BGuthrie Photos: TN -- Chattanooga -- Riverwalk

TN -- Chattanooga -- Riverwalk:

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[37] CHATRW_110914_181.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?) $From Oblivion to Rebirth: Archaeological Research at the Bluff Furnace Site: Bluff Furnace emerged from obscurity in the late 1970s when portions of the massive stone walls of the casting shed were exposed by erosion. Recognized as the birthplace of Chattanooga's iron industry, the site was preserved as an historic site and investigated by archaeologists. As use of the Walnut Street Bridge ended, potential alignments for a new bridge were located. In a 1977 archaeological survey of one proposed bridge location, Dr. Jeffrey L. Brown from the Institute of Archaeology, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, observed massive limestone walls exposed in a gully at the foot of the limestone bluff. Brown identified the walls as being from a the casting shed of the Bluff Furnace. Despite the deliberate destruction by Union troops in the Civil War and decades of neglect that buried the site under dirt and debris, some remains of the historic furnace remained. Though initial test pits at the site were small, they were productive, and hinted that much of the site remained intact. More intensive archaeological investigation of the site was finally carried out in 1981, resulting in a wealth of data about the construction and operation of the plant. Additional excavations in 1983 and 1991 added new details to the story of Bluff Furnace, though parts of the furnace site still remain unexcavated. Archaeological testing revealed that the casting shed, the large room in which pig iron ingots were cast in floor molds, was 50 by 60 feet in size. The structural foundations of the later coke-fired cupola stack were hexagonal in shape, and surrounded the base of the blast furnace hearth still containing iron smelted in the last blast. Exposure of the cupola base revealed significant details about the final blast the occurred in November 1860. Physical evidence indicated that during the last blast of the furnace, the structural walls surrounding the hearth of the furnace failed. The resulting rupture caused the contents of the hearth to solidify into a mass ironmasters call a salamander. This mass of iron and partially fused coke, slag, and flux rendered the stack useless. Extensive repairs needed to restart the furnace were never accomplished. Excavations in the basement of a turn-of-the-century house built on the former charging deck level of the plant revealed brick structures associated with the steam generation equipment of the furnace. These features remain preserved a few feet below this sign. Hundreds of artifacts, most industrial in nature, were recovered from the Bluff Furnace excavations. Refractory clay bricks that once lined the stack were recovered, along with broken tools, nuts, bolts, and shattered pieces of cast-iron fittings used in the plant. Analysis of iron ore, coke, coal, and slag samples provided indications of how the furnace operated in terms of such factors as blast temperatures, relative efficiency of iron reduction, and the ability of slags to remove sulfur from the molten iron. Samples of iron from pig iron bars indicated that the coke furnace operated well but perhaps not as effectively as it might have with continued use and improvements.$	[38] CHATRW_110914_189.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[39] CHATRW_110914_192.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. CHATRW_110914_001.JPG: Ross's Landing Union Capture of Chattanooga The Union army's efforts to capture the strategic rail center of Chattanooga met with success here at Ross's Landing. Following a series of dramatic marches and feints, elements of Gen. William S. Rosecrans's army appeared on Stringer's Ridge across the river to your left front on August 23, 1863. Union shells whizzed into the city and the Confederate fortifications on the high ground to your left rear and on the bluffs to your right. The shelling, coordinated with shows of force in Hamilton Valley, was intended to convince Confederate commanders that the Federals intended to cross the Tennessee River north of Chattanooga. In fact, however, they intended to cross the Tennessee River south of Chattanooga and then approach from Sand Mountain and Lookout Mountain well behind the Confederates. By September 7, the Confederates had deciphered the plan and evacuated the city. A Southern newspaper asked, "The enemy attacked with his Knight both our Queen, Atlanta, and our Castle, Chattanooga. Did it require a moment to decide what should be the move?" On September 9, three Union soldiers rowed across the river at Ross's Landing and seized the ferry. According to a soldier in the 57th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, "A horse ferry-boat, left by the enemy, was used in crossing the river, and before night the colors of the 97th Ohio were planted on a fort near Cameron Hill. The other regiments soon followed and at night our command bivouacked on the green close to the river...which gave us possession of the long-wished-for stronghold, Chattanooga." Steamboats tied up at Ross's Landing with Cameron Hill looming in the background. Union artillerist Henry Campbell drew this map showing his battery position, downtown Chattanooga, and Confederate fortifications.
2. CHATRW_110914_006.JPG: Trail of Tears: In May 1838 soldiers, under the command of U.S. Army General Winfield Scott, began rounding up Cherokee Indians in this area who had refused to move to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. About 16,000 Cherokees were placed in stockades in Tennessee and Alabama until their removal. Roughly 3,000 were sent by boat down the Tennessee River and the rest were marched overland in the fall and winter of 1838-1839. This forced-removal under harsh conditions resulted in the deaths of about 4,000 Cherokees. In late June of 1838 a party of 1,070 poorly equipped Indians was marched overland from Ross' Landing at Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Waterloo, Alabama, because of low water in the upper Tennessee River. Following the general route of present day U.S. Highway 72, they camped at Bellefonte, where about 300 escaped between Bellefonte and Woodville. On June 26, the remainder refused to proceed. Consequently,the militia, under the command of Army Captain G.S. Drane was tasked to mobilize the group and escort them to Waterloo. Arriving in miserable condition on July 10, 1838, the Cherokee were placed on a boat to continue their journey West. The "Trail of Tears" which resulted from the Indian Removal Act passed by U.S. Congress in 1830, is one of the darkest chapters in American history. This historical marker will forever mark the beginning of this "Trail of Tears".
3. CHATRW_110914_011.JPG: Chattanooga's First Citizens: In June, 1837 the fifty-three householders living on the two hundred forty acres bounded by Tennessee River. Georgia Avenue, Ninth Street and Cameron Hill elected commissioner to represent them in securing legal title to their individual parcels of land, thus becoming the First Citizens of Chattanooga. Residing in the Northeast Quarter Section were: COMMISSIONERS John P Long • Aaron M Rawlings • George W. Williams CITIZENS: Isaac Baldwin • George W. Cherry • Arsley Cope • Samuel H. Davie • Thomas Edmondson • Joseph Ellis • Andrew Evans • Samuel Fitzgerald • Matthew Frazier • E.H. Freeman • Charles Griggsby • George B. Gwathney • Berry Jones • John Keeny • Thomas W. Munsey • Abram Perry • Joseph Rice • Eliza Russell • James Woods Smith • Wiley Starling • Lewis Webb • Samuel Williams • Abner Witt Residing in the Southeast Fractional Section were: COMMISSIONERS: Allen Kennedy • Albert S. Lenoir • Reynolds A. Ramsey CITIZENS: John C. Cathey • S.S.M. Doak • William B. Gilliland • Nathan Harris • William Hill • Matthew Hillsman • Benjamin K. Hudgins • Carey A. Jones • M.W. Legg • William Long • John T. Mathis • Thomas Anipass Moore • David G. Perry • John A. Porter • William G. Sparks • William Thraikill • William Thurman • James W. Tunnell • Jane White • Matthew Williams • Darlen A. Wild
4. CHATRW_110914_018.JPG: 1790 John Ross 1866 John Ross was the grandson of John McDonald and the son of Daniel Ross natives of Scotland and partners in a trading post established at Ross's Landing. He dedicated himself to the education of the Cherokee Nation. JOHN ROSS is called the greatest of the Cherokee chiefs, although only one–eighth Cherokee. He served as principal chief from 1828-1866. He fought against the removal of the Cherokees from this region, ultimately leading them on the Trail of Tears journey to Oklahoma in 1838.
5. CHATRW_110914_024.JPG: ROSS'S LANDING Established about 1816 by John Ross some 370 yards east of this point, it consisted of a ferry, warehouse, and landing. With the organization of Hamilton County in 1819 north of the river, it served not only the Cherokee trade but also as a convenient business center for the county. Cherokee parties left from the landing for the West in 1838, the same year the growing community took the name of Chattanooga.
6. CHATRW_110914_042.JPG: Hazen's Raid at Brown's Ferry: Breaking the Siege Chattanooga Campaign After the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, Union Gen. William S. Rosecrans retreated to Federal-occupied Chattanooga, a strategically vital rail center, where Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg laid siege from Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant took command in October and began his efforts to break the siege. Bragg detached forces under Gen. James Longstreet to attack Knoxville as a diversion. After Gen. William T. Sherman reinforced Grant in November, the Federals attacked the heights and Bragg retreated. The Union army held the city for the rest of the war. During the siege of Chattanooga, Confederate forces controlled the two most reliable supply routes available to the Union garrison there. Only a rickety road across Walden's Ridge was accessible to Federal wagon trains carrying food, clothing, and ammunition. Late in October, to improve the flow of supplies, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant ordered troops stationed in Bridgeport, Alabama, to march north and seize the valley west of Lookout Mountain. At the same time, he ordered forces from Chattanooga to use pontoon boats to float around Moccasin Bend and capture Brown's Ferry downstream to your left. Then, army engineers would built a pontoon bridge for fresh troops and adequate supplies to be carried into the city. In the early morning of October 27, 1,150 soldiers under Gen. William B. Hazen boarded pontoons near where you now stand and set out for Brown's Ferry. One soldier remembered: "The night was clear. A bright moon hung in the west and we could see the rebel pickets standing on their bank of the river. They could not see us. The vapor that rises from a river on clear autumn nights effectively hid us from their sight. When we rounded Moccasin Point the current threw the boards toward them, but by quietly rowing all regained the north bank without an alarm." A few minutes later, they landed on the south bank, surprising the Confederate guards at Brown's Ferry. By sunrise, they had secured the area and began laying the pontoon bridge. Soon, wagons rolled to Chattanooga by the safer route called the Cracker Line (for the wagonloads of hardtack) and eased the supply crisis in Chattanooga. The Tennessee River was a strategic transportation artery for both North and South. Notable military points exist between Downtown Chattanooga and historic Pot Point. Naturalists highlight other strategic locations for passengers aboard the Tennessee Aquarium River Gorge Explorer.
7. CHATRW_110914_057.JPG: The Great Spirit has placed us in different situations. He has given you many advantages. But he has not created us to be your slaves. We are a separate people! He has stocked your lands with cows, ours with buffalo; yours with hogs, ours with bears; your with sheep, ours with deer. He has given you the advantage that your animals are tame, while ours are wild and demand not only a large space for range, but art to hunt and kill them. They are, nevertheless, as much our property as other animals are yours, and ought not be taken from us without our consent, or for something of equal value. -- Old Tassel
8. CHATRW_110914_062.JPG: You have bought a fair land. but will find its settlement dark and bloody. -- Dragging Canoe, 1775
9. CHATRW_110914_065.JPG: he white men have almost surrounded us, leaving us only a little spot of ground to stand upon, and it seems to be their intention to destroy us as a nation. -- Dragging Canoe, 1776
10. CHATRW_110914_069.JPG: To fix the precise point where barbarity terminates and when civilization begins is perhaps impossible. -- RJ Meigs, 1803
11. CHATRW_110914_073.JPG: To tell us to speak freely and make our choice... our choice is to remain on our lands. -- Cherokee National Council, 1817
12. CHATRW_110914_078.JPG: We consider ourselves as a free and distinct nation. -- Cherokee Council, 1818
13. CHATRW_110914_084.JPG: It is high time to do away with the farce of treating with Indian tribes as separate nations. -- President Andrew Jackson, 1820
14. CHATRW_110914_087.JPG: Our title has eminated from a supreme source which cannot be impaired by conquest or treaty. -- Cherokee Negotiatons, 1923
15. CHATRW_110914_090.JPG: The Cherokees are not foreigners but original inhabitants of America. -- John Ross, 1824
16. CHATRW_110914_093.JPG: We... the people of the Cherokee Nation ... in order to establish justice, ensure tranquility, promote our common welfare, and secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of liberty; acknowledging with humility and gratitude the goodness of the soverign ruler of the universe, in offering us an opportunity so favorable to the design and imploring his aid and direction in its accomplishment, do ordain and establish the Constitution for the Government of the Cherokee Nation. -- July 1827
17. CHATRW_110914_097.JPG: If it be true that the Cherokee Nation have rights, this is not the tribunal in which those rights are to be asserted... this is not the tribunal which can redress the post or prevent the future. -- Chief Justice John Marshall, United States Supreme Court, 1831
18. CHATRW_110914_136.JPG: Headquarters Row: Generals and Ghosts: Beginning in 1862, Confederate Gens. Braxton Bragg, Daniel Ledbetter, and Joseph E. Johnston, followed by Union Gens. William S. Rosecrans and George H. Thomas, occupied the Greek Revival-style Richardson house, which stood nearby at 320 Walnut Street. When Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant arrived in Chattanooga on October 23, 1863, he first made his headquarters there. Grant soon moved to the nearby T.J. Lattner house here at the corner of 1st and Walnut Streets. Lattner served in the Confederate army, and following the arrival of Union forces, his wife, Josephine, and their children moved to Georgia. Grant remained in the Lattner house while he planned the attacks that drove the Confederate army from Chattanooga. After Grant departed late in 1864 to take overall command of the Union armies, Gen. William T. Sherman used the house as his headquarters and there prepared plans for the pivotal campaign that led to the capture of Atlanta. After the war, the army returned the house to Lattner, who moved back to Chattanooga. Union veterans, who wanted the Lattner house to become a historic site, placed a marker there noting its role as Grant's headquarters. Local residents told ghost stories about the house, claiming that a soldier once executed for dereliction of duty still haunted the place to prove his allegiance to his Union commanders. Others claimed to see the ghosts of Grant and Sherman in the parlor. The house was demolished in 1966.
19. CHATRW_110914_168.JPG: Bluff Furnace Historical Park: Dr. Jeffrey Lawrence Brown This Park commemorates the history of one of Chattanooga's first heavy industries. Bluff Furnace, built in 1854 and put into operation in 1856, was a steam-powered blast furnace that reduced iron ore into usable cast iron. This iron was sent to local foundries to be made into tools, implements, and machinery. As a forerunner in iron technology of the 1800s, Bluff Furnace was the first in the southern Appalachian region to use coked coal as a fuel in a modern cupola-style furnace. It was torn down shortly before the Civil War began. The original foundations of the casting shed and furnace base appear behind you. The signs and model in front of you explain the history and significance of one of the South's most innovative industrial sites. Reflecting the unique historical significance of the site, Bluff Furnace was added to the National Register of Historical Places in 1980. This Park celebrates the rich industrial heritage of Chattanooga and stands as a testament to the energy and dedication of all those who labor in the iron industry, both past and present. Contributors to the development of the Park include ... Bluff Furnace Historical Park is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Jeffrey Lawrence Brown, who first discovered the site and recognized its ultimate importance to our shared historic past.
20. CHATRW_110914_172.JPG: The Beginnings of Iron Manufacture in Chattanooga: The Chattanooga Region was rich in mineral resources, including hematite iron ore. The convergence of river transportation and railroads at Chattanooga guaranteed access to markets for iron products such as pig iron bars, and finished castings such as a railroad car wheels. Ross's Landing 1838: The Treaty of New Echota in 1835 opened the lands south of the Tennessee River to Anglo-American settlement. At the former Cherokee trading post of John Ross, white settlers landed in the shadow of high limestone bluffs. River craft of all sorts were unloaded at Ross's Landing to supply the pioneer town between built among the hills near the ferry landing. In 1839, the inhabitants of Ross's Landing met to form a local government for the new town renamed Chattanooga. Seeking to open the interior of the State of Georgia to commercial development, the Western and Atlantic Railroad was chartered to run north from the railhead at Atlanta to a port town on the Tennessee River -- Chattanooga. By 1854, Tennessee had opened the Nashville and Tennessee Railroad from the state capitol to link with the W&A Railroad terminal at Chattanooga, thus securing the town's commercial future as a river and rail hub for the region. Among those realizing the economic potential of the town were Robert Cravens and James Anderson Whiteside. Both were impressed with the industrial potential of the Chattanooga region, and together, they forged the cradle of iron manufacture in lower East Tennessee. Robert Cravens, Ironmaster, 1805-1888: Since 1839, Cravens had operated Eagle Furnace and Forge on White's Creek in Roane County. In 1847, with other prominent East Tennesseans, he formed the East Tennessee Iron Manufacturing Company. Moving to Chattanooga in 1851, Cravens began the construction of a blast furnace near the ferry crossings at Ross's Landing. James A. Whiteside, Entrepreneur, 1803-1861: Lawyer and politician, entrepreneur and businessman, James Whiteside served as president of the East Tennessee Iron Manufacturing Company until his death in 1861. Whiteside successfully promoted Ross's Landing as the terminus of the W&A Railroad, then spearheaded the incorporration of the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad. Bluff Furnace, 1858: Their East Tennessee Iron Manufacturing Company expanded its operations from Eagle Furnace and Forge on White's Creek, and by 1853 had opened a foundry near the railyards at Chattanooga. The following year, the largest and most technically advanced smelter in Tennessee, called Bluff Furnace, was completed. In 1856, this steam-powered, hot-blast, charcoal-fired furnace began smelting hematite iron ores into pig iron bars. Using natural resources found locally and around the region, this blast furnace produced quality cast-iron pigs which were then shipped down river to the iron markets at St. Louis. The production of quality, foundry-grade iron in Tennessee placed it first among all southern states in the 1850s. However, the number of the technology of northern furnaces, in states such as Pennsylvania, made competition difficult.
21. CHATRW_110914_177.JPG: Innovation and Disaster: Bluff Furnace and the Coming of War: The conversion of Bluff Furnace into the region's first coke-fired stack, in 1860, was a significant milestone in southern iron production. The failure of the furnace, in November of 1860, occurred as the nation drifted toward the Civil War. The Bluff Furnace would never be fired again. Northern ironmasters James Henderson and Giles Edwards arrived in Chattanooga in 1859, and converted the charcoal-fired furnace into a more advanced coke-fired operation with a sophisticated cupola-style blast stack. Recycling the heat from waste gases to preheat the fresh blast air, Bluff Furnace could more efficiently smelt iron ore. The use of processed coal or coke as fuel permitted larger quantities of ore to be smelted at a faster rate, thus producing cheaper, more competitive iron. This introduction of the latest technology to be southern Appalachians was not without difficulties. Obtaining the blast fuel, coke, could not keep pace with production. After a trial blast took place in May 1860, a second blast in November of that year ended abruptly; a failure of the hearth lining put the plant out of operation. Before repairs could be made, the American Civil War had begun. As Union threatened Chattanooga, the furnace machinery was removed and sent south into Alabama. In 1863, the directors of the East Tennessee Iron Manufacturing Company, dissolved the enterprise permanently. In June 1863, Union troops occupied Chattanooga, crossing the river on pontoon bridges that landed below the bluff. After defeat at Chickamauga, the Federal forces were besieged until their successes in the battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge in November. As the Federal armies prepared to advance on the Confederate stronghold of Atlanta, Chattanooga was transformed into a marshalling yard for men and materiel. To meet construction needs of the Federal quartermasters, building supplies were collected in vast quantities until, supplied by river and rail, storehouses were overflowing. The lower remnant of the stack of Bluff Furnace was used as a retort in which limestone was burned to produce lime. The stone walls of the casting shed of the furnace were thrown down, and a wooden shed was built to hold supplies and mule teams. Only the base of the blast stack remained. Soon, even this remnant was demolished and its iron scrapped. By the end of the war, nothing remained above ground of the South's first coke-fired blast furnace.
22. CHATRW_110914_181.JPG: From Oblivion to Rebirth: Archaeological Research at the Bluff Furnace Site: Bluff Furnace emerged from obscurity in the late 1970s when portions of the massive stone walls of the casting shed were exposed by erosion. Recognized as the birthplace of Chattanooga's iron industry, the site was preserved as an historic site and investigated by archaeologists. As use of the Walnut Street Bridge ended, potential alignments for a new bridge were located. In a 1977 archaeological survey of one proposed bridge location, Dr. Jeffrey L. Brown from the Institute of Archaeology, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, observed massive limestone walls exposed in a gully at the foot of the limestone bluff. Brown identified the walls as being from a the casting shed of the Bluff Furnace. Despite the deliberate destruction by Union troops in the Civil War and decades of neglect that buried the site under dirt and debris, some remains of the historic furnace remained. Though initial test pits at the site were small, they were productive, and hinted that much of the site remained intact. More intensive archaeological investigation of the site was finally carried out in 1981, resulting in a wealth of data about the construction and operation of the plant. Additional excavations in 1983 and 1991 added new details to the story of Bluff Furnace, though parts of the furnace site still remain unexcavated. Archaeological testing revealed that the casting shed, the large room in which pig iron ingots were cast in floor molds, was 50 by 60 feet in size. The structural foundations of the later coke-fired cupola stack were hexagonal in shape, and surrounded the base of the blast furnace hearth still containing iron smelted in the last blast. Exposure of the cupola base revealed significant details about the final blast the occurred in November 1860. Physical evidence indicated that during the last blast of the furnace, the structural walls surrounding the hearth of the furnace failed. The resulting rupture caused the contents of the hearth to solidify into a mass ironmasters call a salamander. This mass of iron and partially fused coke, slag, and flux rendered the stack useless. Extensive repairs needed to restart the furnace were never accomplished. Excavations in the basement of a turn-of-the-century house built on the former charging deck level of the plant revealed brick structures associated with the steam generation equipment of the furnace. These features remain preserved a few feet below this sign. Hundreds of artifacts, most industrial in nature, were recovered from the Bluff Furnace excavations. Refractory clay bricks that once lined the stack were recovered, along with broken tools, nuts, bolts, and shattered pieces of cast-iron fittings used in the plant. Analysis of iron ore, coke, coal, and slag samples provided indications of how the furnace operated in terms of such factors as blast temperatures, relative efficiency of iron reduction, and the ability of slags to remove sulfur from the molten iron. Samples of iron from pig iron bars indicated that the coke furnace operated well but perhaps not as effectively as it might have with continued use and improvements.
23. CHATRW_110914_209.JPG: Bluff Furnace Historic Site: Site of the first coke-fired blast furnace in the southern Appalachian iron-producing region. Entered in the National Register of Historic Places, 1980. In front of you is the archaeological site of Bluff Furnace. Originally built in 1854 as a charcoal-fired, hot-blast furnace by the East Tennessee Iron Manufacturing Company under the direction of Robert Cravens and James A. Whiteside, this iron smelter was converted in 1859-60 by James Henderson and Giles Edwards to burn processed coal or coke. When put into blast in May 1860, this plant was the first in the south to use coke in the primary production of iron ore. Because coke was a more efficient fuel than charcoal, its use permitted the building of larger-capacity stacks. Using hot exhaust gases from the furnace top to preheat the blast air increased the amount of iron recovered from the ore. This cylindrical stack design at the heart of the plant was advanced for its day; only a handful of plants in the United States were built in such a manner in 1860. Trial runs were in process at the plant as the nation headed toward civil war, but due to a shortage of coke, the first production run of pig iron, begun in May 1860, was halted prematurely. The second blast of November 1860 took place during the election of Abraham Lincoln, but a structural failure in the hearth of the furnace shut down operation and was note restarted prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. As the Civil War progressed and Federal armies invaded Tennessee, the machinery and other reusable components of the facility were moved to Oxford Furnace in Alabama. In April 1863, the East Tennessee Iron Manufacturing Company liquidated its assets, never to resume the production of iron. Occupation of Chattanooga by Federal troops in September 1863 resulted in the demolition of all standing structures at the site except the lower portion of the stack, which was used as a lime kiln. By the end of the Civil War, all above-ground traces of the plant had been destroyed or buried. In the late 1970s, the walls of the casting shed of Bluff Furnace were exposed by erosion, and subsequent excavations by archeologists at the site have revealed a wealth of information about the operations of the historic plant.
24. CHATRW_110914_233.JPG: Bluff Furnace: Chattanooga's Industrial Beginnings This blast furnace, erected in 1854, was Chattanooga's first heavy industry. Built by the East Tennessee Iron Manufacturing Company, Bluff Furnace was one of the premier furnaces of the region. On the high terrace overlooking the wharf at Ross's Landing, the East Tennessee Iron Manufacturing Company commanded Chattanooga's first heavy industrial plant, called Bluff Furnace. Built below the high limestone cliffs in [???] it occupies an important place in the town's history of iron manufacturing. Incorporated in 1847, the East Tennessee Iron Manufacturing Company began its operation at the Eagle Furnace and Forge complex in Roane County. Robert Cravens, the company's principal ironmaster, settled in Chattanooga in 1851 and opened a foundry near the railyards south of town. In 1854, h completed the construction of a steam-powered, hot-blast, charcoal-fired blast furnace to smelt the hematite iron ores abundant throughout the region. When brought into blast in 1856, the furnace was the largest, most advanced facility in East Tennessee. Cravens, and company president James A. Whiteside, also owned large iron ore and coal deposits on nearby Raccoon Mountain in partnership with a wealthy South Carolinian industrialist, Ker [???] Boyce. The owners of Bluff Furnace completed converting the plant to burn coal as a blast fuel. Although chemically less desirable than charcoal, the modified [???] form of coal was nonetheless sturdy and combusted at a high rate. In the late 1850's, Cravens, Whiteside, and Boyce began coking local coals at their Etna Mines on the line of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad on Raccoon Mountain. In 1859-60, Bluff Furnace underwent the conversion to use coke. When refired in May 1860, it was the first coke-fired plant in the south.
25. CHATRW_110914_239.JPG: Ross's Landing: River Crossing and Port Once a ferry crossing connecting the worlds of the Native American Cherokee and the Anglo-American settler, Ross's Landing the heart of the town of Chattanooga. This place was once a river crossing known as Ross's Landing. John Ross, an individual of mixed Scottish and Cherokee heritage, operated a ferry crossing and trading post near this spot from 1815 to 1826. An elected chief among the Cherokee, John Ross and his Native American people were forced from these lands in 1838 under the terms of the Treaty of New Echota. In 1839, the Anglo-American settlers at Ross's Landing created a town that they named Chattanooga. A swing ferry anchored at the foot of Maclellan Island swiveled on the Tennessee River from shore to shore, connecting the northern portion of Hamilton County to its principal town. A key port on the upper Tennessee River, Ross's Landing had also been selected as the northern terminus of the Western and Atlantic Railroad. The W&A originated at the railhead that would become Atlanta, Georgia. As a commercial riverport with rail connections, Chattanooga assumed a new prominence among the cities of Tennessee. By 1835, regularly-scheduled steamboat service from Bridgeport, Alabama to Knoxville, Tennessee, was a reality; these vessels distributed manufactured goods and collected agricultural products for shipment by water and rail. By 1848, Chattanooga would collect more than 40,000 bales of cotton a year, much of this valuable cargo being stacked along the riverbank and streets adjoining the wharf. Bulk commodities such as cotton and corn were frequently shipped by flatboat to Ross's Landing where the cargo was carted to the railyards south of town and the boat was broken up for lumber. In later years, the wharf at Ross's Landing would be crowded with the timber cut from the headwaters of the Tennessee and rafted down to the sawmills built along the banks of the river. Navigation of the river in the 1800s was not without hazards. Below Chattanooga was a series of dangerous shoals and narrows. In the dry summer months, the river level would frequently be too low for passage of even shallow-draft steamboats, making loss of life and cargoes common on the Tennessee.
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Wikipedia Description: Tennessee Riverwalk
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Tennessee Riverwalk is a 13-mile riverside path which parallels the Tennessee River from the Chickamauga Dam to downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee. It is part of the Tennessee Riverpark System featuring the Tennessee Riverpark, Coolidge Park, Renaissance Park, Ross's Landing, and the Walnut Street Bridge.

The Riverwalk is a mix of paved pathways, boardwalks and bridges along the river, through marshland, and over creeks. Restroom facilities and drinking fountains are conveniently spaced along the path.

Nine brightly colored quarter-inch-thick stainless steel silhouettes mark each milestone along the Riverwalk, including a bird watcher, bluegrass musician, bikers, a man in a wheelchair and another strolling, a jogging father and daughter and a family group.
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- 2017_TN_Chat_Riverwalk: TN -- Chattanooga -- Riverwalk (61 photos from 2017)
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2011 photos: Equipment this year: I mostly used the Fuji S100fs camera as well as two Nikon models -- the D90 and the new D7000. Mostly a toy, I also purchased a Fuji Real 3-D W3 camera, to try out 3-D photographs. I found it interesting although I don't see any real use for 3-D stills now. Given that many of the photos from the 1860s were in 3-D (including some of the more famous Civil War shots), it's odd to see it coming back. Trips this year: Civil War Trust conferences (Savannah, GA, Chattanooga, TN), New Jersey over Memorial Day for my birthday (people never seem to visit New Jersey -- it's always just a pit stop on the way to New York. I thought I might as well spend a few days there. Despite some nice places, it still ended up a pit stop for me -- New York City was infinitely more interesting), my 6th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco). Ego strokes: Author photos that I took were used on two book jackets this year: Jason Emerson's book "The Dark Days of Abraham Lincoln's Widow As Revealed by Her Own Letters" and Dennis L. Noble's "The U.S. Coast Guard's War on Human Smuggling." I also had a photo of Jason Stelter published in the Washington Examiner and a picture of Miss DC, Ashley Boalch, published in the Washington Post. Number of photos taken this year: just over 390,000.
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