Chattanooga, TN

September 22^nd, 2015
Tuesday
Miles Traveled 0
Total Miles Traveled 449
Day 13

We spent the day touring Chattanooga, starting off with the free electric trolley system that the city provides.  Our first stop was the Chattanooga Choo Choo, Chattanooga was a important part of rail travel in the United States from the mid-1800’s when the Western-Atlantic railway was the first to arrive.   Others lines soon followed. Eventually, virtually all trains going to the south passed through Chattanooga.  In 1880, the first non-stop service to Chattanooga was made from Cincinnati, by a steam locomotive of the Cincinnati Southern Railway. It was dubbed in a newspaper article as the “Chattanooga Choo Choo.”  I see the chief engineer has a familiar face.

We caught the trolley to connect with a city bus to take us the Incline Railway.  The Incline is a technical marvel that at its extreme reaches an incline of 72.7%, making it one of the steepest passenger railways in the world. The original coal-burning steam engines were replaced by two 100-horsepower motors in 1911, but other than that the railway hasn’t changed very much in its more than 100 years of operation.

This is the view from Look Out Mountain of Moccasin Bend on the Tennessee River.  The portion of the river on the right is the place I took the picture on Monday's blog when we arrived at Chattanooga with interstate 24.

 

On November 24, 1863 the Civil War Battle of Lookout Mountain was fought on the slopes of the mountain. The majority of hand to hand combat took place near Cravens' house about halfway to the summit. Lookout Mountain’s shape and location can in some conditions cause a unique weather phenomenon in the area: after dawn, fog will sometimes descend from the cooler mountaintop and stop about halfway down. Such an event which took place the day of the battle and is the reason for its romanticized name, the "Battle above the Clouds." The battle was won by Union forces, enabling them to lift the Confederate siege of Chattanooga. 

 

 

We attended a very informative three-dimensional electronic battle map presentation of Chattanooga's Civil War history featuring 5,000 miniature soldiers, 650 lights, sound effects and exceptional details of the major battles which were fought in November of 1863.

This rock climbing wall is constructed on the outside of a parking garage, pretty cool.