CHATTANOOGA

city, seat (1819) of Hamilton county, southeastern Tennessee, U.S. The city lies along the Moccasin Bend of the Tennessee River, near the Georgia border. Chattanooga is a headquarters for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) power system, which since the 1930s has been an important element in its economic growth. The site was settled about 1815 when John Ross, who was later made a Cherokee Indian chief, established a trading post (Ross' Landing) on the river. In 1838 it was renamed Chattanooga, probably an Indian expression for the nearby Lookout Mountain (2,392 feet ), meaning rock rising to a point. The settlement developed initially as a river port, and its growth was stimulated by the arrival of the railroads in the 1840s and '50s. During the American Civil War, as a strategic Confederate communications point, it was a major objective of the Union armies, culminating in the decisive battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga (SeptemberNovember 1863), which resulted in Union occupation of the city and its use as a base by General William Tecumseh Sherman for his Atlanta campaign. The city's historic environs have been preserved in the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park (extending into Georgia), which includes the major battlefields, with sections on Orchard Knob, Lookout and Signal mountains, and Missionary Ridge. In Chattanooga National Cemetery are the graves of Captain James J. Andrews' Union raiders, who became famous for stealing the Confederates' wood-burning locomotive The General (preserved in Union Station Concourse). Chattanooga's economy is well diversified and depends chiefly on tourism, insurance, warehousing and distribution, and a wide variety of manufactures, including textiles, steam boilers, nuclear reactors, stoves, plumbing supplies, farm implements, machinery, castings, soil pipe, structural steel, furniture, chemicals, explosives, and industrial ceramics. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga dates from 1886; other educational institutions include the Southern College of Seventh-day Adventists (1892) at nearby Collegedale and Chattanooga State Technical Community College (1965). The city's cultural assets include an opera association, symphony orchestra, little theatre, and the Hunter Gallery of Art. A steep-incline railway ascends Lookout Mountain, inside of which is a cave with a 145-foot (44-metre) waterfall; at the top of the mountain are gardens and odd stone formations known as Rock City. Nearby Chickamauga Lake, a reservoir 59 miles (95 km) long, impounded by a TVA dam on the Tennessee River for power and flood control, also provides recreation and is the site of Booker T. Washington and Harrison Bay state parks. Inc. town, 1839; city, 1851. Pop. (1990) city, 152,393; Chattanooga MSA, 433,210; (1994 est.) city, 152,259; (1995 est.) Chattanooga MSA, 443,060.