Monday, November 04, 2013

Native Americans, Veterans Day, and Thanksgiving: November is a busy celebratory month!

Native American Book Display
Currently on display in the library are Native American books to help celebrate Native American Heritage Month.

A Native American guide was created to provide information and links about Native American books, articles, library videos, YouTube video of the Take Over of Alcatraz Island, and a link to the TVA documentation in 1936. Read the guide at http://libguides.chattanoogastate.edu/nativeamericans

When TVA surveyed the land around the Tennessee River that would become covered by the waters of Chickamauga Lake, the agency sent out professional teams to document Native American villages.  Among the documentation were burial mounds.  One mound, the "Hixon Mound," was located south of present day Dallas Bay.  The images in the collection showed how this mound looked before excavation. The "Hixon Mound" is now inundated by the Lake.

Celebrate our Native American history here in Chattanooga. For example, this year is the 175th Anniversary of the Trail of Tears. Recently, the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park celebrated the opening of the Brown's Ferry Federal Road. This rediscovered .6 mile road trace was the route to the Brown's Ferry river crossing on Moccasin Bend during the forced removal of Cherokee and Creek Indians to Indian Territory (Trail of Tears). The road trace has been cleared of vegetation. Interpretive signs have been placed along this route. http://www.nps.gov/chch/planyourvisit/browns-ferry-federal-road-dedication.htm


Picture of the "Hixon Mound" from 1936 before Chickamauga Lake was built.
WPA/TVA Archives, presented courtesy of Frank H. McClung Museum, The University of Tennessee
 DDH

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