And that's just the ones that were scheduled. "I had 636 students supposed to come in March, April and May," said Hannah Sher, director of education. All of the center's introductory programming was canceled, including dozens of field trips meant to expose area schoolchildren to the character traits embodied by the medal and its recipients, part of the facility's core mission. Going dark for more than three months, three weeks in, was a rough initiation. His is among countless stories told in the center, which commemorates the more than 3,500 Medal of Honor recipients from the Civil War to the present day. military's highest recognition for valor in combat. 4, is one of two living World War II recipients of the medal, the U.S. Coolidge, a Signal Mountain native who turned 99 on Aug. Construction began in January 2019.Įxpectations were high when the center debuted its collection of 6,000 items and offered special recognition to its namesake. Center officials raised $4.3 million in 18 months, required by the River City Company to secure a long-term lease in the riverfront building it now occupies. "We were not a young organization, but we were a newly opened organization," Parker said of the center, which has been a project of local veterans and military historians since the 1980s and has had smaller collections housed elsewhere downtown and in Hixson. The Heritage Center was not alone in those difficult early days, but it did have the distinction of being the newcomer, barely a blip on a tourism scene in sharp decline. By April, travel spending in Tennessee was down 81%, said Barry White, president and CEO of the Chattanooga Tourism Company. Last year, the local tourism industry brought in $1.16 billion in visitor spending, but fears of COVID-19 this spring sidelined tourist attractions, forced event cancellations and emptied hotels and restaurants. Bill Lee made remarks, and blue balloons and gold confetti rained down.īut that first burst of momentum was short-lived as pandemic fears shut down nonessential businesses in mid-March, putting Chattanooga's normally dynamic spring tourism season into a tailspin. Ten Medal of Honor recipients and Pentagon brass were among the many dignitaries in attendance at the ribbon cutting.
22 with fanfare befitting both its mission and its place as the first downtown tourism draw since 2014, when High Point Climbing opened across Aquarium Way.
The 19,000-square-foot Heritage Center debuted Feb. "We had been open just three weeks when we had to close our doors to support stay-at-home order." "It's been a difficult time," said Jules Parker, director of development. Coolidge National Medal of Honor Heritage Center is six months into its long-awaited move into prime downtown real estate near the Tennessee Aquarium.Īccording to the coronavirus, only three of those months may count. According to the calendar, the Charles H.
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