How North Chattanooga Began

                                        Captain Samuel Josiah Abner Frazier

    The suburb appropriately named Hill City is situated on the picturesque ground of North Chattanooga. At the turn of the twentieth century only two or three hundred people constituted the population with only a house here and there. Hill City is ideally located for healthy living. From its pure air, from the mountains to its many hills ideal for climbing. From here there stretches all around a panorama of rare beauty. From the hills here during the great war could be seen tents and forts erected along the river in the town below.

    Captain Frazier bought seventy acres of mostly timber lands from the Cowart Family. He moved into the two story Cowart home called "the Cedars".  Frazier subdivided his property calling it "Hill City". The street in front of his home he named Frazier Ave. and another road going over the hill he named Forest Ave.

    Other early Hill City settlers were Dr. R.W. Colville of Rhea County who developed a number of tracts on what is now called Colville St., James Smith Bell  was the son in law of Samuel Williams and a school commissioner for which  Bell Ave. was named for and attorney Robert McKinney Barton Jr. who practiced law in Chattanooga who lent his name to Barton Ave. Other settlers were engineer F.T. Hampton, Dr. Y.L. Abernathy and Charles E. Stivers all with streets named in their honor. 

    Up to the time of the completion of the new bridge at Walnut St. people were transported across the river by horse, swing and steam ferries. The swing ferry was operated by means of a wire cable fastened to the Williams island. The present bridge was completed in 1891 at a price of $233,697. Twenty five thousand of that was donated by residents of Hill City.

    From the time the old wooden bridge washed away in 1867 until the new bridge opened in 1891 Abe Beason's ferry was the best way to cross the river. Abe was married to Penelope Stringer (of Stringer's Ridge) and they lived near the site of the old Loft Restaurant. Abe would later become a Constable in 1842 and was a Deputy Sheriff for thirteen years before opening a grocery store.

     It requires no prophet's eye to read the future of this splendid neighborhood. Hill City has forged to the front. We dare not hesitate to say that if two hundred new houses were built at this time that they would be occupied in less than thirty days.

    In 1999 when Charles Coolidge Park was completed and opened it sparked a major renovation for the North Shore. The once laid back Frazier Ave. and river front is now busy growing and being more popular than any one person could have ever imagined possible.

    Today Hill City is named North Chattanooga also referred to as North River, North-side or the North Shore yet, the city to the North will always be the city of hills.