from Gloria Hudson Sutton

Northside Jr. High

Remembering Chattanooga Middle School
by John Shearer
posted July 21, 2004

One of the most visible local schools – Chattanooga Middle School – recently was given a second life. Although it was initially one of the surprise casualties in the Hamilton County Schools’ budget cuts announced several days ago, a subsequent meeting by officials led to the decision to keep it open.

Located at a prominent location at Mississippi Avenue and Dallas Road, the school – which is now a museum magnet school – was known for many years as North Chattanooga, or Northside, Junior High.

Northside had opened at the site in 1931. Plans for it were officially announced in early 1927, when North Chattanooga was growing into a popular suburban community. At that time, the school was scheduled to open within a year or so.

Initially, news reports called it a high school. It was to be constructed to house 800 students, with the possibility of expanding into a larger building.

An old newspaper story from that time refers to W.H. Sears as the surpervising architect. The highly acclaimed R.H. Hunt designed a number of local schools, including the similar-looking Chattanooga High (now Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences), but no information could be found on whether he designed Chattanooga Middle with the help of Mr. Sears, or if Mr. Sears did all the work.

The school features a classic style of Gothic architecture, giving it literally and figuratively a towering appearance when viewed from the expansive grassy lawn in the front.

When the school opened, the basement-like first floor housed a library, study hall, four classrooms, boys’ and girls’ lockers, a manual training room, a drafting room, cafeteria and kitchen. The second floor featured offices, a teachers’ room, seven classrooms, an art room, and a combined auditorium and gymnasium seating 1,200.

The third floor had chemistry and general science labs, a cooking department, an exhibition dining room, a sewing room, a fitting room, a nurse’s room, and four general classrooms.

Not long after it opened, Northside became one of the more popular junior high schools in the city school system. Dr. C. Wayne Shearer taught at the school from 1955-57 and remembers students came from all over. “We had students come from Georgia,” he said. “They had to pay out of state tuition. And we had a lot come from Signal Mountain and Lookout Mountain.”

In those days, prospective teachers were interviewed by the superintendent, not a principal, so Dr. Shearer interviewed with Dr. Lawrence Derthick regarding a job there. Dr. Shearer also interviewed with superintendent Dr. Sam McConnell of the county schools, who was interested in having him teach science at Hixson High. But Dr. Shearer had just moved from Memphis and was trying to get an optometry practice started in Red Bank, so he was able to get an agreeable schedule at Northside in which he could teach English classes mostly in the morning, do lunch room duty and then head to his optometry office about 2 p.m.

Although nearly 50 years have passed since then, Dr. Shearer can still picture and hear the students in his mind. “I can hear them yet on the stairwell,” he said. “The kids would run up and down the stairs as classes changed.”

Among the students he either taught or mentored were female real estate pioneer Gloria Sutton and future county commissioner and Southeastern Conference football official George Shuford. Mr. Shuford was one of several good football players Northside had at that time, Dr. Shearer remembered.

1956 Northside graduates

The principal then was Col. Carl Gevers, a retired Army colonel from World War II. Among the fellow teachers Dr. Shearer remembers were future Brainerd High head football coach Ray Coleman, and shop teacher Don Chamberlain, whose classroom was across the first-floor hall from Dr. Shearer’s. He remembers trading a pair of eyeglasses with Mr. Chamberlain in exchange for a bookcase Mr. Chamberlain and his students made and which Dr. Shearer still has.

The art teacher was Fannie Mennen, who headed the popular Plum Nelly art show at her Lookout Mountain, Ga., home site for a number of years, while the physical education teacher was Nan Elberfeld of the “Kid” Elberfeld baseball family of Signal Mountain.

“It was known as a good school,” Dr. Shearer said. “All of the teachers demanded a lot out of the students.”

Based on the popularity of the North Chattanooga community today, one can only imagine what the school site might have become had the school closed and been sold as surplus property. The historic building might have been preserved and converted into condominiums or offices, or torn down and a new development built in its place by an enthusiastic builder.

But it will not close and be a museum to the past, but instead will continue to serve as a museum magnet school of the present and future.