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Chattanooga: Park City School produced its share of successful Chattanooga citizens

By: Clint Cooper
(Contact)

Included in this article

Emanuel Thompson

When the breeze was just right, Chattanoogan Emanuel Thompson remembers, the odor of the pigs and chickens next door would waft into the open windows of Park City School.

Just a couple of blocks off Rossville Boulevard, the all-black school was in the city but had a definite rural flavor.

Park City was a gray, one-story structure that was built in the neighborhood of the same name in 1929 or 1930. It closed after the 1953-1954 school year and was torn down soon after, former students remembered.

Today, a paint-worn playground is on the site.

“It was a nice time, a good time,” said Mr. Thompson, 70, who attended the school from 1945 through 1951.

The school had five large rooms, one of which could be divided into two rooms, he said. When he attended, the school had 75 to 80 students, he said. The principal always taught one grade, and at least two grade were combined.

A white Bible teacher came every other week or so, Mr. Thompson said.

Thomas Jordan, 66, who attended the school from 1948 to 1954 and today lives next door to the school site, said by the time he left the first and second grades, the third and fourth grades and the fifth and sixth grades were combined in three rooms.

Betty Jean Lloyd, 73, attended the school, went on to a long career as a teacher in the Chattanooga City Schools and still lives in the neighborhood.

“We had good teachers,” she said. “The background for my training came mostly from that school.”

The basic subjects of reading, writing, math and geography were taught, Ms. Lloyd said.

“We didn’t have the discipline problems like we do today,” she said. “We were all into a good environment for learning. Even the slow kids were helped by those who were advanced.”

Former students said bathrooms were in a tiny building outside of the school, the boys on one side and the girls on another. A cafeteria was an on-again, off-again proposition. Heat for the school was generated by wood- and coal-fed potbellied stoves.

Recess, where softball, horseshoes and running races were among the activities, was spent on the school’s front yard and across Cannon Avenue in a deep, vacant lot.

“We used it as a playground,” said Mr. Thompson, who was among the school’s patrol officers who took turns holding back traffic while students crossed the street.

Neighborhood parents looked out for their children and those with whom their children associated.

“Everybody knew each other,” Ms. Lloyd said.

Every May 1, the school held a day of outdoor activities, with students from other segregated black schools such as Fort Cheatham and Calvin Donaldson coming to join them.

Ms. Lloyd said the school turned out at least 20 teachers, including several who earned doctorates, and at least one medical doctor. Present Chattanooga City Councilman Leamon Pierce also attended Park City.

“There were some very successful adults who attended our elementary school,” she said.

One of Mr. Thompson’s most lasting memories of the school is meeting the friends with whom he “established a little singing group,” the Roosters, after they left Park City.

He later went into the military, but three of the four friends, Sam Gooden, Arthur Brooks and Richard Brooks, went to Chicago, where they eventually merged their group with Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield, of a group called the Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers, to become the Impressions.

The Impressions, which today include original Roosters members Sam Gooden and Fred Cash, and Reginald E. Torian, went on to record a string of hits and were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

REMEMBER THESE?

In future Generations stories, the Times Free Press will recall Central, Clara Carpenter, East Fifth Street, Hemlock, Oak Grove, Pineville and Joseph E. Smith schools, all of which closed in the 1960s, 1970s or early 1970s. Former students who are willing to share their memories of these schools should call Clint Cooper at 757-6497 or e-mail ccooper@timesfreepress.com.

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