On The Air
Luther Masingill began his career with WDEF on December 31, 1940. Fourteen years later, the radio personality was part of the beginning of television broadcasting in Chattanooga. On the afternoon of April 25, 1954, WDEF became the first local television station on the air.
“There was a lot of excitement,” Luther remembers. “We were opening the TV station in the same studio with the radio station, and it was located on the fourth floor of the Volunteer Building. They got us on the air, and because we were the only station, we had the choice of the programming that was available from CBS, ABC, and NBC. There wasn’t much, and they put me on right away. We had a little program called ‘Loafing With Luther,’ and we displayed local talent right in the studio, including piano players and instrumentalists who specialized in the violin or guitar. It was strictly local, and I did that for two or three years while they were redoing an old restaurant building on Broad Street for us to move into.”
Luther remembers the ponderous cameras and unusually large cables which led from the electrical supply to the equipment. Some film was in use, which could be run on a standard movie projector. At times, the movies were projected onto a screen and photographed by the on-air camera for transmission to viewers’ homes.
“It was pretty crude,” laughs Luther. “People remind me of doing a live commercial one time. It was for a local appliance dealer and the washers and dryers he was selling. I had the machines in the studio, and the dealer was standing beside me. We bragged about the machines and talked about how good and sturdy they were and how they would last for years. Well, I dropped my hand on it for emphasis. When I did that, a loose dial fell off one of the machines. It clanked and rolled onto the concrete floor and clanked some more. All that sound went out over the air. I had the dial handed back to me, tried to put it back on the machine, and picked up and went on.”
Big Win On Rocky Top
For some, the most vivid memory of the landmark victory by the University of Chattanooga football team over the Tennessee Volunteers on November 8, 1958, may well be the swirl of celebration which turned into something of a riot afterwards. The underdog Mocs completed a 14-6 win in Knoxville that afternoon, and the 50th anniversary of the event was marked during the 2008 football season.
A senior on the 1958 team, Harold Wilkes went on to coach football at Chattanooga and then to serve as the university’s athletic director for a number of years. During an era which did not include much passing offense, Wilkes had a productive day against the Vols, catching five passes from his position at end.
“We played both ways then, and we didn’t have separate offensive and defensive teams,” recalled Wilkes. “I guess the first thing that comes to mind about that game is playing defensive end. They ran the single wing, and I think of them having a crowd of people coming at us when they ran that sweep.”
The Mocs, who finished the 1958 season with a 5-5 record under Coach A.C. “Scrappy” Moore, actually led the contest most of the way, taking a 7-0 lead on quarterback Johnny Green’s touchdown before halftime. A fourth quarter touchdown by Don Hill gave the Mocs a 14-0 advantage, but the Vols averted a shutout when future Baylor School baseball coach Gene Etter completed a scoring pass to Don Stephens as the contest neared its end.
“People stormed the field after the game,” said Wilkes. “We were in the dressing room, and someone came in and told us about it, but neither of the teams got into it. There were quite a few people from Chattanooga there, and some dignitaries wound up in jail. There were students on both sides involved, and the police tried to protect the goalposts. In hindsight, that was probably the wrong move.”
As for the game itself, Wilkes remembers an unusual attitude among the Mocs’ players during practice and preparations. The team expected to win, he said, and the score was actually closer than the play on the field would have indicated. For years, the football, with the final score written on it, resided in a trophy case at Maclellan Gym on the Chattanooga campus. Later, Wilkes received a piece of the famous goalpost and gave it to the university’s alumni office.
Cold As Ice
During the first week of March 1960, a vicious ice storm struck the Chattanooga area, bringing traffic to a halt, knocking out electrical service to thousands of homes and businesses, and causing $30 million in property damage. Photos of the event show trees, power lines, and even telephone poles weighed down with heavy coats of ice, some of them snapped into pieces. The towns of Lookout Mountain, Signal Mountain, and Walden were hit hard, and normal activities were disrupted around the region for up to a week.
“I was 13 years old at the time, and we were living on Missionary Ridge in one of the older homes there,” remembers Jim Cooper, an insurance and investment advisor with Berz, White & Cooper. “I was a student at Brainerd Junior High School. We didn’t watch a lot of TV back then, and we were out doing things with our friends.”
Cooper’s grandfather lived on Signal Mountain, and the family ventured out to check on him. “The day of the storm, we went up Signal Mountain, and that was before the freeways had been built,” comments Cooper. “We went down McCallie Avenue, across the river, and up Signal Mountain Boulevard. My grandfather lived on James Boulevard, and it wasn’t easy, but we managed to get up there. There was some elevation and ice on Missionary Ridge, but Signal Mountain was a winter wonderland. We did some sledding on the ice, and it really was right on top of ice. The power was out at my grandfather’s house, and I remember putting logs on the fire and drinking hot chocolate. We baked potatoes in the fireplace, and they cooked under the ashes while the fire was going.”
As Cooper recalls, the great ice storm began with steady rain before developing into an unforgettable event for local residents. “It was a combination of the elements,” he says. “It was cold as the dickens, and it had been misting and raining and a lot of water had gotten on the trees and grass. Of course, you don’t think about getting out now without a four-wheel drive vehicle in that kind of weather, but we did then. School was closed, and everybody was out sledding and getting with their buddies. Of course, when you are 13 years old there isn’t a lot that can discourage you.”
Jimmy Hoffa – Days Of Deliberation
For six weeks in early 1964, Teamsters Union boss Jimmy Hoffa stood trial in Chattanooga on charges of tampering with a jury in a Nashville trial related to violations of the Taft-Hartley Act. Hoffa took up residence at the Hotel Patten, worked out at the Downtown YMCA, and attracted crowds wherever he went.
C. Kenneth Still, the Chapter 13 trustee for the Eastern District of Tennessee since January 1, 1968, was working at the time for Chattanooga Discount Corporation, an automobile finance company. He remembers the nationwide interest generated by the local trial, which included a number of Chattanoogans, such as presiding Judge Frank Wilson and local attorneys Harry and Marvin Berke.
“Every morning, Hoffa would walk the block and a half or so from the Hotel Patten to the Federal Building,” remarks Mr. Still. “There was a U.S. Marshal named Granville Sertell, who was always with him. Sertell’s nickname was ‘Shirt,’ and he was always close to Hoffa every time he went out. Everyone kept up with that trial, and it was big time in the news all across the country. This was not a regional deal. It was national, and all the television networks were here following the trial.”
One element of the proceedings, which has stayed with Still for decades, is the courtroom presence of Judge Wilson. “He comes as close to being a great man as anyone I have ever known,” he adds. “I can’t say that I was a personal friend, but we knew one another. Hoffa’s attorneys tried every way in the world to get the judge to make an error so that a conviction could be overturned. One of them referred to the trial as a ‘drumhead court-martial,’ which is about as bad as you can say in court, I would think. The judge didn’t respond. He just made notes in his notebook.”
According to Mr. Still, after Hoffa was convicted Judge Wilson called several attorneys to account for a litany of offenses, meting out a number of fines. “Some of the lawyers might even have been sent to jail,” he says, “and although they appealed Hoffa’s conviction, that verdict was never overturned.”
Later in 1964, Hoffa was convicted of pension fraud in Chicago. Following three years of appeals, he went to prison in 1967 and was pardoned by President Richard Nixon. Four years later, Hoffa disappeared under mysterious circumstances. His body has never been found. Judge Wilson died in 1981.
Up Around The Bend
Nearly 30 years ago, Chattanooga-area citizens began to look to the Tennessee River as the source of a revitalization of the downtown area, and indeed the entire region. In the summer of 1981, a concert series called Five Nights In Chattanooga began, which has evolved into the Riverbend Festival. It was hoped that a series of musical events would draw crowds downtown and add to the renewed quality of life which was beginning to emerge.
“The reason for the festival in the first place was to bring Chattanoogans together,” explains Councilwoman Sally Robinson, a charter member of the Riverbend Festival. “At the time, we didn’t seem to have a strong sense of community. Downtown was off limits, and there was no central gathering place for music and having a good time together. Knowing music is the universal language, we wanted to have all kinds, and we went to the river because it was undeveloped. We had to pick up all the glass and paper that was there and installed a barge on the river, which became the Coca-Cola Stage.”
Several important lessons were learned during the early years of the Riverbend Festival. Among them was the best timeframe for favorable weather. Ms. Robinson’s husband, Sam, consulted local meteorologist Neal Pascal, who researched the weather patterns and determined that early June was best. Therefore, the festival was moved from August and its format changed to 10 consecutive days. The use of pins for admission has proven to be popular and affordable for festivalgoers as well.
“The Bessie Smith Strut was conceived as one of a few off-riverfront events,” Robinson continued. “It is the only one that has remained constant every year, and on Mondays M.L. King Boulevard is closed and the merchants welcome everyone. We wanted to see M.L. King become revitalized and knew that one way to do it was to host a festival event there. It also allowed anyone to come to that event, even without a pin. We wanted everyone to be comfortable with the festival and wanted to go back to Bessie Smith’s neighborhood and celebrate.”
Robinson says that within five years of its inception, the Riverbend Festival had reached an average attendance of about 50,000 per night. Since then, attendance has remained steady, reaching 80,000 to 100,000 at times.
“The Riverbend Festival is uniquely Chattanooga, and we all believe that Riverbend is the city’s annual reunion – the spark that lit the fire for revitalization and riverfront redevelopment,” Robinson concludes. “Even in our wildest dreams we could not have realized it would become such a nationally acclaimed event.”
The Storm Of The Century
Although it is never a good time to have the flu, Cherrie Roberts, wife of then-Mayor Gene Roberts, was already under the weather when the “Blizzard of ‘93” hit the city in full force. Gene Roberts served four terms as Chattanooga’s mayor (1983-1997), and the great storm was easily one of the most memorable events during his career of public service.
“It hit us pretty hard and knocked down eight or ten trees in my backyard,” he remembers. “We measured the snow on the deck and it was 26 to 28 inches at the time. My wife had the flu, and I fixed a place for her in the living room with our wood stove. The heat and the phone were out, and I got my information from the radio for the most part. I’ll never forget one time when I was stoking the fire for Cherrie and a voice came on the radio. The woman said, “It’s all politics. I’m looking at Gene Roberts’ house, and it is lit up all over.”
Certainly, there were some who thought the mayor and other local leaders would receive top priority for the restoration of electricity and other services. The truth, however, was that Roberts’ neighbor had a generator. The radio caller must have seen the neighbor’s house.
“We had some candles,” the former mayor quipped.
In the midst of the great storm, during which temperatures reached a mere 11 degrees and just about all activity in the city ground to a halt, Roberts was heartened by the “can do” attitude of police, fire, the Electric Power Board, and other vital personnel.
“They were numero uno,” he says. “They went around seeing that doctors and other medical personnel got to the hospitals and that people who needed care got there, too. The police and rescue did a great job. We were at home for five days without any systems, and I think on the second day they got a four-wheel drive vehicle to me. I had that vehicle for several days. Neighbors helped one another, and there was so much snow and ice that not many people could get out. We didn’t cook, and we ate what we had for a couple of days. It seems like I remember somebody getting down Big Ridge on the second or third day and coming back with a big load of Krystals.”
The “Blizzard of ‘93” was perhaps the most trying period for local residents in recent memory. However, time after time, Chattanoogans rose to the occasion and helped one another.
While these are but a few of the prominent events in the Chattanooga area in recent decades, they are among many which collectively make up the story of our city.