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Ten thousand years ago, Native Americans lived and prospered along the banks of the Tennessee River. With its later occupation by the Chickamauga Cherokees and by Union military forces in the 19th Century, the Moccasin Bend was recognized as a site of such historical significance that as early as the 1920s Chattanooga Times owner Adolph Ochs was calling for the area to be secured as a national park.

After much maneuvering in Washington, the state signed a letter of intent in October to transfer 220 acres to the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. Now, through the efforts of leaders from the state, the city of Chattanooga and Hamilton County and a significant push from U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, plans are taking shape to build a $30 million museum and educational center at the entrance to the park and to protect the numerous valuable archeological sites on Moccasin Bend.

While the idea of a national park emphasizing Native American heritage is not new, an ultimately 800-acre archeological and educational area across from downtown has the obvious potential to inject new tourist vigor into an area already noted for its family attractions. Early plans for the museum and a Trail of Tears Interpretive Center—on land bought from businessman Pete Serodin for $1.15 million—would make the center visible from the Tennessee Aquarium, the hub of Chattanooga’s growing tourism efforts.

City of Chattanooga officials say the average stay for visitors to the area is 2.5 days. The addition of the Interpretive Center could lengthen a visit to Chatta- nooga by at least a half-day, enough to persuade day-trippers to stay overnight. The tourism potential of similar centers is best demonstrated by the Red Earth Museum in Oklahoma City, which draws more than 300,000 visitors a year for its collection of Native American artifacts and art; a few blocks away, a new American Indian Cultural Center is under construction on 600 acres donated by the city.

Late last year, Congress appropriated $400,000 for a development concept plan for the Moccasin Bend project, which Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker terms “an important and distinctive asset.” Implementation could take as long as a year and will begin with a series of public meetings giving opportunities for input from interested parties, including Native Americans. Native American leaders initially wanted Moccasin Bend ceded back to the Cherokees because of the significant presence of Native American burial sites, but they mostly have come to accept the prospect of a national park and museum. They surely will be even more comfortable if Chattanoogan Harley Grant, a former chairman of the Tennessee Commission on Indian Affairs, is correct in expecting the center to induce private collectors and museums to return many artifacts taken from archeological sites on Moccasin Bend.

Archeological studies funded by the nonprofit Friends of Moccasin Bend National Park have found evidence that several groups of Cherokees set out from an assembly point at Ross’s Landing in downtown Chattanooga in 1838 during their forced exodus to the West, and some of these groups of Cherokees went across Moccasin Bend as they began their “Trail of Tears.”

Today, Shelley Andrews, executive director of Friends of Moccasin Bend National Park, says the Aquarium is very supportive of proposals to make a spot beside it on Ross’s Landing a dock for water taxis shuttling visitors to the entrance of national park. No doubt those trips will make a joyous contrast to the exodus there 167 years earlier.