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Coylee Bryan
By Jac Chambliss
In April 1911, a 6-month old boy was brought to Lookout Mountain by his young parents. I was that little boy. Later, I had three younger brothers and two younger sisters. There were only a handful of houses south of the Georgia line — none in present-day Fairyland. On the Tennessee side, houses were located near the Incline and Point Park.
We lived in a country village. Our house on East Brow Road had no electricity, no running water, no indoor plumbing or central heating. There were only dirt roads and few automobiles. People either walked or rode in wagons or buggies pulled by horses or mules, or on the Dinky, a smaller streetcar that ran only on top of the mountain. We woke in the mornings to the calling of doves, crowing of roosters, clucking of hens, factory whistles down in Chattanooga Valley and the sound of train whistles in Wauhatchie Valley.
Most families on the mountain planted gardens. We had hens and our cook would occasionally catch a chicken, wring its neck, put it in boiling water, pluck it, clean it and cook it. On the Fourth of July, we made peach ice cream in a hand-turned freezer. For turning it, you got to lick the dasher when the ice cream was ready.
My brothers and I took turns milking our two cows, Betsy and Pet. We also had two horses, Buster and Julie. I remember the smell of the barn, the horses, the hay, the cows and the green smell of the mint that grew beside the house where water from the ice melting in the icebox trickled out.
I remember the little stone church that burned in the late 1920s, and the old two-story sandstone school building where the new school is now located, about a five-minute walk from our home at 518 N. Hermitage. My favorite teacher was a dark-haired young woman named Rachel Whitaker, from Bell Buckle, who married Joe Persinger and was responsible for my going to Webb School. The Persingers built their house directly in front of ours, nearer the bluff, and the Glascocks lived south of them. The Edmund Smartts lived a few hundred yards south of us past what we called the gravel pit.
We took our lunch to school, usually a sandwich and an apple. I remember going down in the woods and climbing up a pine tree to eat my lunch. As I was eating the apple, one of my baby teeth came out. Outside the building were swings and a playground with something called a giant stride. At recess girls would jump rope, and boys would play marbles or mumblety-peg . Boys went barefooted most of the year, and a few from the Georgia side went barefooted all year. For fun, the boys would climb bluffs. The older Smartt girl fell from the bluff and was killed. This happened next to the Edmondson house. Mr. Edmondson headed a business college in Chattanooga.
A yellow Chattanooga streetcar ran from downtown up the mountain to the top of the Incline. Its track was along Watauga Lane by the store, which was run by the Massey family, who had a farm south of Fairyland School. When going down the mountain, the car would start down at what is now Stone Edge, going north, under the Incline, past Craven’s House, then after a sharp U-turn, went south, passing again under the Incline, coming down at about 45th Street in St. Elmo, near where my maternal grandparents lived, then on into town. The trip took about 45 minutes.
The Incline was a necessity, not a tourist attraction. The businessmen on the mountain rode it to the bottom and took the streetcar into town, as did most of the boys and girls who attended high school in the valley. Sometimes our father would walk down the side of the mountain and catch the streetcar.
The mountain had lots of fascinating people. Warren Parker had a horse and buggy and drove tourists, who came up the Incline, around on the mountain. Bill Pugh delivered ice, carrying 100 pounds by tongs and resting it on his shoulder to bring it into the house to put it in the icebox. The ice wagon was drawn by mules.
An Italian, Charlie DeGrado, came after World War I and worked for Mrs. Engel on her farm south of the golf club. They had a mule and wagon that Charlie would load with homegrown vegetables and fruit to sell at the upper end of the mountain. Children loved to hear him speak his broken English.
Redheaded Bill Stoner was the fire and police chief. He owned the icehouse. The police station and fire hall were next to the standpipe.
The Incline brought groceries and medical supplies up from St. Elmo — also, venturesome tourists. I remember seeing some Civil War veterans who came to visit Point Park to reminisce about “The Battle Above the Clouds.” At the top of the Incline, the Brands had a souvenir shop that sold trinkets and candies. I remember a small stick carved out of laurel wood, having a hole with a tiny ball of glass in it. When you held it to the light, it presented a view of the Incline.
As a mountaineer, you got used to changing seasons — the cold of winter, the emerging colors of spring, hot summer days, cool nights, the rustle of fall leaves, the smell of the muscadines and the raining down of hickory nuts. Year after year, you experienced the clouds, so thick you could not tell where you were. I suppose it always will be like that. Where could life be better, our “Beulah Land”?
Jac Chambliss is of counsel with Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel, a Chattanooga law firm. This article originally appeared in Volume 10, No. 2 of the Chattanooga Regional Historical Journal.
