The McCallie School

The school grew from a gift of farmland on Missionary Ridge's western slope. It opened on September 21, 1905, with eight teachers and 48 students, and has since sent leaders into public life, among them Ted Turner, Howard Baker Jr. and William Brock. It was the first school in Tennessee to take up organized competition in lacrosse, rowing and water polo. Since 1985 it has run a coordinate program with Girls Preparatory School, with students swapping classes and sharing social events. The school takes boys in grades seven through twelve, day and boarding.

What the plaque says

The McCallie School A boarding and day school preparing more than 6,300 boys for college in its first 75 years. McCallie was established on this former Missionary Ridge battlefield in 1905. The founder, the Rev. Thomas Hooke McCallie, Civil War pastor of First Presbyterian Church, gave the land to his sons, Prof. Spencer Jarnagin McCallie and Dr. James Park McCallie co-headmasters for 42 years. They were followed by their sons who continued to make McCallie a respected name in independent education.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bessie Smith Cultural Center — 2.8 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.
• Walnut Street Bridge — 3.3 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.
• Tennessee Aquarium — 3.4 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.
• Ross's Landing — 3.6 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

• Mary Walker — 1.6 mi
• Joe Engel — 1.9 mi
• Roland Hayes — 2.0 mi
• Bessie Smith — 2.2 mi