Chattanooga set to celebrate Coolidge Park’s 25th anniversary

On any given day, people flock to Coolidge Park in Chattanooga’s North Shore district. Since it opened, the park has been a hub for outdoor recreation and celebration, and this Saturday, the city will commemorate its quarter-centennial.

Coolidge Park had its grand opening in October 1999, complete with a circus, laser show and parade. The park had been open to the public for several months prior to its inauguration, and, between then and its official opening, had hosted more than 250,000 visitors, according to Chattanooga Times Free Press archives.

Charles H. Coolidge, the World War II Medal of Honor recipient who was the park’s namesake, was in attendance at the grand opening, signing commemorative posters and taking a ride on the carousel, according to Times Free Press archives.

“It’s wonderful,” Coolidge said.

The park was named in honor of Coolidge in the 1940s, but, prior to 1999, the “site remained a park in name only,” an October 1999 Times Free Press article said. The grand opening of Coolidge Park, according to officials at the time, was “not a rededication so much as a realization of various visions of what a downtown park could be,” the article said.

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For Scott Martin, administrator of Chattanooga Parks and Outdoors, the story of Coolidge Park is one of rehabilitation, being transformed from an industrial site into “one of the most iconic public parks in the American Southeast,” he said in a phone interview.

The park “gracefully embraces” its location along the riverfront, and it’s hard to imagine a picture of Chattanooga without the view overlooking Coolidge Park facing toward the Tennessee Aquarium, Martin said. The park has become the face of Chattanooga, he said.

“In many ways, it functions for Chattanooga much in the way that Central Park in New York functions for New York,” Martin said of Coolidge Park. “It’s our city’s living room.”

Catharine Bahner Daniels, owner of Plum Nelly on Frazier Avenue and president of the North Shore Merchants Collective, remembers the time before Coolidge Park opened, the time before the North Shore’s renaissance. Daniels recalls that when she was a student at Girls Preparatory School, the North Shore was like “no man’s land,” she said in a phone interview.

To Daniels, it made “complete sense” to take an underutilized site like Coolidge Park and turn it into “one of the jewels of our community,” she said.

“That was the precursor that started all of the change in this area,” Daniels said. “It’s obviously a perfect backdrop, because I will say we on the North Shore are very community-oriented. We’re locally owned businesses, and so I feel like it’s a perfect marriage to have this beautiful park right here at our footsteps that encourages people, families … to come and spend time in our area.”

Since the moment she moved to Chattanooga a year ago, private chef Amanda James has been going to Coolidge Park, she said in an interview at the park. Her favorite memories from being in the park have been of her picnics with friends, she said.

“I think it’s a wonderful place for this community,” James said of the park. “I tell people all the time to come and visit here. I think it’s beautiful, and I can’t believe it’s 25 years old.”

(READ MORE: Chattanooga celebrates 20th anniversary of national archaeological district at Moccasin Bend)

Elaine Hall of Gadsden, Alabama, comes to Chattanooga once a month to get her hair done. On Thursday, her husband, Rudy Hall, accompanied her to her monthly appointment, and together they sat on a bench drenched in sunlight at Coolidge Park, the river, the bluff and Maclellan Island set before them. There isn’t a park like Coolidge in Gadsden, the couple said in an interview, but they’d like to see one.

Debbie Roth and her daughter, Brandy Thompson, both of Indianapolis, Indiana, met Thompson’s sister, Amber Whitson of Niceville, Florida, halfway in Chattanooga. None of the women had visited the city before, but out of all the things to do and places to go, Coolidge Park was their favorite, they said in an interview at the park. When asked about the park’s anniversary, Whitson said it is “going to have 25 years more of good times.”

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Sitting on a stone perch by the river, teacher and author Ewan Whaley said in an interview that he comes to Coolidge Park because it fuels his creativity. During his childhood, Whaley’s mother would bring him and his sister to the park because it was a free space to play and enjoy nature, he said.

“I think public parks are really important, especially for those people that can’t afford to do a bunch of crazy stuff all the time,” Whaley said.

At 23 years old, Whaley has never known a Chattanooga without Coolidge Park. For him, the park is a staple of the city, a staple where he said he always takes people, like non-Chattanoogan college friends, because it is a beautiful place.

The next 25 years of Coolidge Park will be, “hopefully a lot like the first 25,” Martin, the city’s parks administrator, said, because “the best parks in our nation never go out of style.”

Contact Sam Still at sstill@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6579.