Chattanooga Trivia
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This Chattanooga trivia quiz has 100 free questions with answers and covers the Scenic City from Ross's Landing to Gig City: the Cherokee origins and the Trail of Tears, the 1863 battles on Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, the Walnut Street Bridge, the Dynamo of Dixie and Glenn Miller's Choo Choo, the first Coca-Cola bottler and the MoonPie, Ruby Falls, Rock City and the Incline Railway, the Tennessee Aquarium, Volkswagen, EPB's gigabit internet, Bessie Smith and the Lookouts. Questions run from easy ones any local can answer to details that will test a lifelong Chattanoogan, so it works for a trivia night on the Southside, a school unit on Tennessee history, or a visitor who has just ridden the Incline. Difficulty is marked on every question. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the city and its landmarks, and each question shows its citation.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Chattanooga is the seat of which Tennessee county?
Hamilton
It is Tennessee's fourth most populous city, after Nashville, Memphis and Knoxville.
Q 02What is Chattanooga's official nickname?
The Scenic City
The others are unofficial; Gig City refers to its claim of the fastest internet in the western hemisphere.
Q 03The name Chattanooga is thought to come from a Muskogean or Creek phrase meaning what?
Rock rising to a point
The rock in question is believed to be Lookout Mountain.
Q 04The 1816 landing that became Chattanooga was established by which future Cherokee Principal Chief?
John Ross
In 1838 the US Army used the landing as one of three internment camps before the Trail of Tears.
Q 05Which Union general led the November 1863 Battles for Chattanooga that broke the Confederate siege?
Ulysses S. Grant
Rosecrans's Army of the Cumberland had been bottled up in the city since its defeat at Chickamauga in September.
Q 06Which Confederate general besieged the Union army in Chattanooga in autumn 1863?
Braxton Bragg
His men held the high ground on Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge until Grant's assaults of November 24 and 25.
Q 07The supply route Grant opened to feed the starving Union troops in Chattanooga was nicknamed what?
The Cracker Line
Joseph Hooker's men beat off a Confederate counterattack at Wauhatchie to keep it open.
Q 08On November 25, 1863, Grant's army routed the Confederates in a charge up which high ground east of the city?
Missionary Ridge
George Thomas's men were only meant to take the rifle pits at the base but kept going to the top.
Q 09Chattanooga is one of three defining Union victories that turned the Civil War. What are the other two?
Gettysburg and Vicksburg
Gettysburg ended the Confederacy's winning streak and Vicksburg split it in half; Chattanooga opened the road to Atlanta.
Q 10The 1906 lynching of Ed Johnson in Chattanooga led to what unique event at the US Supreme Court?
Its only criminal trial
Sheriff Joseph Shipp was found to have violated Johnson's rights by letting the mob into the jail.
Q 11The 1891 Walnut Street Bridge is the Southeast's oldest surviving example of which bridge type?
Camelback truss
Restored as a pedestrian bridge in 1993, it closed again for renovation in March 2025.
Q 12Chattanooga's 1930s nickname, which inspired the Glenn Miller song, was what?
The Dynamo of Dixie
Mayor P. R. Olgiati later made it the first Tennessee city with a completed interstate.
Q 13"Chattanooga Choo Choo" was written for which 1941 film?
Sun Valley Serenade
Mack Gordon wrote the words and Harry Warren the music; the Glenn Miller record hit number one on December 7, 1941.
Q 21Which marshmallow-and-graham-cracker snack is made by the Chattanooga Bakery?
The MoonPie
Company legend says a Kentucky coal miner asked a salesman for a snack with graham crackers and marshmallow, as big as the moon.
Q 22MoonPies are traditionally paired with which drink?
RC Cola
The pairing is a Southern classic; coconut MoonPies appear for Mardi Gras.
Q 23The Tennessee Aquarium opened on the Chattanooga riverfront in which year?
1992
Its Ocean Journey building was added in 2005; it houses more than 12,000 animals.
Q 24The Tennessee Aquarium's original 1992 building is called what?
Q 14"Chattanooga Choo Choo" holds what distinction in music-industry history?
First song to receive a gold record
RCA Victor presented it in 1942 after about 1.2 million sales.
Q 15In the lyrics of "Chattanooga Choo Choo", where does the singer board the train?
Track 29
The route runs from Pennsylvania Station in New York through Baltimore and North Carolina to Terminal Station in Chattanooga.
Q 16The Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel is housed in which renovated building?
Terminal Station
Downtown's Read House claims to be the longest continuously operating hotel in the Southeast.
Q 17In 1969 the federal government gave Chattanooga what unwelcome distinction?
Dirtiest air in the nation
The same mountains that make the city scenic trapped its industrial smog.
Q 18In September 2010 Chattanooga became the first US city to offer what through its city-owned utility EPB?
Municipal one-gigabit internet
That is the origin of the Gig City nickname; AT&T and Comcast fought EPB's expansion in court.
Q 19Which German carmaker opened a $1 billion assembly plant in Chattanooga in 2011?
Volkswagen
It was the company's first US plant since the Westmoreland, Pennsylvania factory closed in 1988.
Q 20Chattanooga is home to the world's first what?
Coca-Cola bottling plant
Other local names include Double Cola, Unum and BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.
River Journey
The neighbouring Ocean Journey expansion followed in 2005.
Q 25Ruby Falls, the underground waterfall inside Lookout Mountain, was discovered in which year?
1928
Leo Lambert's crew were tunnelling toward the older Lookout Mountain Cave when they broke into it.
Q 26Which chemist and cave enthusiast's company found Ruby Falls while drilling for another cave?
Leo Lambert
He named the falls after his wife, Ruby.
Q 27Rock City claims that from Lover's Leap you can see how many states?
Seven
A University of Tennessee scientist noted in 2007 that the claim really refers to high points in those states, and predates modern air pollution.
Q 28The Lookout Mountain attraction became famous through which advertising campaign?
"See Rock City" on barn roofs
Clark Byers painted more than 900 barns in 19 states between 1935 and 1969.
Q 29Rock City is actually across the state line in which state?
Georgia
It sits on top of Lookout Mountain, in the town of Lookout Mountain, Georgia, and opened in May 1932.
Q 30The Lookout Mountain Incline Railway has a maximum grade of about what?
72.7 per cent
That makes it one of the world's steepest passenger railways; it opened in November 1895.