

Which R&B superstar, a Chattanooga native, filmed a 1999 concert video in the city?

Usher Live was shot in his hometown; more than a decade later Tim McGraw filmed his Truck Yeah video there too.

Along with which other city is Chattanooga considered a principal city of East Tennessee?

Chattanooga is the state's fourth-most populous city and anchors its fourth-largest metropolitan area.

As the birthplace of which vehicle does Chattanooga host a dedicated Hall of Fame and Museum?

The International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum sits in the city, near the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum.

In 2012 Chattanooga became the first US municipality to have its own what?

Chatype was also the world's first crowd-funded, custom-made typeface, arriving two years after the city's pioneering gigabit internet.

Since 2005, Chattanooga has been the sole production site for which breath mint?

The William Wrigley Jr. Company makes them there; the city also hosts Brach's candy maker Ferrara and a Krystal presence.

In which year did the community of Ross's Landing incorporate as the city of Chattanooga?

Just a year earlier the U.S. Army had used the landing as one of three internment camps for Cherokee people before the Trail of Tears.

McKee Foods, maker of Little Debbie snack cakes, is headquartered in which town near Chattanooga?

The privately held, family-run company sits alongside other big local names such as Unum and BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.

Which publisher of the Chattanooga Times went on to buy The New York Times?

The Times later merged in 1999 with its bitter rival, the News-Free Press, to form the city's only daily paper.

The Chickamauga Mound, Chattanooga's oldest visible man-made feature, dates from roughly when?

Archaeological finds show continuous human occupation of the area from around 10,000 BCE through the Cherokee period ending in 1838.

In 1931, 17-year-old Chattanooga pitcher Jackie Mitchell struck out Lou Gehrig and which other Yankees slugger?

Babe Ruth swung at two pitches, let a third strike pass and flung his bat away in frustration. Mitchell, one of the first women to pitch professionally, had been signed by an owner known for publicity stunts.

Which actor, among the highest-grossing in film history, grew up in Chattanooga and attended Riverside High School?

Samuel L. Jackson played French horn, piccolo, trumpet and flute in the orchestra at Riverside High, one of several segregated schools he attended while growing up in Chattanooga.

Which Southern fast-food chain, known for small square hamburgers, was founded in Chattanooga in 1932?

Krystal opened in the first years of the Great Depression after its founder toured a rival burger chain in Chicago taking notes. It kept its headquarters in Chattanooga until 2013.

Garnet Carter, who opened Rock City above Chattanooga with wife Frieda, earlier patented a version of which pastime?

Miniature golf boomed after Carter patented his Tom Thumb course in the late 1920s, and within a few years thousands of copies had opened across the United States.

Which union boss was convicted of jury tampering in 1964 at the federal courthouse in downtown Chattanooga?

Jimmy Hoffa was sentenced to eight years for the Chattanooga conviction, but the Teamsters president stayed free on appeal and did not enter prison until March 1967.

Which silent-film comedian starred in The General, based on an 1862 Union raid on the railroad to Chattanooga?

Buster Keaton based his comedy loosely on a raider's memoirs. The real stolen locomotive ran out of fuel just 18 miles short of Chattanooga, and its hijackers scattered.

Chattanooga's riverfront was an 1838 embarkation point for which forced removal of the Cherokee to Indian Territory?

The Trail of Tears began for more than 1,500 Cherokee on June 6, 1838, when they were loaded onto steamboats and barges at the landing where downtown Chattanooga now stands.

Which Emmy-winning Will & Grace actor, raised in Chattanooga, became an Instagram sensation during the 2020 lockdowns?

Leslie Jordan won his Emmy in 2006 for playing Beverley Leslie, Karen Walker's pretentious rival. His pandemic posts won him 5.8 million followers.

The state railroad built north to Chattanooga began at a settlement named Terminus, which grew into which capital?

Atlanta was founded as the end of the line, the spot marked by a zero milepost, and was briefly incorporated as Marthasville in 1843.

Andrews' Raiders, several buried in Chattanooga National Cemetery, included the first soldiers awarded which decoration?

The Medal of Honor was newly created when Private Jacob Parrott, a train-stealing raider abused as a prisoner, received the very first. Six of the raiders then met President Lincoln.

Which Hall of Fame defensive end, nicknamed the Minister of Defense, was born and raised in Chattanooga?

Reggie White was an ordained evangelical minister who had already picked up the nickname by his senior year of college. Chattanooga named a boulevard after him in 2008.

Which Hall of Fame wide receiver played both football and basketball at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga?

Terrell Owens drew so little notice at a small school with no winning season in his time there that he slid to the third round of the 1996 draft, the 89th player chosen.

Which media mogul, later owner of baseball's Braves, attended the McCallie School, a boys' prep school in Chattanooga?

Ted Turner left McCallie for an Ivy League university, where he captained the sailing team and horrified his father by choosing to major in classics.

The Tennessee River loops through Chattanooga and finally empties into which larger river at Paducah, Kentucky?

The Ohio takes in the Tennessee, its largest tributary, only about 46 miles before it meets the Mississippi itself.

Chattanooga sits just east of the boundary where which two United States time zones meet?

Eastern and Central time split Tennessee in two: Chattanooga keeps Eastern, while the counties directly to its west, like Nashville and Memphis beyond them, run an hour behind.

Which country star, raised around Chattanooga, built his audience by posting cover songs on social media in 2014?

Kane Brown was sometimes homeless as a child before his family settled in Red Bank, a town entirely surrounded by Chattanooga. His cover of a Lee Brice song was an early viral hit.

Chattanooga-born actor Dennis Haskins was best known for playing which character in the teen sitcom Saved by the Bell?

Mr. Belding was first played by Haskins in 1988 on Good Morning, Miss Bliss, the Disney Channel series that was retooled into Saved by the Bell. Haskins studied at UT Chattanooga.

Which future Hall of Famer began his professional baseball career as a teenager with the Chattanooga Choo-Choos?

Willie Mays made the Choo-Choos his first professional team, playing briefly one summer before he joined the Birmingham Black Barons. The Negro Southern League club played its home games at Engel Stadium.

Which future five-star general's father, then 18, planted his regiment's flag on the heights above Chattanooga in 1863?

Douglas MacArthur's father seized the colours from a fallen comrade during a spontaneous uphill charge and rallied his Wisconsin regiment at the crest.

Debbie McKee, namesake of the Little Debbie snack cakes baked near Chattanooga, was what relation to the founders?

Their granddaughter was four when the founding McKees put her name on a product in 1960. The artist who painted the logo was told to make her look older, around eight or nine.

Which Union general, beaten at Chancellorsville that spring, led the 1863 assault on Chattanooga's Lookout Mountain?

Joseph Hooker sent his men up slopes so thick with fog and mist that the fight became known as the Battle Above the Clouds.

Which Virginia-born Union general took over the Army of the Cumberland shortly before the 1863 Battles for Chattanooga?

George H. Thomas stayed loyal to the Union although his home state joined the Confederacy, and within weeks of taking command his troops stormed the enemy line east of the city.

Which Chattanooga theatre, opened in 1921, was among the first air-conditioned public buildings in the United States?

The Tivoli, nicknamed the Jewel of the South, cost $750,000 to build and was designed by the Chicago firm Rapp and Rapp with Chattanooga architect Reuben H. Hunt.

Which antique ride, built by the Dentzel company in 1894, is the restored centrepiece of Coolidge Park in Chattanooga?

A carousel from 1894 turns beside the river in the North Shore park, which is named for Charles Coolidge, a decorated soldier of World War II, and not for the president.

Which amusement park near Chattanooga, opened in 1925, was still owned by its founding family a century later?

Lake Winnie, in full Lake Winnepesaukah, drew more than 5,000 visitors on its first day for boating, fishing and picnics. Its Boat Chute water ride dates from 1927.

Which Chattanooga music festival began in June 1982 with five evenings of concerts?

Riverbend long put its headline acts on a barge converted into a full-size concert stage, moored just offshore from amphitheatre seats built into the hillside. It went on hiatus after 2023.

Which sport fills the Tennessee River at Chattanooga every November during the Head of the Hooch?

Rowing crews first raced the regatta on the Chattahoochee River, which gave the event its name, before it moved north to Chattanooga in 2005.

Which river city financed and owned a railway to Chattanooga, completed in 1880, and kept it until 2024?

Cincinnati voters approved $10 million in bonds in 1869 to begin construction, creating the only long-distance railway in the country owned by a city government.

Which Chattanooga hotel, founded in 1872, markets its Room 311 as haunted by the ghost of a 1920s guest?

The Read House, whose main building dates from 1926, restored Room 311 to its 1920s look, clawfoot tub included. The ghost said to linger there is named Annalisa Netherly.

Which actor played Jackie Robinson in 42, the 2013 film that used Chattanooga's Engel Stadium as Ebbets Field?

Chadwick Boseman landed his breakout role in the film, which was shot in 2012 in Chattanooga and Birmingham with Harrison Ford in a supporting part.

Lookout Mountain begins at Chattanooga and runs southwest across two state lines into the northeast of which state?

Alabama holds the southwestern end of the mountain, whose northern tip overlooks Chattanooga from the Tennessee line; it clips the corner of a third state on the way.

The Incline Railway that climbs Lookout Mountain from Chattanooga, opened in 1895, is which type of railway?

A funicular hauls its cars up the slope by cable, and this one's cable system was made by the Otis Elevator Company. It was the second of two inclines built on the mountain.

Which Union general set out from Chattanooga in May 1864, months before his famous March to the Sea?

William T. Sherman could drive south because the Union victories of November 1863 had opened Chattanooga, a city known as the Gateway to the South.

Chattanooga baseball owner Joe Engel once traded his shortstop to another club in exchange for which bird?

A turkey was the price, and Engel roasted it and served it to the local sportswriters. He also raffled off houses and cars and put singing canaries in the grandstand.

When it opened in Chattanooga, the Tennessee Aquarium was the largest in the world devoted to which kind of habitat?

Freshwater was a practical choice: planners reasoned that conventional salt-water exhibits would be hard to raise money for and unlikely to draw travellers to Chattanooga.

The I-24 freeway from Nashville ends in Chattanooga at a junction with which highway linking Michigan and Florida?

Interstate 75 meets I-24 at an interchange known as the Split, then heads south from Chattanooga on its long run to the Miami area.

Chattanooga became North America's first National Park City in 2025, six years after which capital led the way?

London signed its charter in July 2019 after a grassroots campaign. Chattanooga was the fourth city worldwide to earn the status, following a two-year vetting process.

Which American outdoor-sports magazine has twice named Chattanooga its Best Town Ever?

Outside honoured a city set where the Cumberland Plateau meets the southern Appalachians, with rock climbing, mountain biking and adventure racing close at hand.

The Chattanooga Medicine Company, founded in 1879, supplied the US Army with 34 million of which item in World War II?

K-rations poured out of the drug maker from 1942 to 1945 and earned it five E awards for supporting the war effort. The firm later became Chattem, seller of Icy Hot and Rolaids.

Which Chattanooga-born novelist, from the family that owns The New York Times, wrote Memoirs of a Geisha?

Arthur Golden is a grandson of Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the paper's longtime publisher, and was born in Chattanooga in 1956. His novel, published in 1997, became a bestseller.

Which peninsula in a Tennessee River loop at Chattanooga is the Park Service's only National Archeological District?

Moccasin Bend holds traces of 12,000 years of continuous human habitation, yet it won protection only in 2003, after decades of campaigning and of industrial building on the site.

Which senator, once a Chattanooga lawyer, campaigned in a coonskin cap and ran for vice president in 1956?

Estes Kefauver practised law in Chattanooga for twelve years before entering politics. He was Adlai Stevenson's running mate on the ticket that lost to Eisenhower and Nixon.

Which Union officer shelled Chattanooga in 1863, later settled in the city and was elected its mayor in 1871?

John T. Wilder led the bombardment as a diversion, to make the Confederates expect an attack from the north. After the war he founded an ironworks in the Chattanooga region.

Which Cherokee war chief defied his father's call for peace and led followers to settle near present-day Chattanooga?

Dragging Canoe took about 500 Cherokee out of the Overhill towns in 1777 and fought on as war chief of the breakaway settlements until his death in 1792.

Which country singer topped both the pop and country charts in 1950 with Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy?

Red Foley made it his signature tune, and it held the top of the country chart for three months. Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra released versions that charted too.

Which Chattanooga-born drummer laid down the much-sampled break on the Godfather of Soul's 1970 single Funky Drummer?

Clyde Stubblefield saw his rhythm pattern lifted by hip-hop producers from the 1980s onward, usually without credit, making it one of the most sampled pieces of music in the world.

Chattanooga's Market Street Bridge, completed in 1917, opens its steel draw span by which mechanism?

A bascule with two rolling-lift leaves sits between concrete arches on the bridge, which cost $1.1 million to build across the Tennessee River.

An underground power station west of Chattanooga is fed by a reservoir on the summit of which landmark?

Raccoon Mountain stores energy as water: at times of high demand its 528-acre summit lake drains through a tunnel drilled down the middle of the mountain to drive the generators.

Chattanooga's airport took which name in 1930 to honour the Kiwanis Club president who pushed for it?

Lovell Field opened with an unpaved runway and was named for John Lovell, who also headed the local Red Cross. Its airport code is CHA.

Which Fortune 500 disability insurer has its headquarters in Chattanooga, where its forerunner Provident began in 1887?

Unum took its present shape in a 1999 merger with Provident, which had begun in Chattanooga as the Mutual Medical Aid and Accident Insurance Company.