Chattanooga - Jim & Karen Colyer

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Karen and I returned to Chattanooga, January 7-9, 1983, and added another dimension to our understanding of the area. We visited Lookout Mountain and its attractions, Rock City and Ruby Falls. Rock City is just that, boulders with a path winding through them. The walk climaxes at Lover's Leap with a panoramic view. It was opened to the public in 1932.

Ruby Falls was discovered by Leo Lambert and named after his wife. It is located within a cave inside the mountain a quarter of a mile beneath Point Park. An elevator lowers people to the cave. The falls originates underground and flows into the Tennessee River.

Point Park, perched at the northern tip of Lookout Mountain, is part of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. Our time at Chickamauga Battlefield causes us to associate the area with the Civil War. The battlefield is a succession of cannons and monuments. The view from Point Park is the best on the mountain.

No trip to Chattanooga would be complete without the Chattanooga Choo Choo. It is a complex of old train cars and shops as they looked over a hundred years ago. The train called came down from Cincinnati and was the first transportation system between north and south after the war.

July, 1977 - Chattanooga

I saw Ruby Falls inside Lookout Mountain. It is a stunning spectacle, a waterfall actually inside the mountain. Point Park sits atop Lookout Mountain. Chattanooga is 120 miles south of Nashville. I drove down between school years while working at Castle Heights Military Academy in Lebanon.

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