‘One of the last little small towns”: Cohutta celebrates 50 years as a town

Published 9:00 am Saturday, April 6, 2019

Editor’s note: This article appears in the Daily Citizen-News 2019 Progress edition. Pick up your copy at our office at 308 S. Thornton Ave.

The slogan goes “Ain’t no place like Cohutta.”

And that’s just fine by those that live there. They wouldn’t have it any other way. The annual street dance and the Fourth of July celebration and fireworks have become community events which draw visitors and the locals. While the town has seen more bustling days and it is now more of a rural bedroom community, it still has a certain charm that draws people.

“I think Cohutta holds something a lot of people are searching for,” Mayor Ron Shinnick said. “Something a little simpler, quieter. We have kept that small-town charm and we have seen a lot more home building going on in Cohutta, and some of the older homes have been renovated and restored. I think people come here because they can walk down the street, ride your bike down the road …The future is really bright for Cohutta.”

Police Chief Ray Grossman said the “everybody-knows-your-name” feel of the community is present every day.

“Some of the people in this community, I know their grandparents and I know their grandkids,” Grossman said. “There are even some great-grandparents I know. It is truly one of the last little small towns. We have Christmas caroling in the park. We have a wonderful Fourth of July celebration and we have people involved in the community.

“Probably one of the best decisions I ever made was coming up here in 2006,” he said. “It is a nice, small community. They have a little downtown area and we are expanding on that. It is a great place to live and a great place to visit too. We have a fantastic elementary school and it is a great little community.”

On April 27, the town will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its founding. Plans for the celebration include a parade, an official proclamation from the state Senate and House of Representatives, recognition of citizens and the annual Ruritan Club Chicken-Que. A full day of activities are being scheduled around historic buildings and structures, beginning with the parade at 11 a.m. and lasting until 6 p.m.

The day will be a celebration of history, and Cohutta has a rich one dating to the 1800s. It was a community which sprang up with the building of a new railroad line south of Red Clay for a more direct route from Chattanooga to Dalton. The town’s website says the area was known as “Woodyard” and “Shake Rag” before Cohutta was adopted by the residents.

In the 1900s, the town was the hub of the agricultural surroundings with a post office, hotel, blacksmith shot, auto repair shop, schools, cotton gins, street lights and public water. In 1969, area leaders established the town’s first charter, establishing the government of the area.

“Even though we are celebrating the charter, this is a community which has been around for hundreds of years and has a rich and deep history,” Shinnick said. “It really has a rich history in the north end of the county. We are getting a museum cranked up and going and we are trying to bring some stuff out for that day. We’ve had a lot of people donate stuff from old Cohutta High School.”

The high school, which was the first accredited high school in the county, burned down twice. But the school played for a state championship in basketball, and a piece of it still remains. The current town community center was originally the home economics building of the high school, and Shinnick said it is used 150 times a year for various activities and events.

Also on display will be various relics and memorabilia of the area’s deep African-American population. Andrew’s Chapel, the original African-American church which was moved from Red Clay to Cohutta by mules in 1923, is undergoing renovations.

“It needs a lot of work, but folks can ring the bell,” Shinnick said. “We’ve been able to do some really important historical stuff with it and with the original African-American school.”

Local attorney Todd Johnson has become something of the curator of Cohutta history. Johnson worked for Summerville defense attorney Bobby Lee Cook in the late 1990s and bought a building downtown in 1999. Johnson has had his practice there ever since. The building also came with a fair amount of history.

“It was partly a museum when I bought it,” Johnson said. “I started collecting things when I was there and people kept giving me their photographs. I am trying to catalog those now, and we will put a lot of it on display for the anniversary. I just sort of fell into it. Even though I didn’t grow up here, I have a fair amount of history about Cohutta.”

As for the present, city officials are hoping the expansion of sewer service will be a boon to the area and encourage more investment and building.

“The sewer line that is coming through will allow people to take risks and you have the possibility of activity downtown that hasn’t happened in years,” Johnson said. “We are losing community because we don’t have place to put people who want to downsize. It is all possibility, but there are good possibilities. Probably, the sewer will bring stuff which couldn’t exist without it. What that means is up in the air.”