Read more Chattanooga History Columns
- Gaston: Paul John Kruesi was Edison's right-hand man
- Robbins: The old Richardson's house and the Civil War
- Gaston: James Williams was a man of the world
- Raney: Mason Evans, the 'Wild Man of the Chilhowee'
- Gaston: The legacy of Adolph Ochs endures
- Martin: Ed Johnson said, 'I have a changed heart,' the day before his lynching in Chattanooga on 1906
- Thomas: The inventiveness of Judge Michael M. Allison
- Moore: Chattanooga's first Chinese community
- Summers, Robbins: Chattanooga's Tuskegee Airman - Joseph C. White
- McCallie: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 says so!
- Gaston: John McCline's Civil War - from slave to D.C. parade
- Raney: Exploring Chattanooga businesses in the Green Book
- Elliott: Remembering the Freedmen's Bureau in Chattanooga
- Gaston: Nancy Ward was a beloved, respected Tennessean
- Martin: Prohibition - the noble experiment
- Elliott: 'A shameful, disgraceful deed': The destruction of the Sewanee cornerstone
- Gaston: Robert Cravens was ironmaster, Chattanooga area's first commuter
- Robbins: Dr. T.H. McCallie's Christmas 1863
- Robbins: Journalist writes of a trip to Missionary Ridge in 1896
- Summers, Robbins: Mine 21 disaster - gone but not forgotten
- Elliott: Collegedale incorporates to avoid Sunday 'blue laws'
- Gaston: 'Marse Henry' Watterson's journalism fame began in Chattanooga
- Robbins: Orchard Knob battle recalled in 1895
- Elliott: Chattanoogans joined in an 'orgy of joy and gladness' on Armistice Day, 1918
- Thomas: Noted service, speakers are marks of Rotary Club of Chattanooga since 1914
- Summers and Robbins: Remembering noted Tennessee author North Callahan
- Raney: 'I auto cry, I auto laugh, I auto sign my autograph'
- Gaston: Sequoyah's alphabet enriched Cherokees
- Robbins: A look at Sam Divine's life during the Civil War
- Robbins: Memories of a Confederate nurse
- Robbins: More notes from Bradford Torrey's 1895 visit to Chickamauga Battlefield
- Robbins: Journalist in 1895 details visit to Chickamauga Battlefield
- Elliott: Telephone exchange firebombing was distraction for grocery store robbery
- Gaston: Worcester brought Christ's message to Cherokee at Brainerd Mission
- Robbins: 1896 travel diary: 'A Week on Walden's Ridge'
- Gaston: Elizabeth Strayhorn, WAC Commandant at Fort Oglethorpe
- Robbins: The history of the Friends of Moccasin Bend National Park
- Moore: Do you own a Sears Roebuck home?
- Summers and Robbins: Camp Nathan Bedford Forrest in World War II
- Gaston: Hiram Sanborn Chamberlain remembered
- Elliott: Daisy the center of tile, ceramic manufacturing in Hamilton County
- Gaston: FDR inaugurates the Chickamauga Dam
- Summers, Robbins: Interned WWII Germans had it easy at Camp Crossville
- Elliott: A war correspondent on Lookout Mountain
- Gaston: Chickamaugas finally bury hatchet in Tennessee Valley
- Gaston: Chickamaugas in Chattanooga
- Robbins: The history of the Riverbend festival
- Raney: Sadie Watson, the first woman elected in Hamilton County government
- Moore: Remembering Chattanooga's Hawkinsville community
- Elliott: Welsh coal miners transformed Soddy after the Civil War
- Gaston: Chattanooga's best-kept secret
- Elliott: Cabell Breckinridge loses his horse
- Raney: Martin Fleming is the people's judge
- Gaston: The amazing career of Francis Lynde
- Martin: Hamilton County's Name Sake: Alexander Hamilton
- Summers, Robbins: The crosses at Sewanee
- Bledsoe: The fiery truce at Kennesaw Mountain
- Moore: Talented architect's life cut short by tragedy
- Rydell: Chattanooga's place in soccer history
- Robbins: Tennessee Coal, member of the First Dow Jones Industrial Average
- Raney: In the barber chair
- Lanier: Becoming the Boyce Station Neighborhood Association
- McCallie: John P. Franklin: Living history among us
- Barr: Chattanooga's first railroad: The Underground Railroad
- Summers, Robbins: Charles Bartlett was a Pulitzer Prize winner, Kennedy confidant
- Rainey: 'We have seen it'
- Elliott: Feinting and fighting at Running Water Creek and Johnson's Crook
- Gaston: The Spring Frog Cabin at Audubon Acres
- Raney: Wauhatchie Pike was moonshine motorway
- Robbins: Oakmont was home of venerable Williams clan
- Summers and Robbins: Rebirth of the Mountain Goat Line
- Elliott: Bad investments led to Soddy Bank failure in 1930
- Summers and Robbins: Pearl Harbor attack left football behind
- Gaston: Jolly’s Island namesake had long ties with Sam Houston
- Return Jonathan Meigs, Indian Agent
- Moore: Did you know about St. Elmo's other two cemeteries?
- Summers: Orme - Marion County's almost lost community
- Davis: Spooky revival at Sharp Mountain in 1873
- Robbins: The story of Longholm
- Raney: Women labored to help the U.S. win World War I
- Even in the city, the 'wheel' changed everything
- Murray: Confederate dilemma after Chickamauga
- J.B. Collins — Newsman extraordinaire
- Robbins: The Story of the Lyndhurst Mansion
- Chattanooga artist and wife lost on the Lusitania
- Chattanooga History Column: Battelle, Alabama and the Battelle Institute
- John Ross, a founder of Chattanooga
- Hamilton County casualties in World War I
- Chattanooga Power Couple
- 'Somewhere in France'
- The Ray Moss family
- Battery B from Chattanooga
- Ulysses S. Grant, Clark B. Lagow, and the Chattanooga Bender
- Songbirds Museum Timeline
- Hamilton County World War 1 roster
- The Soddy Girl and the Memphis Belle
- Blues icon Bessie Smith was the Empress of Soul
- Women's Army Corps at Chickamauga
- Emma Bell Miles' life at the top of the 'W'
- The Tivoli Wurlitzer is one of Chattanooga's priceless assets
- Chattanooga in struggle for freedom during Civil War
- October 1918, Chattanooga paralyzed by Spanish flu epidemic
- Eli Lilly and the Ditch of Death
- One hundred years ago, Chattanooga goes to war
- The legacy of Anna Safley Houston
- Harriet Whiteside was ahead of her time
- Southern Adventist University
- Chattanooga native's writings aided Civil Rights movement
- Zion College, Chattanooga's only African American College
- The North Shore's hidden past
- Mayme Martin -- Businesswoman and community leader
- Thomas Sim's epic struggle for freedom
- Top of Cameron Hill was price of rerouting interstate
- Cameron Hill has rich history
- Temperance movement included Harriman university
- The sweetest music this side of Heaven
- Conquistadors at Chattanooga
- Chattanooga and the 'General'
- Chattanooga's first Thanksgiving, 1863
- Chattanooga's greatest flood caught city unaware
- Opening the Cracker Line
- European trip in 1900 enlightens Sophia Scholze Long
- Sophia Scholze Long spoke out when others were silent
- Little South Pittsburg and its big silent movie stars
- Lot attendant recalls hottest job in Chattanooga
- Chattanooga's Forest Hills is final resting place for known, unknown
- Burritt College -- Pioneer of the Cumberlands
- Chattanooga's nicknames trace city's evolution
- The 25th annual meeting of the Tennessee Press Association
- Clemons Brothers Furniture Store
- The Short Life of the USS Chattanooga
- Ellen Jarnagin McCallie lived a truly remarkable life
- Dr. Jonathan Bachman was a revered city father
- Second guessing the Confederate failure on Missionary Ridge
- Nancy Kefauver, ambassador for the arts
- William Gibbs McAdoo kept his Southern roots
- Chattanooga's Secretary of the Treasury
- Howard Baker remembered as a statesman/photographer who snapped history
- Tivoli's last picture show
- The history of one of Chattanooga's oldest businesses
- Chattanooga's roller derby skaters
- Myths of Coca-Cola in Chattanooga
- Chattanooga's neighborhood grocery stores
- The tale of the Scottsboro Boys
- The people's history of Chattanooga
- Howard School is Chattanooga's reminder of Reconstruction
- Elevator operator, painter, mystery man: meet Rice Carothers
- Raulston Schoolfield made enemies amid his rise to power
- Website lets users peer into Chattanooga's past
- The flood of 1917
- Chattanooga's 'wickedest woman' buried at Forest Hills
- History of Cummings Highway
On June 4, 1895, the Tennessee Press Association executive committee chose Chattanooga for its 25th annual meeting. The Stanton House served as the host hotel for the convention. Built in 1871, the Stanton House was constructed on the site of today's Chattanooga Choo Choo and was a key part of the town's railroad heritage.
The hotel rates for the convention were $1.50 per day for both the Stanton House and the Rossmore House. Read House rooms were priced at $2 and $2.50 per day.
Tom Griscom
A Journal of the Proceedings, a bound, purple-covered journal, preserves the "Prelude, Interludes and Appendix" of the three-day session.
George W. Ochs, mayor of Chattanooga, welcomed the attendees "not as the chief executive of the city but as a fellow craftsman there is more in this vicinity to make you plume your pens and inspire you with grand ideas than you will find anywhere else in the state."
Attendees were reminded often to pick up and wear their convention badges. The credentials assured: access to transportation on all lines of electric cars, the Lookout Mountain broad gauge, as well as the Incline and narrow gauge rail tracks; social messages over the Western Union and Postal Telegraph lines; and a hearty welcome anywhere and everywhere between Missionary Ridge and Timesville (today's Timesville Road in Walden). Women were informed that they did not need badges since "beauty is always at a parity with grace in Chattanooga, and both command a premium."
Orator R.M. Fields read the address of TPA President H.A. Hasslock, who missed the session due to an illness in his family.
In his remarks, Hasslock termed the city as "one of the liveliest, hustlingest, little-big cities of our state - Chattanooga - which a few years ago was well known as Ross' Landing, but to the younger members it is Chattanooga. This fair and thriving city is an example of what our State should be, from Memphis to Bristol, full of vim, vigor and victory; built up and kept up by the young men of today, assisted by some good advice of the young men of yesterday, who are still a factor in the State's prosperity."
"How was the transformation from Ross' Landing to Chattanooga accomplished? How was the keel boat of yesterday transformed into the Warner of today? By the efforts of people who have been Tennesseans for a life time, coupled with the work of the carpet-bagger from Pennsylvania, from Ohio, from Maine, from Georgia, from Alabama and dozens of states of our Union less favored than Tennessee. Once a Chattanoogan always a Chattanoogan."
When not in session, editors accompanied by wives and friends took advantage of the courtesies extended by the Electric Railway Co. and spent an afternoon at Bragg's headquarters on Missionary Ridge. Before the ride, the writer of the proceedings stated: "a party walked to the Ridgedale Springs (at the eastern base of Missionary Ridge) and partook of the 'nectar which Jupiter sips,' icy, pure spring water."
Later in the day, an informal reception hosted at the top of the Times Building (today's Dome Building) was interrupted by "the weather gods who vented their wrath." The first storm of the summer season "marred the fairy landscape on top of the Times building."
But the casual interactions among the convention goers was not to be halted by the rain, and the editorial rooms in the building "were invaded by the appreciative visitors." In the library "a band discoursed music, while dancing was indulged. Five hundred lights illuminated the handsome building from cellar to dome. It was a gala night at the Times office for the employees, and an interesting, instructive and enjoyable feature of the entertainment of the Tennessee Press Association at Chattanooga."
The third morning session, held in the Chamber of Commerce building, was adjourned at 10 a.m. on June 6, 1895. Their next stop was at Cumberland Island, Ga., for rest and relaxation. One has to wonder whether it was the interruption by wet weather, long days of meetings filled with lengthy remarks or the desire to cast aside the required credentials that led the group to take a road trip to the coast of Georgia.
For 147 years the Tennessee Press Association has provided a unified voice for the newspaper industry in the state. Today the association's website states that it assists 121 member newspapers with a number of services, including the exchange of information and ideas.
Tom Griscom is a former editor and publisher of the Chattanooga Times Free Press. For more, visit Chattahistoricalassoc.org.