ChattMag Conversations
Shelley Andrews is the executive director of the Friends of Moccasin Bend National Park, a nonprofit organization formed to protect and further the park's land and history. Recently, the organization chose a site for a future interpretive center at the park.

Q: Tell me about the progress at Moccasin Bend.

A: We are at the end of a national park process called the Development Process Plan, and it was funded by the federal government. It is a process that the park service has to go through when ever they have new construction, like our new interpretive center. There’s been opportunity for public input, tribal input from federally recognized tribes with cultural affiliation to Moccasin Bend, and of course agency and National Park Service input, for the last few years.

We know exactly where the site will be and the piece of property where the interpretive center will be located. In the next two months,the final step in this will designate exactly how large and what sort of interpretive center we’re going to have. So we don’t have any renderings, we don’t have any drawings yet.

Q: So what comes next?

A: There are several alternatives. At the end of this DCP process, one of these alternatives is going to be chosen. This is done according to the formulas for every national park project. They always have one alternative in which nothing happens. Another one is that nothing new happens. Then the next alternative is to have federal funding on federal land and nothing else. Alternatives C and D [the last two of the five alternatives] are where there is the infusion of privately raised funds that the Friends of Moccasin Bend would help raise, and this would be an expanded experience for the visitor.

Q: Could you mention some of the things that make this expanded plan better or more desirable?

A: It would be larger, to begin with, and it would have expanded interpretive or museum space. It would have expanded sales areas. It could be educational. If it’s on private property, it could be beyond educational. We could have a gallery of Southeast Native American artwork or that sort of thing. The National Park Service doesn’t tend to do that. We could offer something like a restaurant that the National Park Service wouldn’t. We might be able to build more multi-purpose space that could accommodate conferences, school trips, maybe overnight educational experiences, which a basic visitor’s center for a park service wouldn’t have. It’s those kind of special additions that the Friends of Moccasin Bend could make possible.

Q: How much are you planning to raise?

A: It’s quite likely that we’ll get about $5 million appropriated from the federal government for the federal portion of whatever is going to go out there. Our goal is to raise another $5 million to $20 million.

We had thought we were going to go for around $15 million.We had a feasibility study done that had consultants come from Pennsylvania and interview potential donors and supporters of the project, but this was all completed in November, and since November the economy has tanked, so we’re not really sure how reliable that information is. So a consultant is coming back this month to meet with the parks and our board to kind of hammer that out.

Q: Do you know what time frame you’re looking at?

A: I think three to five years is reasonable for the interpretive center. If we were to start right away and not have any problems with money or environmental problems, I think it would probably be a couple years’ time to get the thing built. It still has to be designed and constructed.

Q: How can people now get involved with the parks?

A: If they have any ideas about what they’d like to see on Moccasin Bend in particular, but any place in our parks, they can go to the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park site and there will be a link to send an email and express their ideas online.

If they’re interested in continuing to receive info about what’s going on, they can get in touch with the Friends of Moccasin Bend, and we’ll put them on our mailing list and they’ll get newsletters

In early April, we had a volunteer day in the park, both at the battlefield and at Moccasin Bend. Volunteers from all over, from schools,from the community and different organizations, came to the park and worked for three hours. On Moccasin Bend it was removing tires that had been discarded, so it’s cleaning up the park to get it ready for public access. Those opportunities happen fairly frequently. There is a volunteer coordinator that the park service has, Patrice Hobbs Glass, and people can contact her for more information.

Q: You’re part of the EnviroLink Speaker’s Bureau. What do you offer as part of that?

A: I could speak about the status of the new parks development,and opportunity for involvement in the new park. That status changes, so there are groups that I might talk to one year, and the next year, everything is different and they might be interested in hearing updates and new opportunities for them.

Some people are interested in stream bank stabilization, so I could talk about how the National Park Service is partnering with the army corps of engineers and stabilizing the riverbank around Moccasin Bend, it’s about 6 or 7 miles of eroding bank.

I can also talk about some of how the National Park Service has some very serious sustainability goals, objectives and policies. Anything we build or construct out there would probably be a model of good environmental practices.

One of the things I’ve spoken to gardeners about is, they’re interested in things that are growing out there, and we have a lot of what are called invasive exotics growing out there, like mimosas, which are not indigenous. The worst problem we have in the parks is privet, which any gardener recognizes.

I could talk about wildlife. I can visit with people and talk with them about the historical resources. We’re a cultural and historic unit of the park – our legislation establishes Moccasin Bend as an archaeological district because of 12,000 years of human history, and the story of the trail of tears, and the Civil War.

See the whole story on the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park in the March/April issue of Chattanooga Magazine.