12,000-year Timeline of Moccasin Bend History
Moccasin Bend National Archeological District, a unit of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, represents over 12,000 years of continuous human habitation. As the first and only designated National Archeological District in the United States, Moccasin Bend holds a unique place in the National Park Service system.
Paleo-Indian Period (10,000 B.C. – 8,000 B.C.): The first human inhabitants arrived on Moccasin Bend as nomadic tribes following the rich resources of the Tennessee River valley.
Archaic Period (8,000 B.C. – 700 B.C.): Early inhabitants began making stone tools and established permanent villages on the Bend.
Woodland Period (700 B.C. – 1,000 A.D.): This era was marked by the introduction of ceramic pottery and the beginnings of agriculture. Archeological excavations suggest approximately twenty village sites existed on the Bend during this time.
Mississippian Period (900 A.D. – 1,650 A.D.): Native people built large mound complexes and developed complex socio-political structures based on kinship ties. This period includes the Coosa Chiefdom.
1540 / 1560: During the Mississippian Period, Spaniards under the charge of Hernando de Soto (1540) or Tristan de Luna (1560) possibly made contact with inhabitants of a Mississippian Period village located on the bend, later documented through archaeological surveys as the “Hampton Place” site.
1776 – 1794: During the Chickamauga Wars, Chief Dragging Canoe and his warriors resisted pioneer expansion in the region.
1802: The Federal Road was established.
1803: Brown's Ferry Tavern was established by local Cherokee John Brown, owner and operator of the ferry operation that crossed the Tennessee River from Moccasin Bend to Wauhatchie (now called Lookout Valley or Tiftonia).
1830s – 1850s: The Brown's Ferry Federal Road served as an active route for the antebellum slave trade.
1838 – 1839 (Trail of Tears): Thousands of Cherokee were rounded up into deportation camps, including one at Ross's Landing. Several groups passed around Moccasin Bend by water, while at least one group marched overland across the neck of the bend along a route now documented as the Brown’s Ferry/Old Federal Road Trace.
1839: Jacob Cummings escaped enslavement from Moccasin Bend, later contributing to the network known as the Underground Railroad.
1863 (Civil War Campaign):
September: The Battle of Chickamauga took place in the region.
October 27: During the Battle of Brown's Ferry, U.S. Army brigades drove Confederate Army sharpshooters from the river, establishing the "Cracker Line" supply route across Moccasin Bend.
November: U.S. Army artillery, entrenched on the Stringer’s Ridge elevations of Moccasin Bend, exchanged fire with Confederate Army batteries on Lookout Mountain during the Battles for Chattanooga.
1890: The U.S. Congress authorized the creation of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park (CCNMP), the first of its kind in the nation.
1895: CCNMP is formally dedicated within the Department of the Army, eventually becoming part of the National Park Service after the agency is created in 1916.
1913: Clarence B. Moore and his mobile laboratory housed on a steamboat known as The Gopher focused archaeological investigation on Woodland period mounds and a Late Mississippian and early Contact-era village in the area.
1961: Following the donation of 300 acres on Moccasin Bend from the City of Chattanooga and Hamilton County to the State of Tennessee, the Moccasin Bend State Mental Health Institute is founded with a total 165 adult psychiatric beds.
1979: Local law enforcement begin using 35 acres on Moccasin Bend as a firing range site.
1982: Major McCollough and Lawrence Alexander began their prominent, coordinated archaeological field research and salvage work on Moccasin Bend in 1982 following the discovery of widespread looting at the Hampton Place site. The two worked closely with the newly-formed Chattanooga Regional Anthropological Association (CRAA) to salvage and document the remaining evidence of the Mississippian Period village and other culturally significant resources across Moccasin Bend.
1983: Moccasin Bend: Chattanooga's First National Historic Landmark (1983) was published by McCollough and Alexander, proving that the area contained over 10,000 years of continuous indigenous habitation, ultimately laying the crucial groundwork for Moccasin Bend to be saved from industrial development and designated as America's first National Archeological District.
1986: A 1,000-acre boundary on Moccasin Bend is designated as a National Historic Landmark by the National Register of Historic Places, including the 300-acre mental hospital campus; the 35-acre firing range; the 200-acre Moccasin Bend Golf Course; and the former model airplane facility that has since been removed. To date, Moccasin Bend remains the only National Historic Landmark in Hamilton County, TN.
1995: The Friends of Moccasin Bend is founded with the mission of creating a new National Park on Moccasin Bend and preventing further development within the National Historic Landmark boundary.
2001: U.S. Representative Zach Wamp (TN-03) introduces legislation HR 980, which becomes known as the Moccasin Bend National Archeological District Act.
2003: Congress passes the legislation and establishes the Moccasin Bend National Archeological District as a new unit of CCNMP, the first and only designated National Archeological District in the National Park Service system.
2004: Hamilton County and the City of Chattanooga donate more than 500 acres and the State of Tennessee donates 200 acres of land from its hospital campus to the National Park Service, thus establishing the boundary of Moccasin Bend National Archeological District. These government entities commit to relocating the “nonconforming uses” of the mental hospital and firing range as soon as possible, and transferring their remaining landholdings within the National Historic Landmark boundary to the National Park Service.
2006: The Friends of Moccasin Bend launched the annual Moccasin Bend Fall Lecture Series to continue to raise awareness of the cultural and historical significance of the new Moccasin Bend National Archeological District. Sponsored from the start by TN. State Representative Greg Vital, the lecture series is now celebrating its 21st season.
2010: National Park Service historians and archaeological consultants used specialized LiDAR imagery and ground-penetrating radar to digitally peer beneath Moccasin Bend’s heavy forest canopy, locating the hidden Federal Road trace and laying the groundwork for mapping out hidden Civil War earthworks.
2013: With grant funding from the Lyndhurst Foundation, the Friends of Moccasin Bend built the Brown's Ferry/Old Federal Road trace as the second public trail on Moccasin Bend.
2014: The National Park Services releases its Cultural Landscape Report for Moccasin Bend National Archeological District; soon after, public hearings begin for the park’s General Management Plan (GMP) to be amended to include plans for preserving and interpreting this new park unit.
2017: The GMP Amendment is finalized and sites for future trails and a Visitor Orientation Plaza are identified.
2018: The Friends of Moccasin Bend and the Friends of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park united to create one combined “friends” group known as National Park Partners (NPP).
2020: NPP launched the Forever Moccasin Bend campaign to raise funds for the Visitor Orientation Plaza planned for the entrance (or “gateway”) to Moccasin Bend.
2023: Following the State of Tennessee’s decision to rebuild, rather than relocate, a new mental hospital on Moccasin Bend, NPP organizes a “Save the Bend” campaign that ultimately succeeds when Governor Bill Lee announced in 2024 that the hospital will not be rebuilt on Moccasin Bend.
2026 (Upcoming): The Rita Vital Memorial Moccasin Bend Lecture Series will host three public events on September 28, October 19, and November 9. In a part of the NPP partnership with Outdoor Chattanooga, Ranger-led kayak tours, hikes, and bike tours are hosted. Upcoming events include a public Civil War Earthworks history hike scheduled for November 14 to explore the Civil War fortifications on the Bend. "The American Revolution Comes to Chattanooga: Dragging Canoe in the TN River Gorge," kayak tours are scheduled for Saturday, October 17 and Saturday Nov. 7. Visit OutdoorChattanooga.com to reserve a space at one of these events.