Jessica Penot - Haunted Chattanooga

Published by Haunted America

A Division of The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2011 by Jessica Penot and Amy Petulla

All rights reserved

All images are courtesy of the authors, taken for their respective chapters.

First published 2011

e-book edition 2013

Manufactured in the United States

ISBN 978.1.62584.153.7

Penot, Jessica.

Haunted Chattanooga / Jessica Penot and Amy Petulla.

p. cm.

print edition ISBN 978-1-60949-255-7

1. Haunted places--Tennessee--Chattanooga. 2. Ghosts--Tennessee--Chattanooga. I. Petulla, Amy. II. Title.

BF1472.U6P46 2011

133.10976882--dc23

2011022619

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the authors or The History Press. The authors and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are so many people who helped make this book possible, and we would like to thank everyone who helped it grow from the seed of an idea to a full-fledged manuscript. If it were not for all of these folks, this volume would never have been born.

First and foremost, we would like to thank everyone who shared their ghost stories with us, both those who did this in confidence and those who allowed us to use their names. At some time in our lives, everyone has heard that creak in the closet, strained to listen for the footstep down the hall, seen images dancing in the dark, sensed a presence that could not quite be seen or felt the gentle touch of a sudden cool breeze and experienced an icy caress of fear. Most of us claim to have put those things aside upon reaching adulthood, but this book owes a great debt to those who instead embraced the shivery pleasure of those moments and shared them with others. Ghost stories and legends would not exist were it not for those who are unafraid to acknowledge that they have experienced something not currently recognized by science. We would particularly like to thank the teams from PROSE, TPIT and Southern Ghosts, as well as the staffs of South Pittsburgh Hospital and Raccoon Mountain Caverns.

We would also like to thank our families, who have patiently waited as the vacuum was ignored in favor of the computer and who have accompanied us on countless research and ghost hunting trips. We promise to return to the land of the living now.

Likewise, we thank all of those who haunt the nations libraries, whether as helpful staff, eager patrons or generous donors, for if it were not for these folks, the imagination that has made this country great would be a mere ghost of the soaring, vibrant, ever-changing entity that fuels brilliant minds. While libraries need to adapt to the times and modern technology, those who are proposing the closure of local libraries in the name of economic cutbacks are woefully shortsighted, and we hope our readers will let their voices be heard on this issue.

Finally, we would like to thank our commissioning editor, Will McKay, and our project editor, Ryan Finn, without whose encouragement and helpful feedback this book would never have been written. Following are a few short individual acknowledgements.

Amy: I would like to thank all of our guests at Chattanooga Ghost Tours, Inc, who have shared their stories and photos, as well as validated, with their shivers and shrieks and wonderful feedback, my dream of opening a ghost tour here. Also, thank you to the staff of the Chattanooga Hamilton County Bicentennial Library downtown, as well as Dr. Daryl Black of the Chattanooga History Center, for their endless patience and help as I researched both the tour and book. I would especially like to thank my coauthor, Jessica, who eased my fears and whose invaluable experience and advice made this process so smooth. Thank you, too, for writing the stories about places also included on the tour, to provide a different perspective. I could not have asked for a better partner in this matter! Finally, thank you to Melody, Chris and Angela for going with me on many, many ghost tours all over and enjoying them as much as I did, and to Dan, for your patience during it all.

Jessica: Thank you to my husband, Alex Penot, who has traveled with me to explore many haunted sites and supported me through this entire process. Also, thank you to my coauthor, Amy, for sharing her firsthand knowledge of Chattanoogas ghosts.

INTRODUCTION

Chattanooga is blessed with an abundance of natural beauty and a wealth of resources, both native and man-made. From the Appalachian Mountains to the Tennessee River, from the many caverns and lakes to downtowns profusion of attractions, the city has a wealth of possibilities. But when it comes to ghosts, Chattanooga truly has an embarrassment of riches. The difficulty is not in coming up with stories to include, but rather in deciding which ones to leave out. So many occult myths weave in and out of the River Citys dazzling historical tapestry that they could not all be set out in one book. We have therefore included a mixture of the best-known and most interesting tales, though some favoritessuch as the Chattanooga Theatre Centre and the Headless Dog of Douglas Streetwill have to wait for another day.

Many factors contribute to Chattanoogas supernatural cornucopia. The Civil War played a large factor in the citys history. Few areas of the city do not have some claim to a relationship with a battle or individual of the War Between the States. In fact, the Battle of Chickamauga was the second-bloodiest battle of the entire war. As one would expect, many soldiers continue to haunt the areas battlegrounds. Nor is the Civil War the only conflict that has a special connection to this section of the country. The last battle of the American Revolution, in fact, was fought on very haunted Lookout Mountainabout a year after that war officially ended. Battles are far from the only source of the citys specters, however. The city was occupied by Native Americans from prehistoric times until various inequitable treaties, from the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals opposed by Dragging Canoe to the Treaty of New Echota, until the eventual Trail of Tears removal of the Cherokee, during which four thousand to six thousand men, women and children died. In addition, as with any city, Chattanooga has had its share of murder, mayhem and misery, all of which can thin the curtain between this world and the next.

Geologic factors also contribute to the hauntings. Many paranormal investigators say that certain minerals are associated with supernatural activity. In particular, limestone (which liberally riddles Chattanooga) is thought to be capable of generating a residual haunting, because it can store information through its ability to conduct and enhance electromagnetic energyin particular, intense emotional energy generated by traumatic events. Thus, those types of hauntings are in the nature of a recording or memory, replaying itself exactly with no apparent awareness of the living, rather than an intelligent entity capable of interacting. Certainly, some of Chattanoogas spirits fall into this category, such as the Memorial Cemetery Archs Black Aggie or the distraught mother at the Choo Choo. However, the actions attributed to many of the phantoms here show a clear and sometimes alarming intelligence.