Chattanooga Chills
Way Of The Ray
1999.
'Chattanooga Chills'
By RUSSELL DEAN NEWMAN
Staff Writer
Legend has it that as the 1952 Buick Roadmaster raced through the
darkness toward Dayton, Tenn, its headlights found the curves too late.
The driver jerked the wheel left, locking his right hip to the seat,
then jerked the wheel right. The Buick left the road at over 100 mph.
The driver squeezed the wheel as a power pole shattered the windshield.
The impact took off his head.
He was found with his hands still gripping the wheel.
Forty-six years later, several people say that Roadmaster can still be
seen driving in and out of Dayton's city cemetery.
Frank Riddle and Mark Fults have seen the Roadmaster. The Chattanooga
men will tell the full story about the ghost and his car in their
upcoming book, "Chattanooga Chills and other Tales of the Supernatural."
Combining history, hauntings and urban legends, Mr. Riddle and Mr. Fults
have selected ghost stories from around the region, some well-known and
others just discovered. Stories will include corroborations from several
witnesses, and some will even have photographs.
"Chattanooga has been a very sacred place for a long time," said Mr.
Fults, an artist. "It was always a gathering place for American Indians,
but researchers have written that it was taboo to live here because of
the holy ground and burial mounds."
Longtime residents may recognize stories like the one about Little
Margie, who so haunted a Brainerd Road Ruby Tuesday restaurant that the
building was eventually torn down. Or the Lady of the Lake, who lives in
the lake near Greenwood Cemetery. One of the most famous, the Read House
ghost, is a benign spirit of a woman who died in Room 311. Some versions
of the story say she was murdered; others say it was suicide.
"Anna Lisa didn't die the way everybody thinks," said Mr. Riddle, a
contractor and restoration specialist. "It wasn't nearly as tragic or
dramatic as people think. Like all stories, it got more interesting the
more it was told."
Mr. Riddle's interest in the supernatural began in 1992 when he moved
his family into a 100-year-old house in the Fort Wood district, an area
near the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga used as a burial site
during the Civil War.
Before long, strange happenings were afoot.
On one occasion, Mr. Riddle was sick in bed with the flu. He was alone
in the house, resting in an upstairs bedroom.
"I heard the front door open and close," he said. "Then somebody started
up the stairs, and I kept looking into the hallway for them to appear."
Mr. Riddle got out of bed and checked the hallway and the house. He was
still alone.
That incident prompted Mr. Riddle to research the house's history.
"In the 1930s, a man living here collapsed on the stairs from a stroke
and died," Mr. Riddle said. "Later, I found that the house was once
owned by a man named Riddle.
"I met one of his relatives one day. It turned out that we were both
restoring old houses and driving GMC trucks with 124,000 miles on them,"
he said.
As he continued his research, Mr. Riddle learned the history of Fort
Wood and more stories about Chattanooga's legends, including American
Indian spirits allegedly seen at Wheland Foundry, haunted buildings at
UTC, including the recently demolished math building, and hauntings in
other Fort Wood homes, including the one Mr. Fults occupies.
"Some spirits don't want to go on to the other side," Mr. Fults said.
"They're lazy or they like their homes or maybe they don't like the
people living there. Each place has a different story at its center,
whether it's a house, a cemetery or a car."
The book will attempt to explain many of its stories from a scientific
as well as spiritual viewpoint.
"I'm an engineer," Mr. Riddle said, "and I look for the science behind
things like spirits. I think there's sometimes enough electrical energy
at death that it can transform itself into objects. That's what I think
is fascinating."
"Chattanooga Chills and other Tales of the Supernatural" will also
contain stories from Signal Mountain, Cleveland, North Georgia and
Atlanta. Mr. Riddle plans to finish the book before the end of the year.
Anyone interested in offering other local stories or personal
experiences can write to Ghostwriters Inc., P.O. Box 11453, Chattanooga,
TN 37401.
Jessica Kohler
definitely check this out!
Jess
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