A hearty hello to you, Chattanooga! Hamilton Bush, your purveyor of local lore, is here once again to opine on a pair of topics supplied by you, dear readers. Your loyal scribe pens these words in the midst of what we, down South, call the Dog Days. Indeed, it is difficult to write while fanning one’s open collar with a rolled up copy of the last issue of CityScope Magazine. As my Great Grandmother Bush used to say, “This little flower is wiltin’!”
Of course, hot weather may not be the only thing causing angst among our citizenry these days, what with $4 gas and a nationwide health scare that subsided with the roundup of millions of rogue tomatoes. Hopefully, these problems, too, shall pass. Some blessed day, the price of a tank of gasoline may recede to the level of a reasonable house payment, and at long last we can consume tomatoes again without fear.
One thing is certain. Come November, Cousin George will begin packing up and making plans to vacate the confines of the White House for the open spaces of his beloved ranch in Crawford, Texas. Now, blood is thicker than water (unless one lives on the Georgia side of the state line), and Old Hamilton is not about to critique George’s performance during eight years in the toughest job on the planet. It’s a pretty good bet that his daddy, mama, and brother Jeb provide all the feedback he needs.
Furthermore, when it comes to McCain or Obama, yours truly is not about to reveal his political leanings in print, preferring to remain a mugwamp, with his mug safely positioned on one side of the fence and his wamp (not Zach) ensconced on the other. Suffice it say that as temperatures cool off, the race for the Presidency is bound to heat up. As for Hamilton Bush, it’s a wait-and-see kind of thing. Think I’ll walk down to the corner market and check out the produce.
Dear Hamilton Bush,
As a child growing up in the late 1970s and early 80s in Chattanooga, my parents would take me to the Town & Country Restaurant for dinner. Afterward, we would go to the top of Lookout Mountain to see the city lit up at night. I fell in love with an abandoned house on the bluff. It was a very large house, mountain stone with a red tile roof. You could see it from anywhere in the valley. It was situated to the left of the Incline, and it was torn down in the 80s. Now there is only a vacant lot. It was the old Newell Sanders home place, and his name is cut into the carport that is still there. I heard the house burned in the 50s. What can you tell me about Newell Sanders?
Sincerely,
Musing On the Mountain
Dear Musing,
Mr. Newell Sanders was a prominent citizen of Chattanooga and Hamilton County who found success in business and in politics during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. First, however, a pause to remember the original Town & Country…Okay, Old Hamilton feels a tad better now.
Back to our subject. Like many of his fellow citizens, Mr. Sanders was a transplant to this area during the decades following the Civil War. He was born in Owen County, Indiana, in 1850 and relocated to Chattanooga in 1877 after graduating from Indiana University and running a bookstore which served its students. Accounts as to the impetus for his big move vary slightly and involve another prominent Chattanoogan, Colonel John T. Wilder, a former Union officer during the Civil War who was a successful industrialist and served for a brief time as mayor of our fair city. Incidentally, Wilder was also from Indiana. Some say that Wilder encouraged Sanders to move south, while others assert a letter of introduction was the link between the two.
It seems that Sanders sought the advice of Wilder and, after some deliberation, settled on the plow business as a means of earning a living. In 1878, he opened Newell Sanders & Company on Chattanooga’s Southside, producing farm implements with castings from nearby Wheland Foundry. Within a couple of years, partners George W. Wheland, Charles D. Mitchell, C.C. Bloomfield, and Judson Buchanan had joined the enterprise, which was relocated to Carter and Main Streets, close to the present site of Finley Stadium, and renamed the Chattanooga Plow Company.
The company steadily grew, and by 1895 its facilities occupied six acres, and as many as 300 people had found employment there. Diversification seems to have been a strategic aim for the company, and furnaces, evaporators, and cane mills made in Chattanooga were sold throughout the Caribbean and Central and South America. However, the most prominent implement remained the single-foot plow pulled by a lone beast of burden and known appropriately as the “Chattanooga Plow.”
As a wise man once said, though, success brings its own set of challenges, and the principals of the Chattanooga Plow Company apparently experienced some managerial hardscrabble. Just after the turn of the century, Mr. Sanders was “plowed under” by his associates and ousted from the business. In 1902, he formed a new enterprise, the Newell Sanders Plow Company, concentrating on the disc plow, which was meant to be pulled by an invention which was gaining popularity, the tractor. Well, to make a long story somewhat shorter, by 1915 Sanders, with the support of his loyal nephew, regained control of Chattanooga Plow. In 1919, the once and future company president struck a deal with International Harvester and sold out for the princely sum of $1 million.
During his years in Chattanooga, Sanders served as a member of the local board of education, as an alderman, and as a director of the Nashville, Chattanooga, and St. Louis Railway. The untimely death of U.S. Senator Robert L. Taylor sent Sanders to Washington, D.C., as the appointee of Governor Ben W. Hooper. He completed the term, serving from April 11, 1912, until January 24, 1913, sponsoring a piece of legislation which prohibited the transportation of alcoholic beverages from wet states to dry states. Of course, some folks thought Sanders and his legal jab at demon liquor were “all wet.”
Subsequently, the Tennessee General Assembly elected William R. Webb to the Senate, but Sanders rekindled his political aspirations with an unsuccessful bid for the Senate in 1922, losing to Democrat Kenneth McKellar. He died at his home on Lookout Mountain in 1938. By the way, he was the last Republican to serve in the U.S. Senate from Tennessee until the election of Howard Baker, Jr., in 1967.
Dear Hamilton Bush,
On a recent trip out west with my family, we ventured off the interstate to see something of the backroads of our great country. Quite by accident, as we drove along, we discovered a small town in Southwest Oklahoma, and were very surprised by its name – Chattanooga. We were looking for the nearest Motel 6 but couldn’t locate one, so our stay was brief. What can you tell me about Chattanooga, Oklahoma, and any other municipalities which might have the name in common with the Scenic City?
Regards,
Further On Up the Road
Dear Road,
Chattanooga, Oklahoma, is, in fact, a location in and of itself, 25 miles southwest of the city of Lawton. It occupies approximately one-half mile in area, and according to the census of 2000, a total of 432 people call it home. Reportedly, the town was founded on July 22, 1902, when a homesteader by the name of Nelson Sisson, from Chattanooga, Tennessee, filed a plat for the city’s layout and named it after his hometown. Timing was everything for Chattanooga, and the Rock Island Railroad began constructing a new line from Lawton. Following its completion in 1918, the line was extended further to Wichita Falls, Texas, and the railroad contributed to local growth.
During its first two decades, the town expanded, adding 80 acres on its east side in 1904, and welcoming some former residents of the nearby town of Slogan, which had quietly dissolved. In 1907, about 1,000 new settlers came to the area with the opening of land in Chattanooga called “Big Pasture.” When the railroad shut down its line through the town in 1943, the economy slowed and the population ebbed. Not until the 1960s, with the activity at Fort Sill related to the Vietnam War, did Chattanooga once again show real signs of growth. Then, the 1970s witnessed another slowdown.
Today, however, Chattanooga is again showing signs of resurgence and bills itself as the “northern gateway to the Hackberry Flats wetland area” which attracts a large number of visitors and presents an opportunity for economic expansion. While the local economy is agriculturally based, some residents continue to commute to Wichita Falls or Lawton for employment.
Chattanooga has a colorful history, which includes a visit by President Theodore Roosevelt in the early 1900s, and it is the hometown of Rosemary Hogan, the Angel of Bataan during World War II. The town is also the “seat” of the famous annual Outhouse Races. The winner of the event is undoubtedly “flush” with success. Sounds like a fun place to visit. The local folks refer to their town as “Chatty.” Check out the Chattanooga, Oklahoma, website at www.chattyok.com.
Two other communities of interest bear the name Chattanooga. The first, Chattanooga, Ohio, is located in Mercer County near the Indiana state line. The largest nearby cities of note are Celina and Lima. The residents of Chattanooga, Ohio, roughly 135 in all, refer to their town as “Chatt.” Originally settled about 160 years ago by German and English immigrants, the population reached its zenith on the eve of the 20th century at about 400.
That’s 400 more than inhabit Chattanooga, Colorado, located in the southwest part of the state in San Juan County, not far from Silverton. San Juan is the state’s least populous county, and Silverton has only about 530 residents.
Chattanooga, Colorado, was founded in March, 1883, principally by former Tennesseans named Ollie and Toots Klinger. Located at the foot of Red Mountain Pass, the town, which at its peak was home to 300 people, served as a terminus for the transportation of ore mined in the nearby mountains. Silver was followed by gold as the main attraction for a throng of prospectors who passed through, and at one time there was hope that the community might thrive. When the get-rich-quick fever subsided, the 75 or so buildings constructed in Chattanooga began to empty. Compounding the town’s woes, a pair of catastrophic avalanches, one in 1888 and the other in 1892, resulted in an exodus.
Once the site of the well-known Loop on the Silverton Railroad, which ascended a 200-degree curve for 500 feet in one and one-quarter miles, Chattanooga, Colorado, is today a bona fide ghost town. Highway 550 follows the route of the old Loop toward the top of Red Mountain. A few buildings and some rusty mining equipment are all that remain.