RIVERWALK TIMELINE
1982 Chattanooga and Hamilton County officials appoint members to the Moccasin Bend Task Force to help chart a course to revitalize and develop Moccasin Bend and local economy.1984 The task force releases the first draft of a plan calling for a 22-mile riverwalk from the Chickamauga Dam to Moccasin Bend. The blueprint also calls for an aquarium downtown and hotels and housing lining the shorelines.1986 The RiverCity Co. is chartered to help guide the effort. For the next three years, most RiverCity activities are devoted to planning and land acquisition.1987 Groundbreaking is held for the Tennessee Riverpark at what will later become the Hubert Fry Fishing Center.1989 The first phase of the Tennessee Riverpark near the C.B. Robinson Bridge is completed. This segment includes the 55-acre fishing park and more than three miles of riverfront and inland trails. It has five 50-foot fishing piers, picnic and trail shelters, a children’s playground, restaurant with bait and tackle shop, public boat ramp and boat/trailer parking and several public sculptures. In ensuing years, five additional parking areas are added to accommodate users.1991 The Tennessee Valley Authority extends the riverwalk to the base of the Chickamauga Dam. The segment includes a large picnic pavilion, scattered picnic tables and trail shelters, a handicapped-accessible fishing pier near the dam and a boat launch and boat/trailer parking.1992 Ross’s Landing Plaza opens simultaneously with the Tennessee Aquarium. The urban park celebrates community history and challenges users to get wet along a manmade stream and waterwall.1993 The historic Walnut Street Bridge is restored for public use as a linear pedestrian park. It spurs revitalization of the North Shore commercial district along Frazier Avenue.1993-95 Additional Riverwalk segments tie together Ross’s Landing and the Bluff View Art District.1996 The new Chattanooga Rowing Center and connecting Riverwalk segment are completed.1997-98 Contracts are approved to extend the Riverwalk from the Bluff View Art District eastward to connect to the Rowing Center.1999 The 8-acre Coolidge Park and the North Shore Riverwalk are completed.2005 Both the Waterfront and the remaining five-mile connector piece of the Riverwalk are completed. The millennium walk ties together the walk, running from Hubert Fry Fishing Center’s boat launch to the Rowing Center. The 21st Century Waterfront connects the Hunter Museum of American Art to the Riverwalk.2016 – The South Chickamauga Greenway is connected with a bridge, and the St. Elmo extension is completed to Whiteside Avenue.
It’s hard to believe now, but the Tennessee Riverwalk from one end to the other used to be mile-upon-mile of vacant warehouses and supply yards – trash heaps along a blighted river that served as our collective back door and flushing system.
Today, more than 20 miles of the Riverwalk have shifted the city’s focus, giving Chattanooga both a new front door and a new sense of pride and future.
The remake – done with public and private commitment totaling about $123.5 million over 34 years – has turned blight into a series of greenways, walkways, parks and pedestrian bridges that invite nature lovers, bird-watchers, walkers, runners and bikers on scenic, open-air journeys that flow from marshes to urban park garden getaways to deep woods solitude and river’s edge peace to industrial history lessons and new residential areas.
Chattanooga’s river, streams and mountains were the raw materials, but the furnishings have been man-made. And the finished product is – without question – a masterpiece unveiled a segment at a time over three decades.