A 7.6-acre site along Lookout Creek at the foot of Lookout Mountain where Union troops once confronted Confederate pickets will now be protected land.
The city of Chattanooga was one of three recipients last week of a pass-through Battlefield Land Acquisition Grant from the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program. The land, for which the city will get $353,522.19 to help protect (and which required matching money from other groups), is part of the Lookout Mountain Battlefield and adjoins the Reflection Riding Arboretum and Nature Center.
In late 2021, a grant to the city of nearly $2 million through the same organization and the American Battlefield Trust was made to preserve Reflection Riding’s 301.64 acres, though Reflection Riding retains the property.
Similar to Reflection Riding’s focus following its protection with the help of the American Battlefield Protection Program, the 7.6 acres will not only be preserved as a battlefield site but also for its general conservation value and specifically for its water quality and floodway component along Lookout Creek, according to Jim Ogden, chief historian at the Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park.
James Modick, lead grant management specialist for the American Battlefield Protection Program, said funding is given for land within a battlefield study area as outlined in a 1993 report by the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission but outside of any current holdings of the National Park Service (NPS), and allows state and local government entities to join with the NPS to protect land.