On the surface, this December 1964 photo of children lined up outside a Miniature Museum of American History in Chattanooga doesn’t seem especially newsworthy.
It published as a stand-alone photo (no article) in the Dec. 4, 1964, edition of the Chattanooga News-Free Press.
The photo appeared at the top of the main business page on a day when the lead story was an Associated Press report stating that widespread cost increases in the economy were not “inflation” but merely a reflection of growing American prosperity. Meanwhile, companies such as J.C. Penney and RCA were on the rise, another business page article reported.
The mini-museum photo reveals a lot about Chattanooga in the mid-1960s – including the fact that children from Sunnyside School would swarm a history exhibit housed in a trailer.
Also, the exhibit’s location, Eastgate Center (later known as Eastgate Mall), had become a magnet for the city’s shoppers by 1964. It was completed two years earlier and was anchored by a Miller Brothers department store, a Winn-Dixie grocery store and a Morrison’s Cafeteria.