Cooper: It's Your Turn To Have A Say On Future Of Moccasin Bend

National Park Service property on Hamm Road will be the location of an input event meeting on Tuesday for the Moccasin Bend National Archeological District.
National Park Service property on Hamm Road will be the location of an input event meeting on Tuesday for the Moccasin Bend National Archeological District.

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Sohn: Fire the gun range, not the park

GET INVOLVED

To offer your input: * Tuesday, Oct. 20: Gateway site, 175 Hamm Road; open, 3-6 p.m.; presentations, 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. * Thursday, Oct. 22: Outdoor Chattanooga, 200 River St.; open house, 4-7 p.m.; presentations, 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. * Visit: http://parkplanning.nps.gov/chch * Write: Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, P.O. Box 2128, Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. 30742.

Standing on National Park Service property off Hamm Road and gazing south to Moccasin Bend and then up to Lookout Mountain, it's almost impossible not to feel the presence of history.

The narrow view sweeps in the Tennessee River as it curves out to form the toe of the moccasin that gives the stretch of land its name. Stringers Ridge, wooden and green, dominates the landscape as it creeps out to its end near the bend. Birds and butterflies fly by, separated by the river from the industry, roads and buildings of downtown Chattanooga.

Union soldiers were here more than 150 years ago, building earthworks in the ridge, to fire up at the Confederates holding Lookout Mountain. And for many, many centuries before that, American Indians lived simple lives on the peninsula, and many of their remains lie hidden under the sun-drenched soil.

On Tuesday, Chattanooga area residents will be able to have a say on how the 769 acres of National Park Service property on Moccasin Bend will be used for the next 20 years. Under a tent set up in the 10-acre Hamm Road field, also known as the gateway site, they'll be able to examine different alternatives - required for National Park Service plans - for the Moccasin Bend National Archeological District.

Would they prefer a visitors center on the property? Or would they like an off-site center with only interpretive signs on the property explaining what's important? Should the paved trails tying the park to the Tennessee Riverwalk be limited or is it preferable they go all the way around the bend? Is a permanent dock for motorized boat access desired? How about bicycle trails?

Brad Bennett, superintendent of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, said what will happen won't strictly be a voting process, as in the plan with the most votes wins.

The result from the public, from agencies and organizations, from the 21 American Indian tribes who lived in the area and from recent reports, he said, is likely to be "a hybrid of the best parts of each plan."

In just a year and a half, National Park Service officials will begin to implement the final development and management plan. A quarter of a million dollars already has been raised for that work, and officials hope that amount will have doubled by the time work starts.

Last week, as Bennett and Friends of Moccasin Bend National Park Executive Director Michael Wurzel met at the Hamm Road property to iron out details for Tuesday's public input event, volleys of gunfire repeatedly rang out from the nearby law enforcement firing range.

The removal of the range is the last major piece of the puzzle that stands in between the National Park Service controlling land down to the river (minus an easement) for almost the entire toe of the moccasin-shaped bend. The land was promised to the park more than a decade ago, but the firing range remains.

And while a committee was formed late last month to develop a long-term plan to relocate the firing range, it has not met yet.

So plans from Tuesday's public event and Thursday's similar meeting at Outdoor Chattanooga will be formulated with the knowledge that the firing range land is not likely to be a part of National Park Service property when work begins in 2017.

"We should begin to think about [Moccasin Bend] as a park instead of a hospital (Moccasin Bend Mental Health Institute), a golf course (Moccasin Bend Golf Course)," said Wurzel, "and as the next big thing."

Indeed, if figures are accurate, it could be the next big thing.

The park has the potential to draw 250,000 people to the region annually, Wurzel said, and have an economic impact of $20 million. The National Park Service's Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park is already the area's top draw, he said, but the Moccasin Bend National Archeological District presently pulls in only 1 percent of those visitors.

"It could be a massive boon to the downtown economy," he said.

Chattanoogans, at the two meetings this week as well as through email and traditional mail, have the opportunity to help determine the scope of this new park. Were there such a process when the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park was created, it would have come after the authorization for the establishment of the park in 1890. Imagine being part of that process 125 years ago. Now, consider having your say on something that still will be vital to the region 125 years from now.

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