UPDATED: Pioneer Frontier Demolition Begins

No Decision has been Made on the Salvaged Timbers with Palm Prints

UPDATE: City officials said Wednesday that no decision has been made on what will become of the palm prints in the timbers salvaged from Pioneer Frontier. Officials said to not call City Hall to inquire about acquiring palm prints.

Demolition of the venerable Pioneer Frontier playground on Tombras Avenue began in earnest Tuesday morning.

According to Charlie Ritchey, a supervisor in the parks and recreation department, the area around the playground was fenced off on Monday and the dismantling of the aging timbers began Tuesday morning.

But not before the palm prints of dozens of children and people who volunteered to build the playground in 1994, were salvaged for safekeeping.

“That is the first thing we did,” Ritchey said of saving the timbers with so much sentiment attached. “I wanted to make sure they were saved.”

Ritchey said the timetable for completion of demolition is May 1. He said the mature oak trees scattered about the playground that provided shade will be preserved.

“We’ve got a long way to go,” he said. “It’s going to be slow going.”

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.