As we get closer to Halloween, I always enjoy learning about spooky and alleged haunted locations. Chattanooga has plenty of spooky spots I’ve written about. (You can find those stories here and here.)
But in nearby South Pittsburg there is a spot, right in the heart of the downtown district, where visitors claim to see apparitions and here eerie sounds. This spot is hardly mentioned by the locals who live there. For far too long they’ve tried to bury the bloody massacre that happened on Christmas night in 1927. Plenty of people have sensed something in a particular spot and this story not only made national news, but it was also featured in an episode of Most Terrifying Places in America.
According to old newspaper accounts from the Chattanoogan and Times Free Press and based on a 2004 Tennessee Historical Quarterly article written by Dr. Barbara S. Haskew and Dr. Robert B. Jones III., both formerly of Middle Tennessee State University, tensions here brewed until it erupted in gun fire and death.
The Perry Stove Company employed many South Pittsburg residents and the workers were highly unionized. The company was bought by H. Wetter in the 1920’s and named H. Wetter Manufacturing Company. Wetter wanted to bust the union and as union workers fought back the tension kept rising. Wetter shut the company but kept a small non-union group of workers employed. He placed a barb wired fence around the facility to keep union workers out…