Chattanooga's First School

Before the schoolhouse and the town name, the place had an older one. Cherokee people called the spot Chado-na-ugsa, recorded as meaning rock that comes to a point, a reference to nearby Lookout Mountain. Archaeological excavations show people settling the site more than eight thousand years ago, with Mississippian culture centered here around 1300. White settlers came in the early 1830s and set up Ross's Landing near the foot of Broad Street. The settlement was incorporated as the town of Chattanooga in 1839, with just fifty-three families.

What the plaque says

Chattanooga's First School In 1835 a log structure near the corner of Fifth and Lookout Sts, served this area as schoolhouse, church, and community center. Community leaders met here in 1838 and selected "Chattanooga" as the name for the Future city. The official act was passed by the Tennessee General Assembly on Dec. 20, 1839.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bessie Smith Cultural Center — 0.4 mi
  Chattanooga's African American museum and performance hall on the old Ninth Street, named for the Empress of the Blues, who started out singing for change on that same street.
• Tennessee Aquarium — 0.4 mi
  A river-themed aquarium that opened on May 1, 1992, on the Chattanooga bank where John Ross kept a trading post, tracing a raindrop from the Appalachians to the Gulf.
• Walnut Street Bridge — 0.5 mi
  An 1890 truss bridge now open to walkers, and the place where Alfred Blount in 1893 and Ed Johnson in 1906 were lynched, the case that led to the Supreme Court's only criminal trial.
• Ross's Landing — 0.6 mi
  The Tennessee River landing where Chattanooga began and where Muscogee (Creek) and Cherokee people were put on boats and ferried out in 1837 and 1838.

More markers nearby

• Abby Crawford Milton — 0.2 mi
• Ernest Walter Holmes, Sr. — 0.2 mi
• William "Uncle Bill" Lewis — 0.3 mi
• First Coca-Cola Bottling Company in the United States — 0.3 mi