We had to leave our Pullman car and continue our journey so having packed up we got in the car and set off. We had picked the scenic route as the journey between Chattanooga and Birmingham is only just over two hours but the route we took ended up being about five. We started by heading back up lookup mountain and this time we went right to the top where there are some really nice houses although they don’t have that good a view, then we descended back into Georgia where the houses were very nice and I think its my kind of state as most of the houses have fences, I find it very strange that everything is quite so open plan including the gardens, how do they know which bit of lawn they have to cut? We followed the Lookout Mountain Parkway for most of the journey as it runs to about 30 miles outside of Birmingham. We drove through the park that runs along side Little River which flows for most of its length along Lookout Mountain, it has plants that can only be found in this region and has a number of lookout points along the route. Our first stop was Little River Falls where you can walk from the car park to a couple of overlooks which would be great if there was any water in the river but unfortunately as we are in the middle of summer it has pretty much dried up there was a little bit cascading over the falls but it was a shame as it is quite wide although only 45 feet deep but the pictures they have on the side looked quite spectacular if you visit in the right season. It is rather a shame as this is another site on the Trail of Tears. In 1838 US soldiers and local militia rounded up over 1,100 men, women, and children in the Little River area during the forced removal of the Cherokee and Muskogee (Creek) Indians. Soldiers held some of them at Fort Likens and Fort Lovell east of Lookout Mountain before moving them to Fort Payne. They crossed Little River near the present day bridge. Cherokee John Benge led the Fort Payne group of American Indians. The first four detachments traveled with military escorts, but the thirteen subsequent detachments were allowed to complete the removal under the leadership of a Cherokee leader called a conductor. John Benge was the conductor for this detachment, he traveled a different route from any other detachment, one that took them across southeast Missouri and northern Arkansas. They started on October 1st, they seem to have been joined by 114 enslaved people as some were wealthy enough to own slaves. There were 33 deaths on the way, most from measles and whooping cough, three births were recorded and a total of 1132 people arrived in the Indian Territory. the U.S. government allotted $66.24 for each Cherokee person for 80 days of travel. Even though this group averaged 10 miles per day which was fast compared to other groups travelling overland, the 768 mile trip took 106 days and therefore the 80 day allocation was not enough. We continued the drive along the Little River and stopped at Lynn Overlook which is a is a rock glade and provides a good view of the canyon. We drove on to Grace’s high Falls, they are 133 feet seasonal waterfall that cascades off the cliffs. The falls don’t flow in the summer but would be located on the opposite side of the canyon from where we were parked. We stopped at the final look out to have our picnic lunch then continued with the drive to Birmingham, we are staying in the Tutwiler Hotel which is now a Hilton but was opened by Robert Jamison with a major investment from Major Tutwiler. In 1914 the hotel was built in order to convince the American Iron & Steel Institute to have its convention in Birmingham, the Tutwiler was one of the best hotels in the country, we have a great room with a balcony which we will probably only use when the air conditioning gets too cold and we want to warm up!
