The Tennessee town of Lookout Mountain boasts the highest average household income of any ZIP code in the state, according to new data estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Census.
Like its geography that rises nearly 1,200 feet above its urban neighbor, Lookout Mountain’s median household income towers over its urban neighbor. New census bureau estimates peg the average household income on Lookout Mountain in 2019 at $219,922 – triple the average income of households in Chattanooga.
“We have a number of heavy hitters and families with considerable resources that live here and that pushes up the average in a small town like this,” said Walker Jones, mayor of Lookout Mountain, who has served on the town council for more than a decade. “But Lookout Mountain, like all communities, has a mix of incomes and some people struggling to get by. We’re only a 12-minute drive to downtown Chattanooga, and most people drive into Chattanooga every day but love living in this special place – almost like a gated island on top of the mountain.”
Nashville has the most ZIP codes among the top 10 wealthiest areas of the state, but even its wealthiest ZIP code in Oak Hill and Forest Hills didn’t match the elevated income of those living atop Lookout Mountain. Three top 10 ZIP codes for household income in Tennessee were in Shelby County in West Tennessee.
“There is still a lot of old wealth that was made in the past and it has been passed down for generations to those still living on Lookout Mountain,” said Dean Arnold, who authored the book “Old Money, New South” about many of the wealthiest families in the area. “But as I wrote a lot about in my book, that wealth and all of the charitable foundations created by those in this area really helped to shape our community and create a lot of the riverfront development, local parks, hospital services and many other amenities we all enjoy in Chattanooga.”