n 1937, the Tennessee legislature created the State Parks system with the idea that everyone needed places to get away from cities and experience nature. Now, 75 years later, people are using the parks – including the system’s first park 25 minutes from Chattanooga – for just that.
A year after the parks system was created, the fledgling agency leased land from TVA near the town of Harrison. Documents from the time describe what was then Harrison Islands State Park’s “exceptional bays and inlets” and closeness to Chattanooga as reasons for its creation. Though it’s changed names to Harrison Bay, those features are still what attract campers to the park.
“This is pretty much our home park and it’s important to us,” says Cleveland resident Angie Underwood, who spent 30 nights with her kids at Harrison Bay in 2010. “If we even mention camping that’s where they think of.”
Underwood, a member of the Friends of Harrison Bay State Park group, says when she camps there, the family enjoys the park’s three trails (4.5 mi., 1 mi. and 0.5 mi.), volleyball court, interpretive programs and picnic areas.
The park also offers a marina and golf course, but many people like Underwood find one of its daily natural features to be the most alluring.