A few months before the Chickamauga Dam was completed in 1940, its
historical name, with so much beauty and clear, sweet music in its
pronunciation, was threatened with extinction.
Persons who were interested in preserving the original Cherokee names
became anxious over the safety of the name _Chickamauga Dam_. Through
the columns of _The Chattanooga News_ a protest was registered daily
for about a week. The beginning interview came from the historian
of the University of Chattanooga, who was strongly opposed to
changing the name to the _McReynolds’ Dam_, in honor of Chattanooga’s
Congressman. On succeeding days, similar protests were published
from Chattanooga’s leading citizens, each of them giving logical
reasons for the retention of the name _Chickamauga_. At the close of
the series of interviews the public had been thoroughly awakened to
the importance of holding on to this beautiful historical name which
had been given to some of this region’s loveliest streams by its
aborigines. Irvin Cobb once declared that the word _Chattanooga_ was
the most beautiful of any word he knew in the English language. Could
not the well known humorist writer also have made the same assertion
about the word Chickamauga?
To climax the movement to hold on to the historical name, the
Chickamauga Chapter of the DAR of Chattanooga, at the last moment
when the bill was up for its final reading, the members voted
unanimously for the retention of the name Chickamauga. When
Congressman S. D. McReynolds received notice of its action, he
withdrew his name, and the name _Chickamauga Dam_ was thereby saved
for posterity.
[Illustration: Old Grist Mill at Brainerd Mission as seen from
Chickamauga Town.]