The Chattanooga-Hamilton County History Experience is scheduled to launch in downtown Chattanooga during the community’s Fourth of July celebration.¶
The initiative is designed as a living archive of Chattanooga history, incorporating original films, interactive exhibits, and student-filmmaker collaborations. The main goals driving this project are education and workforce development.¶
“We want students who are coming to our public school system, even if they leave for college, to see in themselves some real potential to do great things in Chattanooga,” Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp said.¶
As part of the project, Hamilton County public school students will research and produce work alongside professional filmmakers, a collaboration made possible through Dynamo Studios. Students will gain hands-on experience, learn about creative career pathways, and present original short films that center on essential moments in local history.¶
The three volunteer advisors spearheading the project are John Edwards, owner of the Chattanooga News Chronicle; Tom Griscom, former White House Communications Director and Editor and Publisher of the Chattanooga Times Free Press; and Linda Moss Mines, Chattanooga-Hamilton County’s Historian.¶
“I can’t even explain the ramifications this project can have on the community,” Mines said. “I’m actually thrilled to be a part of it.”¶
The project’s production team, led by Griscom, will steer the initiative towards historical and civic perspectives that will capture East Tennessee’s unique history. Mines said she wants the history experience to be more than a distant museum but rather a presentation of interactive exhibits that have been “archived and curated by young people, with expert leadership.”¶
Student Creative Lead and California College of the Arts graduate, Julius Almen, carries the same sentiment and hopes people learn how important Chattanooga is.¶
“I want other students, people my age, to realize that things and projects like these are not out of reach just because they are young,” Almen said.¶
Project Elements
Wamp said the experience will touch on Chattanooga’s involvement before and after the Civil War, its Union influence, the city’s American railroad activity, and decades of post-war history that shaped the community into what it is today.¶
“I think history teaches us a lot of things about our life today,” Wamp said. “If you don’t know your history, then you miss out on understanding what’s possible from a small town.”¶
Mines said that Chattanooga’s community “blends together beautifully,” and that the project’s promise to explore history, the good and the bad, is what makes Hamilton County different from any other place she has worked.¶
“What history has taught me is that we always come back to the better angels of our nature,” Moss Mines said. “We regroup, we recommit to that principle, and I think what Hamilton County teaches me is that we are so far from it being over.”¶
The soon-to-launch event will use a flexible, low-cost pop-up model that keeps audience members engaged. The interactive pop-up will help the county gauge public interest, collect visitor feedback, and refine the experience before eventually expanding.¶
Hotel-motel tax revenues fund the Chattanooga-Hamilton County History Experience and will leverage tourism dollars, making the experience a unified city-county effort that continues to honor the city’s heritage without affecting taxpayers.¶
