Walden's Ridge Civic Center Spends Its First Christmas on the National Register, and McCoy Farm Lights the Tree First

When Mark Dwyer started pulling rotted imitation shakes off the old auditorium at 2501 Fairmount Pike, he wasn't sure what he'd find underneath. The shakes had covered the building since 1967. Under them, still in place, was the original pine board-and-batten that residents nailed up in 1921. The Signal Mountain Mirror reported that this find came just as the Tennessee Historical Commission was reviewing the building for the National Register of Historic Places.

"We were afraid they would deny us approval as a historical site, but we had to do something. We could not wait," Dwyer, president of the Walden's Ridge Civic League, told the Mirror. "Birds and squirrels were living in the attic, and the tar paper was showing through the rotted shakes outside." The National Park Service listed the Walden's Ridge Civic Center on Jan. 26, 2026. This December is the first Christmas the building has spent with that status. Neighbors with hammers built it, and neighbors with hammers still keep it up. Walden's two biggest December evenings depend on those same volunteers.

A Building That Did a Town's Job Before There Was a Town

The auditorium opened as part of the Fairmount Grammar School. It served as the school's auditorium, library and cafeteria. According to the Historical Commission's assessment, quoted in the Mirror, it also served as a Sunday school, an election polling station, a rabies clinic and a Boy Scout meeting place. Its formal public opening was Nov. 29, 1923, so its 103rd anniversary falls on Sunday, Nov. 29, ten days from today.

The Walden's Ridge Civic League grew out of that building's PTA. It officially organized on Oct. 4, 1926, to push for community improvements on a mountain that had no local government yet. When the school closed in 1938, the League persuaded the Hamilton County Department of Education to deed the auditorium and its land to the League. The Mirror's account lists what the League did next:

• brought clean water to the mountain and formed the Walden's Ridge Utility District
• started the first volunteer fire department, WRES
• brought in electric lines
• built, marked and maintained roads, and helped get the W Road and Taft Highway finished
• provided the space for Walden's original town halls

Later the building became known as the "Original Home of the Mountain Opry." The League's history page says the weekly concert series eventually moved to the nearby Bachman Community Center.

The Historical Commission's finding explains why the building qualified for the Register:

"The retention of important features that defined the property historically and facilitated its use as a locally significant resource remain throughout. These include the original wood floors and stage, stage accordion doors, auditorium walls, seat/stage arrangement, interior doors, and wainscoting."

Merry Mountain Christmas on Dec. 18 takes place in that same room.

Volunteers Are Still Restoring a Registered Building

Miranda Montgomery, the Tennessee Historic Preservation Officer, presented Dwyer with the Register plaque at the League's America 250 celebration. Representative Michele Reneau presented a Tennessee House proclamation of congratulations. The building's upkeep is still a neighbor-by-neighbor effort. The Mirror reported that volunteers have been renovating the auditorium for about four years. They are taking the old siding off completely and replacing it with white-oak board-and-batten in the original configuration, with the Historical Commission's approval.

As of now, the League's own site lists the siding project as ongoing. It asks for help with more than carpentry: "Carpentry skills are a plus. And, if you can wield a broom or make a sandwich, we need your help too." Over the summer, the League's calendar ran the "Big Re-Siding Project" on Saturday mornings starting at 9 a.m.

Much of the rest of the recent work came from volunteers too:

• New auditorium seats, installed in time for this year's Birthday Bash
• A new outdoor stage, built by Eagle Scout candidate John Stone of Troop 176
• Native plantings on the grounds, the Eagle project of Axel Apablaza
• A Liberty Bell replica out front, fabricated by Siskin Steel and given by the Chattanooga/Hamilton County America 250 Committee
• The original sign, found stored in the basement and hung over the stage inside in 2023

The League is a 501(c)(3) with a 10-member board. It manages the whole 3.46-acre property, which includes the civic center, the women's guild building, a covered pavilion, the Boy Scout stage, a soccer field, a walking track and a playground. The auditorium seats 180.

Dec. 3: McCoy Farm Lights the Mountain's Older Tree

Walden's December starts on Anderson Pike with a tradition even older than the League's Christmas party. The Bachman McCoy family began lighting a big Christmas tree for the whole mountain in the 1940s. Since 2022, McCoy Farm & Gardens has invited everyone on the mountain to the lighting. The fifth annual one is Thursday, Dec. 3.

Here's how the evening runs, according to McCoy:

1. 5:00 p.m. The Bachman McCoy House opens. McCoy merchandise and antique and vintage china are for sale.
2. About 5:15 p.m. Santa arrives in a tractor-pulled wagon.
3. Through the evening. Local elected officials serve free hot chocolate.
4. 6:00 p.m. The tree is lit. The event runs until 7:30 p.m.

McCoy's sponsorship materials plan for about 600 people and also list carolers and Christmas crafts. Parking is at the Horse Ring Parking Lot, St. Augustine's Catholic Church and the Glade along Anderson Pike.

If you're parking near Pumpkin Patch Playground, the walk over is easier this year. This summer the Town of Walden announced a new crosswalk on Anderson Pike at Laurel Avenue that connects the playground with McCoy Farm & Gardens. The town also opened a children's native-plant rain garden next to the playground, with a mural by natural science illustrator Nina Grauley. McCoy follows the tree lighting with an open house on Sunday, Dec. 13, which is on the town's calendar.

The crosswalk is one of the few December connections the town itself built. Everything else on Walden's calendar this month is put on by a family tradition or a volunteer group.

Dec. 5 to Dec. 18: The Civic Center Decorates Itself

Merry Mountain Christmas falls on the last Friday before Christmas every year. It was Dec. 20 in 2024 and Dec. 19 in 2025, and this year it's Dec. 18. The decorations don't put themselves up. The League's calendar has this sequence at 2501 Fairmount Pike:

The League's homepage says the Dec. 5 bonfire is for teen volunteers, and it asks for more help on the night of Dec. 18. The calendar describes Merry Mountain Christmas as "an old-fashioned Christmas with music and colored lights," with visits with Santa, crafts, s'mores, popcorn and hot chocolate. The past two years also had a Gingerbread House Contest for kids 13 and under, with cash prizes.

Merry Mountain Christmas is one of the League's four seasonal events, along with Tell It on the Mountain storytelling in spring, the Birthday Bash in summer and the Smoke on the Mountain BBQ contest in autumn. This year, the other three were held at a building whose new siding is still going up one board at a time. To help with the Dec. 5 decorating, the Dec. 18 party or the Saturday siding crew, email the League at [email protected].

Walden's Ridge has always looked after its own buildings, and I love seeing that tradition carry on. If you live up here in an older mountain home and wonder how its original features affect what it's worth today, I'd be glad to walk through it with you, no pressure at all. Reach out to Deonne Taylor Homes. Let's connect, and you can get your free home valuation.