Rock City at 75

Enchanting visitors to Lookout Mountain

My Mark Hannah

SEE ROCK CITY. For a youngster growing up in the South anytime since the depression, those three words were an enticement … an invitation … a command! Painted giant on the roofs of barns as far north as Michigan and as far west as Texas, this uniquely American ad campaign spread the fame of a natural wonder turned one-of-a-kind tourist attraction located atop Lookout Mountain. This year marks 75 years since Rock City opened its gates to the public, making honorary citizens of all who visit.

The barn painting ads were the brainstorm of promoter and “idea” man Garnet Carter to get the word out about the amazing trail his wife, Frieda, had laid out around and through the amazing geological formations on their property on the eastern brow of Lookout Mountain. The ads worked. An out-of-the-way, one-of-a-kind attraction has become a world famous and continually growing sight to see.

In 1823, missionaries to the Native Americans noted a “citadel of rocks” on the mountain where the stones seemed to outline streets and lanes. Sightseers ventured up the mountain to see the fabled “City of Rock” during the 1800s and you can find Civil War photos where generals in the area ventured up to have pictures taken of themselves sitting on precipes too dangerous to fight on. But Rock City didn’t have a mayor until Garnet bought the property and his wife added her imagination and love for European folklore to the site.

Garnet, a born promoter, had gained wealth in the 1920s after he invented miniature golf as we know it. Initially developing a neighborhood on Lookout Mountain, with the streets named for fictional characters from fairy tales (drive around near Rock City and you’ll see streets named after Robin Hood and Cinderella), his wife began carving a walking trail on the part of the property that had the most unique and fantastic rock formations. After taking four years to form it and using a string to show the way, her husband realized that if guests to their home loved going along the trail, so would anybody. And so, on May 21, 1932, the first public visitors made their way down the trail and past the garden gnomes and transplanted wild flowers Frieda had placed, to the breathtaking view from Lover’s Leap.

After a somewhat slow start (this was before interstates), Garnet hit upon the idea of the barn campaign. Hiring Clark Byers, a young sign painter, Garnet sent him out to offer farmers a new coat of free paint on their barns in exchange for putting the words “See Rock City” on the barn. A farmer during the depression would have probably let you write “I’m a Big Dummy” on his barn for a free paint job. The promotion worked so well, Rock City was a hit and Byers had a job that lasted until 1968 when he got electrocuted by a power line and spent a year in the hospital recuperating. His crew kept on and was painting barns at least up through the 1990s. A handful of the barns survive, scattered throughout the land, victim to interstates and the 1965 Highway Beautification Act that limited signs on barns, a pet project of Ladybird Johnson, LBJ’s wife.

Walking the “Enchanted Trail” today, it’s interesting to think of tourists walking the same steps 75 years ago past the “Balancing Rock” and through “Fat Man’s Squeeze,” but when you think about the eons the stones themselves have sat there, 75 years seems nothing.

For those who have never been, the Enchanted Trail, which is the centerpiece of Rock City, winds up and down stone steps, through gorges, over stone bridges spanning deep crevasses, around crags, and through tunnels and “squeezes,” corridors between cliffs that are so narrow as to be breathtaking and laugh-inducing at the same time. Want to heighten the experience? Go through the Needles Eye with someone pregnant! For the brave, a walk over a chasm on the famous “Swing-a-long” suspension bridge will take you by a 140 ft. waterfall where you will arrive at “Lover’s Leap.” Think of a natural stone dance floor on top of a cliff. This incredible outcropping gives a spectacular view of Chattanooga and the Tennessee Valley, and as the signs say, you really can see seven states on a clear day.

Over the years, Rock City has grown and expanded. On the trail beyond Lover’s Leap there is a quaint section of “Fairyland Caverns” filled with scenes from fairytales, which leads into a giant Mother Goose Village Diorama of nursery rhymes, both famous and obscure. These scenes, although mostly static, are so bright and colorful that you can’t help but study each one carefully. In their day, they were “state of the art” utilizing fluorescent paint and the then new technology of ultraviolet black lights. As old school as they might be, the kids still delight in Cinderella running from the ball, and the cow jumping over the moon.

Nowadays there are places to eat and arts and crafts and souvenir shops to visit. And of course, with a walk through a dramatic mountain landscape, each season brings its own delights. The difference between a nice hot summer day, walking through the trees with an ice cream cone, is completely different from traveling through a night time wonderland, lit by hundreds of thousands of Christmas lights during the holiday season. From mid-November to just after New Years, the best Christmasland this side of the North Pole moves into Rock City. Watch the weather reports and try to find a night when snow flurries are predicted to visit. Visitors can walk through the various lit scenes, listening to favorite Christmas songs, drinking hot chocolate and enjoying local musical groups caroling. And get your list ready, because sometimes the big man himself shows up to requests from anybody on the “nice” list.

Rock City, after 75 years as a tradition, has definitely become an icon. It’s a great example of natural wonders, not enhanced, but rather highlighted by loving and imaginative hands. And through promotional inspiration, kept thriving into an age where everything is digital and virtual. It’s a city where you navigate not with a push button hand control with competitors online, but where you travel with friends and family by foot and by heart.

I could give you detailed instructions on how to get to Rock City, but the easiest directions are just to go to Chattanooga and follow the signs up Lookout Mountain. And when you get to the top, then you too can “See Rock City!”