Driving Our Economy Forward: Rock City
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — Each year more than 500 thousand people visit Rock City from around the world. They come to see the gardens and enjoy the attraction. Tonight, we are learning more about the history of See Rock City Incorporated and the many businesses the company owns. From Grandview to Clumpies Ice Cream, Rock City continues to Drive our Economy Forward.
“We are a 90 plus year old attraction here atop Lookout Mountain, Georgia. It is owned by See Rock City Incorporated, and we actually own a couple different businesses here in the Chattanooga area,” said Pepper Raper, Public Relations Manager at See Rock City.
“Rock City Gardens, world famous, legendary, is our best-known feature, but we also own the Chanticleer Inn Bed and Breakfast as well as Grandview, which is an event space. We do weddings and other special events there. We also own battles for Chattanooga, another tourism destination, we own Clumpies ice cream company, which is everybody’s favorite. We’ve got three different scoop shops in town, and we also sell that ice cream online, and we make it all here in Chattanooga,” said Raper.
“In addition to all of those companies that we own, we work with the Creative Discovery Museum to handle all of their concessions. And we run the ticketing for the incline. So, we are a really busy hospitality and tourism company. And between all of the businesses that we own and operate, we employ over 300 people,” said Raper.
“In addition to employing all of these people, we also work with the Howard School, at their Future Ready Institute. So, we help build a commercial kitchen in Howard. And they’ve got two different pathways, a culinary arts pathway and, management pathway as well. So, at the we call it the See Rock City Incorporated Institute for Hospitality and Tourism Management. There kids learn real life skills about how to work in the tourism and hospitality industry, which is a really big contributor to the economy here in Chattanooga. Chattanooga actually sees over 15 million visitors a year. Here at Rock city, we see over half a million alone. So, we’re really proud to be a contributor to visitors coming to see this beautiful destination,” said Raper.
“See Rock City Incorporated is pretty unusual in that we have an innovation team where, we have a group of artists of all different stripes and working with all different media, collaborate to create unique, one-of-a-kind experiences as unique and one of a kind as Rock city is, it’s not like any other place in the world. And one of the things I like to think about with Rock city is unlike, say, Disneyworld or another place where it could live anywhere and be essentially the same experience. Rock city could only exist here, and it’s a very special and unique place. As a result. And so, we as an art team like to collaborate and comment on the place that it is to enhance the experience through the arts,” said Will Jackson, Senior Manager of Innovation at Rock City.
“We employ ten different artists that, all cover different things, from illustration to paint to, sculpting to digital and visual artists. So, we have a really exciting group of people who come here every day thinking about how to make this, more impressive space and a more unique and one-of-a-kind experience for our guests. And that’s one of the things that really makes Rock city stand out beyond the, the other places you can go and spend your time on a leisure day,” said Jackson.
