Cover Story: Journey to the land that time forgot

Chattanooga, Tenn., just two hours from Atlanta, bills itself as the “Gateway to the South.” But for my money, it is the gateway to nostalgia and some of the most exquisitely old-school entertainments as you’re likely to see in an American city these days.

In fact, Chattanooga has an astoundingly high concentration of retro attractions, many of them built during the Depression and that capitalize on the area’s twin obsessions: railroads and scenic mountains.

You couldn’t swing a plastic back scratcher in Chattanooga without hitting something homespun to harken back to summers of yore in this town that also hosts the headquarters of the holy trinity of 20th-century Southern junk food: Krystal hamburgers, MoonPies and the trans-fat splendor of Little Debbie snack cakes.

You could squeeze a good share of Chattanooga’s adorably old-school attractions into a day, but if you really want to boogie down with the sorghum pace and go native, then an overnight stay at the Chattanooga Choo Choo Holiday Inn (1400 Market St., 423-266-5000), situated in a 1908 train depot, is a must.

In keeping with Chattanooga’s train fetish, some of the guest rooms at the Choo Choo are actual stationary sleeper train cars. There is also a vintage dining car where you can eat a steak dinner and pretend you are living in the age of fedoras and big-band music instead of OxyContin and Paris Hilton. Also on site is an epic Chattanooga Choo Choo Model Railroad Museum, for the kind of closet control freaks who get giddy when they can loom over a world shrunken down to mouse size.

For fans of life-size thrills, there is no lack of fun in these retro-rific attractions.

Rock City Gardens

1400 Patten Road, Lookout Mountain, Ga. 8:30 a.m.-8 p.m., May 28-Sept. 5. 800-854-0675. www.seerockcity.com.

Never has an advertising campaign felt so justified. Every goading red barn, bird house, billboard and bumper sticker imploring you to visit this attraction should — indeed, must — be obeyed.

The man behind Rock City, Garnet Carter, had a great amusement pedigree, credited with inventing one of the most divinely retro pleasures of all, Tom Thumb Miniature Golf, which later grew to a franchise of thousands of mini-golf businesses around the country.

Opened by Garnet and his wife, Frieda Carter, in May 1932, Rock City clings to the kind of vintage charm that is becoming an endangered species in the South. The Depression-era simplicity and aesthetic still cling to this park carved into the side of Lookout Mountain. There are magnificent views of seven states, and near the base of the mountain lies a freshly minted subdivision to jolt you out of a retro-fugue into the here and now.

The childish of every age will be thrilled to take a leisurely stroll through the beautiful, peaceful Rock City gardens, featuring 400 varieties of plant life, a pit of White Fallow Deer relaxing in the summer sun, and the old-fashioned metal signs indicating important “landmarks” like “Fat Man’s Squeeze,” “Swing-A-Long-Bridge” and “Goblin’s Underpass.” Even the trash bins are cute, housed in stone covers like tissue boxes with crochet koozies.

The whimsical stroll culminates in the psychedelically kitsch experience of the Fairyland Caverns, added in 1947 and created by Atlanta sculptor Jessie Schmidt, a spectacle that somehow channels both golly-gee innocence and head shop. The cavern interiors are encrusted with coral and crystals, and black lit, glow-in-the-dark miniature fairy tale tableaux from “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Snow White” and “Humpty Dumpty” all doing their thing.

If Rock City does not touch some gooey kid-center deep inside your hardened adult shell, you have officially lost your soul and your only recourse is to buy one of the hilariously goth bumper stickers in the gift shop declaring in white on black lettering: I SAW ROCK CITY.

Ruby Falls

1720 S. Scenic Highway, Chattanooga. 8 a.m.-8 p.m., year-round (except Christmas Day). 423-821-2544. www.rubyfalls.com.

What was it with all those Chattanoogans boring their little jackhammers into every crevice and cranny?

A city whose name translates from the Cherokee “rock coming to a point” has made good use of its craggy gifts. The Depression didn’t appear to dampen the spirits of the men of Chattanooga, certainly not Leo Lambert, the spelunking entrepreneur who poked his pick ax into Lookout Mountain, belly-crawled through its depths for 17 hours and was rewarded for his efforts with an underground Niagara that he dubbed “Ruby” after his wife.

Sunlight junkies will love Rock City, but gloomy shut-in types who like to watch “Days of Our Lives” with the shades drawn will dig the subterranean thrills of this 145-foot underground waterfall that opened in June 1930. It can only be reached by first enduring the Borscht Belt yuks of your companion tour guide, in our case a dead-ringer for Steve Buscemi save for his Tennessee twang.

Like nearly every attraction in Chattanooga, some of Ruby Falls’ bells and whistles are deliciously stuck in the past. There are myriad jokes about a rock shaped like “the north end of a south-bound donkey,” “Weight Watchers” passes and rocks that look like fish, angels, bacon and a potato chip — although, sadly, no Jesus or Elvis.

The cave depths, reached via glass elevator with a view of the layers of rock strata, feels, despite your fellow tourists in fanny packs, sort of like a Bugs Bunny cartoon rendition of a trip to Hades.

Making your way back above ground, the teenage elevator operator who ferries us back up from the Earth’s core humorously karaokes to the recorded voice ending our journey, adding his own sassy anti-consumer send off: “And buy our stuff!”

Lake Winnepesaukah Amusement Park

Rossville, Ga. April-September, hours vary. 877-LAKE-WIN. www.lakewinnie.com.

If you need a respite from the rampant entitlement of Atlanta’s SUV-driving elites, you might want to regain your faith in America’s working-class values by skedaddling to the blue-collar paradise, Lake Winnepesaukah, an old-time amusement park family-run since 1925 that still retains the character of a Southern country fair. The park’s centerpiece is a lake filled with giant carp and bobbing paddle boats.

“Have fun. Stay out there as long as you want to,” the friendly teenage attendant smiles as we board the boats for a midday paddle. Unlike the corporate carnies at bigger amusement parks, there is a friendly, familial atmosphere at “Lake Winnie,” as the locals call it. The staff is unflaggingly pleasant and chipper despite hours logged in the blazing sun.

“You sure you don’t want to drive?” another friendly teenager, who operates the antique car ride, teases a reluctant 5-year-old. “You don’t get your license until you’re 16. This will be your only chance until then.”

The crowd is just as sweet, restoring your faith in the good heartedness of a working class that has been otherwise vilified in our upwardly mobile culture. The country-fried crowd with thick-as-Texas-toast accents is filled with giddy kids, teenage parents, babies drinking Coke from bottles, and a lanky man in Johnny Cash black with a stuffed parrot on his shoulder.

Beyond the park’s general lost-in-time vibe, Lake Winnie boasts several genuinely retro thrills, including a carousel in a wooded corner of the park created in 1916 by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, which also created Lake Winnie’s still functioning Cannon Ball wooden roller coaster. Before it was transported to Lake Winnie in 1967, the carousel was located at Lakewood Park in Atlanta.

Bea’s Restaurant

4500 Dodds Ave., Chattanooga. Wed.-Sun., 11 a.m.-8 p.m. 423-867-3618.

Some of Chattanooga’s classic eat-o-toriums have either met with the wrecking ball or the wages of time that tucker out their owners. The gloriously glam meat-and-three classic — the North Chattanooga Town and Country Restaurant — with its “seasoned citizens,” ornate neon sign, and organ player orchestrating its evening starch fests is, sadly, no longer.

Thank goodness, then, for Bea’s, which has remained a fixture on Chattanooga’s old-timey dining scene. Even if your memories of farmhouse dinners with a table full of farmhands in overalls with their straw hats on a hook at the door are just hazy fantasies crafted from too many childhood afternoons spent watching “The Waltons,” everyone can feel that old-timey frisson at Bea’s, where $9.50 will buy you an all-you-can-eat dinner that will rock your meat-and-three world.

Crowds still snake out of the restaurant and into the long hallway on weekend nights, waiting for the ultimate Southern comfort food. Dinner is served family-style on Lazy Susan tabletops that spin an ever-changing circuit party of deliciously carb-laden food to the strangers who sit down to sup together.

Friday is catfish night and highly recommended. But that lowdown fish is sharing the spotlight with platters of fried chicken, barbecue, pinto beans, coleslaw, boiled whole potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and apple cobbler. Like dinner in a farmhouse kitchen, no condiment has been overlooked; the spread also includes chopped onions, chow chow, Real Lemon, Louisiana hot sauce, sport peppers and ketchup.

The clientele is so pure, small Southern town, diners will have to pinch themselves as a reminder that they are not on the To Kill a Mockingbird back lot. There is a rack for baseball caps, but most patrons fail to take the hint and eat how they are most comfortable, thus enhancing the family-style mood. The interior is rec room Americana deluxe: dropped ceilings, fluorescent lights, fake wood paneling and the soothing shuffle of waitresses in nurse-like white uniforms and orthopedic shoes, like culinary Florence Nightingales ministering to the famished. Our waitress has been working at Bea’s for 17 years. She adds ruefully, “Too long to do anything else.”

The old-school Southern hierarchy is also visible in the kitchen; the staff of black male cooks can be glimpsed via a pass-through door as they deliver bowls heaped with food to the waitstaff. A grinning man with a Kenny Rogers snowy beard seated at the cash register schmoozes with regulars. He tells me the restaurant was opened in May 1950 by his grandmother Beatrice — “Bea,” he helpfully clarifies. Now he runs it with his two brothers. “But I do all the work!” he laughs. “Come back and see us.”

Lookout Mountain Incline Railway

3917 St. Elmo Ave., Chattanooga. Summer hours, Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend, 8:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m. 423-821-4224. www.carta-bus.org/attractions/Incline_info.asp.

Thrills come slow and easy in Chattanooga, like the slow crawl of the Incline Railway (established in 1895) up its track on “America’s Most Amazing Mile.”

If tourism is about experiencing life anew in fresh surroundings, a ride up Chattanooga’s Incline, like every other feature of modern life, has been deformed by the incursion of the cell phone. On the way down during my trip, a tourist with a Rust Belt accent offered a play-by-play of the Incline’s descent in the 21st-century version of forcing a vacation slideshow on helpless friends. “Guess where we are?” said the man. “We’re in Tennessee. We’re on the top of Lookout Mountain! We’re just about to go down the hill!”

Again with the mountain-fetish, the Incline’s lazy person’s extreme climb is a kind of grounded cable car that travels a 72.7 percent grade up Lookout Mountain, making it the steepest passenger railway in the world. The 20-minute ride from the base at St. Elmo is a great chance to peek into the houses that line the track and feel the shift in the air from still and steamy to breezy and cool.

At the top of the mountain, you can visit Doppelganger versions of the snack bars and souvenir shop seen on the lowland side. Or you can saunter outside for more rubbernecking at the preppie estates that house the city’s elite, and visit a park that commemorates the November 1863 Civil War Battle of Lookout Mountain (“Battle Above the Clouds”) and offers breathtaking views of the Tennessee Valley.

Resentful Marxists will take petty pleasure in the elite neighborhood’s tourist trap, right across the street from its grand estates. The Battles for Chattanooga Electric Map and Museum (formerly Confederama, a Confederate-friendly emporium originally built at the base of Lookout in 1957) features a gift shop where images of the Confederate flag can be savored on shot glasses, coffee mugs and sippy cups the size of a butane gas tank. Many consider the Civil War battles fought in Chattanooga to signal the beginning of the end for the Rebs. Perhaps that explains this excessive temple to lost causes at the highest point in the city.

Sir Goony’s Family Fun Center

5918 Brainerd Road, Chattanooga. 423-892-5922. www.sirgoonys.com.

Nestled between the depressing vacuity of the New South in a parking lot that boasts a Hooters on one side and a Big Lots on the other are two 18-hole miniature golf course holdovers from the ’60s. Their moderately dilapidated concrete orange dinosaurs, octopi and windmills, cavemen, gunk-clogged hazards and about-to-strike giant snakes all look rendered by the patients at a therapeutic craft session.

The staff is more than a little harried from a day spent filling paper boats with anemic chips and glowing nacho cheese, and the inside lobby is a generic arcade of electronic pings and pongs. But it’s hard to beat the rundown beach town ambiance and the countless posted warnings that forbid vandalization. Now who would want to hurt a giant snake?

??Chattanooga now??City’s new downtown is as appealing as its old-time thrills?
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Like many American cities with dying downtowns, a combination of pollution, racial tension, and industrial, urban blight meant a neglected cityscape. Chattanooga’s notorious air pollution put it at the top of the nation’s most polluted list in 1969.

Tourists still flocked to Chattanooga for its kitschy attractions perched in the picturesque mountains above, but avoided downtown, where textile mills and factories had once dumped industrial waste into the Tennessee River. In 1985, Chattanooga undertook an ambitious 20-year, $900 million project that has since become a model for other cities launching their own redevelopment efforts.

Private and public funds helped create Chattanooga’s Vision 2000, a plan meant to turn the city’s downward spiral around. The anchor and catalyst for the downtown revitalization was the construction of what is still the world’s largest freshwater aquarium, the $45 million Tennessee Aquarium, which debuted in 1992 and celebrates the primacy of the nearby Tennessee River. In 2005, the aquarium added a $30 million saltwater expansion as an effort to stem the anticipated flow of tourists to Atlanta’s newly minted Georgia Aquarium.

Also key to the city’s progressive, pedestrian-friendly vibe was the restoration of the Walnut Street bridge, initially slated for demolition until outcry from local preservationists saved it. The bridge was incorporated into the city’s redevelopment plan and transformed into the world’s longest pedestrian bridge. A focal point in the city’s inviting urban walkability, the bridge links the aquarium and the Hunter Museum of American Art on one side to funky North Chattanooga across the river — a strip of cool mom-and-pop retail, hip tattoo shops and restaurants and coffee shops lining Frazier Avenue.

In 2001, the city began the final phase of its redevelopment with the $120 million 21st Century Waterfront Project. The project included the $19.5 million renovation of the Hunter Museum, a startling post-modern addition to the original 1905 mansion.

The payoff for the city has been huge. Chattanooga has significantly expanded its status as a tourism mecca, become a new urbanism model for other cities, and inspired Outside magazine in 2001 to name Chattanooga one of its “10 Dream Towns.”