Minor details on well-known downtown Chattanooga buildings have stories all their own Krista Seckinger, co-owner of Chattanooga Sidewalk Tours, tells those she tours with.
One example is a Star of David engraved into the structure of the Dome Building that illuminates the heritage of New York Times and Chattanooga Times owner Adolph Ochs whose office once resided at this location. Another is the face of Andrew Jackson that is overlooked almost everyday from where he gazes out from his position over the doors of the Volunteer Building.
These are just a couple of the items that Seckinger illuminates as she takes her tour groups on the “Dynamo of Dixie” tour, the counterpart to her company’s “Bridges and Bluffs” tour. Chattanooga Sidewalk Tours is an endeavor that Seckinger began with business partner and former teacher, Carlton Thomas, after several years teaching and a few years as an attorney.
Seckinger grew up in a town called Rincon outside of Savannah, Ga. She attended Georgia College as an English Major and upon graduation applied to the University of Georgia law school. After graduation, she took a job as the assistant district attorney with the child support and recovery unit at the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit.
After two years, Seckinger realized law was not a good fit for her personality. She realized she enjoyed teaching while she was a teaching assistant in the business school at the University of Georgia during law school. Seckinger made the switch to teaching and was offered a position in English and as an assistant basketball coach at Rossville High School in 1985.
“For most of my teaching career, I loved teaching but around year 20 I could tell I was losing my passion and I had promised myself if I could, not to stick with something I didn’t have a passion for anymore,” Seckinger says.
She took what she calls a “jubilee year” to see what she wanted to do next, but at this time the economy went south and a lot of her opportunities dried up. It was around January of this year that she and Thomas, whom she had taught with at Rossville High School in the ’80s, began to discuss the idea that would become Chattanooga Sidewalk Tours.
The pair both liked to travel and volunteered as tour guides for the Marsh House ghost and history tours. Thomas had spent the last three summers in Alaska, driving motor coach tours for Princess Cruise Line. They used these backgrounds to develop the two 90-minute tours that now exist to show tourists and locals the history and stories that exist from building to building in downtown Chattanooga.
Seckinger says, “We thought tours would be good to bring here because both of us spent a lot of time in Savannah and saw how many tours there are and that people seem to be interested. When we both travel we enjoy learning about the places we visit and we would take a tour like that just to find out about the background.”
She says they felt that local people would be interested as well in these tours.
“They know some [history,] but usually you don’t spend time learning about your city... You drive past these buildings and don’t even think about them,” she says. “I’ve taken friends that are native Chattanoogans [on a tour] and they say now they see the city differently.”
Seckinger says that leading a tour is very much like teaching, from sharing the information to also trying to make it interesting. In putting together the company, Thomas and Seckinger realized there was too much to cover in one tour and therefore have come up with the two initial tours that can be tailored to individual group needs or desires.
“They both have a totally different feel to them,” Seckinger says. “[Dynamo of Dixie] is chock full of information because you are standing in front of so many things you can talk about. [In the Bridges and Bluffs tour,] you are pointing them out and then trying to weave together the whole story of the river and the railroad.”
In July, Chattanooga Side-walk Tours is taking a group of middle school teachers on tour with an emphasis added to Civil war History and the Cherokee Indians. Seckinger says they hope to do field trips for schools to supplement the places they visit downtown, and being former teachers, they know how to tailor a tour to the standards that teachers want to emphasize.
From the mysterious squirrels engraved on the Volunteer Building to the stretch of downtown that was once owned by the state of Georgia, Seckinger’s tours have stories to delight and surprise tourists and locals alike.
For more information on the tour schedule, rates and other details, visit www.chattanoogasidewalktours.com.