The story of Chattanooga’s environmental renaissance has become a point of pride for the city as that transformation has unfolded over the past half century.
Like the Incline Railway, the Choo Choo, the aquarium, the mountains, the river and the bridges, the story of Chattanooga’s journey from a city suffocating from pollution to an outdoor paradise to the Western Hemisphere’s first National Park City has become part of this community’s fabric.
And it all began, we’ve been taught, with a verdict rendered by legendary news anchor Walter Cronkite on his nightly CBS news broadcast in October 1969, when he pronounced Chattanooga “the dirtiest city in America.”
Or did he?
While trying to prove a negative creates a quandary, evidence uncovered by Chattanooga Times Free Press reporting points to the Cronkite quote as being a myth, an urban legend that has dug itself a home in the city’s collective memory. Consider: