Chattanoogans’ expansive vision in 1982 for a 22-mile Tennessee Riverpark was never meant to be easy, nor quickly achieved. Like the Tennessee River itself, the building of this unique linear park was always destined to mark the flow of time across obstacles. It was bound to encounter difficult currents and restraining eddies — gaps in financing, in access to sections of shoreline and right-of-way easements, and in slack periods of commitment and leadership.
But the publicly supported vision of the Riverpark, more commonly known now as the Riverwalk, has not only remained intact since the master plan was completed in 1985; it has thrived through all seasons since the first section, the Fishing Park near Chickamauga Dam, opened in 1989.
Indeed, the Riverpark’s public popularity and persistent patronage has measurably increased as each new section, park and plaza has opened. Its diverse and steady throngs of walkers and bicyclists, skaters and fishermen, picnickers and the sauntering souls who simply seek the solace of being outdoors by flowing waters, have anchored the community together to the Riverpark like nothing else in this city’s history.
Now, perhaps the toughest section to build lies ahead: construction of a three-mile segment from the Riverwalk’s current terminus at Ross’ Landing to South Board Street’s nexus with St. Elmo. Yet the factors that make it both difficult and expensive to build may also make it one of the most intriguing and useful sections of the Riverpark in terms of the city’s history — most recently as a once-solid industrial town, before then as the site of punishing Civil War battles, and, ages before all that, as a Native American stronghold.
The trail through these interesting eras lies in the plan’s pathway around and through the grounds of the some of the city’s most significant industrial sites, both active and defunct, and its constant surrounding views over the river of Lookout Mountain and Moccasin Bend. Both were focal points in major Civil War battles; the Bend is also the site of two fortified Native American towns and dozens of archaeological sites spanning 14,000 years of human habitation.