The History of the Parkway Tower – Then and Now

If you’ve driven up Highway 27 in the last 50 years, you probably noticed that old eyesore that marks our skyline.
As kids we called it the Junk building because of the prominent graffiti which was lovingly emblazoned on the top by some daring artist.
There are dozens of urban legends we used to pass around about the old Junk building. It was definitely haunted, and there was definitely a cult which secretly met inside, at least according to us 12-year-olds.
This building, which is actually called Parkway Tower, sits across from Finley Stadium, and the word is now that it’ll be demolished and redeveloped into something hopefully more appealing.
But what was it before it was the Junk building?
In the early 1900’s, before TVA, the Tennessee-Chattanooga River Power Company formed to construct the hydroelectric dam known as Hale’s Bar in Haletown, Marion County.
An article from the Chattanooga News in 1905 says the power plant would be second only to the one at Niagara Falls.
The dam was completed in 1912, but it needed substations with stepdown converters to take the massive energy from the dam and convert it for use in homes and businesses.
That’s where Parkway Tower Comes in.
Large copper cables with high voltage ran up to the third floor, and came out ready for use in the surrounding businesses near Carter Street.
Very few photos of the building in its original glory can be found. I sourced one from a flood in 1917, and other from an aerial view of the Star Box and Printing Company taken in 1964. Finley Stadium sits in that location now.
The Tennessee-Chattanooga River Power Company went through a merger and became Tepco.
By 1939, the Tennessee Valley Authority was in full operation, and they purchased TEPCO’s power distribution network.
Eventually, power substation technology improved, and the old Parkway Tower building was no longer needed. It’s sat in a state of disrepair ever since.
Hale’s Bar Dam was demolished in the 1960’s and replaced with the Nickajack Dam.
Times change and buildings come and go, but sometimes it pays off to wonder what that old building used to be.