Chattanooga High School


Chattanooga High School was founded in the fall of 1874 in Chattanooga, Hamilton County, Tennessee.
The school, sometimes called City High School, has evolved into two high schools: the Chattanooga High School Center for Creative Arts and the Chattanooga School for the Arts & Sciences.

History

City High on 3rd street ceased to exist in the 1963-64 school year, when the school moved to its present site. That building became Riverside High School that same year and remained so until 1983. The Erlanger School of Nursing occupied the building for two years, 1983-1985. After some major renovation, CSAS opened in the fall of 1986 as a middle school. Grades were added each year until its first graduating class in 1991. Since that time, it has been a K-12 school.
As for the building in North Chattanooga opening in 1963, it is still Chattanooga High School. During the 1990s, the school became known as Chattanooga High School – Phoenix 3. Also within the 1990s, a “school within a school” was formed by creating a magnet program for music, theater, dance, and musical theater. After a few years of being a zoned magnet, CHS became a true magnet around 1999 and programs expanded to include the “creative” arts, rather than just the “performing” arts. The school now houses around 550 students in grades 6-12. The official name is now, and has been since the creative arts inception, Chattanooga High School – Center for Creative Arts.
City High School has never “ceased to exist.” The school took on several side ventures over the years and is still one of the “oldest and best secondary schools in the South” and a school for the entire area. The student body comes from all areas of Hamilton County, as well as North Georgia, Marion County, and Bradley County, just like in the “old days.”"

Notable alumni