Brown's Ferry Tavern Historic Site, Chattanooga, Tenn.
Standing on the oldest battlefield in the country, National Park Partners (NPP) is turning preserved land into lived history. The official philanthropic partner of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park (CCNMP), NPP champions the conservation of the natural, historic and cultural resources of the first — and largest — national military park in the country. Its work spans six distinct park units, each carrying the weight of conflict, reconciliation and reunion across the Chattanooga landscape.
NPP traces its roots to two predecessor organizations — Friends of the Park, established in 1986, helped the National Park Service (NPS) prepare for the park’s centennial anniversary, and Friends of Moccasin Bend, formed in 1995, advocated for the inclusion of 750 historically and culturally significant acres into NPS protection. The latter’s goal was achieved in 2003 when Moccasin Bend became the country’s first and only National Archeological District. Today, the two organizations are united under the National Park Partners banner.
The land NPP preserves and protects changed the course of the Civil War. After Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg laid siege to Chattanooga following the Union defeat at Chickamauga, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, the newly appointed commander of all western Union forces, coordinated a three-day assault that drove the Confederates out of their entrenched positions and into Georgia. The Union victory secured Chattanooga’s vital rail hub and opened the Deep South to Federal forces, enabling Gen. William T. Sherman’s March to the Sea the following year. This same landscape earned Chattanooga its distinction as the Birthplace of the Medal of Honor, with more than 50 of the Medal’s earliest recipients having fought or originated here, including the first awardees of “The Great Locomotive Chase” of 1863.
One of NPP’s most consequential preservation achievements is Brown’s Ferry Tavern. Built in 1803, the tavern is the oldest standing structure in Chattanooga. The site carries layered significance: Founded by Cherokee businessman John Brown, the Tavern witnessed his family’s forced removal along the Trail of Tears, and Brown’s eventual return to the land. It also played a pivotal military role during the Civil War, serving as the site of the October 1863 Battle of Brown’s Ferry, which reopened the Union’s vital “Cracker Line” supply line that allowed Federal forces to reclaim Chattanooga and press south into Georgia.
For more than 150 years, the Brown’s Tavern property remained largely undisturbed, until mounting development pressure threatened to erase its historical significance. Local businessman and preservationist Bill Chapin stepped in to purchase the site to safeguard it temporarily until a longer-term solution was possible. The American Battlefield Trust took possession from Chapin in 2020 and secured the property through a permanent conservation easement with the State of Tennessee. The Trust’s acquisition was made possible through a cooperative funding effort, combining matching grants from the federal American Battlefield Protection Program and the Tennessee Civil War Sites Preservation Fund with private donations from Trust members. A conservation easement, donated by the Trust and held by the Tennessee Historical Commission, now ensures the property’s protection in perpetuity. In the years since, NPP has maintained the surrounding acreage, hosted educational programs for local schools and historical organizations and launched fundraising efforts for the historic restoration of the Tavern itself.
Beyond land conservation, NPP invests heavily in community engagement. Each summer, the organization funds the Chickamauga and Chattanooga Conservation Crew (C4), a six-person team from the Southeast Conservation Corps that works alongside NPS rangers on monument restoration, trail maintenance and other projects. The crew’s work is essential: scrubbing weathered stone and clearing overgrown trails, keeping the park accessible for the millions who walk it. Through its Open OutDoors for Kids program, NPP helped connect nearly 8,000 elementary school students last year alone with the park’s history, weaving Civil War narratives together with Indigenous perspectives and women’s history. For many of these students, it is their first time inside the park’s boundaries, and their first encounter with the history that shaped the city around them.
Together, NPP and the Trust work to preserve Chattanooga’s hallowed ground. This is a place where the full, unvarnished complexity of American history — its courage, its contradictions and its cost — remains alive and visible to current and future generations.
