Art museum housed in the 1905 Faxon-Hunter mansion atop an 80-foot bluff above the Tennessee River, where staff catalog five apparitions including Augusta Hoffman.
10 Bluff View Ave, Chattanooga, TN 37403
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Standard museum admission with reduced rates for seniors, students, military, and youth; children under a certain age admitted free. Check official site for current pricing.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Historic mansion and modern additions, fully ADA-accessible with elevators and ramps; bluff overlook on flat paved paths
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1905 · Original 1905 Faxon mansion · Owned by Coca-Cola bottling magnate George Thomas Hunter · Chattanooga's first art museum (1952) · Site overlooks historic Ross's Landing
The Hunter Museum building was completed in 1905 for wealthy Chattanooga insurance broker Ross Faxon. The Neoclassical mansion sat on land overlooking the Tennessee River from an 80-foot limestone bluff, with views toward Ross's Landing — the 1816 trading-post site established by Cherokee leader John Ross and the 1838 departure point for thousands of Cherokee forced west on the Trail of Tears. The Faxon family lived in the house for nine years.
The property subsequently passed to George Thomas Hunter, nephew of Coca-Cola bottling franchise founder Benjamin F. Thomas. Hunter rose through the Chattanooga Coca-Cola Bottling Company to become secretary, president, and finally chairman of the board, and emerged as one of the city's most significant philanthropists. In 1944 he established the Benwood Foundation, which continues to fund Chattanooga cultural institutions.
After Hunter's death, the mansion became the seat of Chattanooga's first art museum, opening to the public as the George Thomas Hunter Gallery of Art on July 12, 1952. The institution was later renamed the Hunter Museum of American Art and expanded with modernist additions in 1975 and a major contemporary wing completed in 2005, integrating the historic mansion into a much larger campus while preserving the original Faxon-Hunter rooms.
The museum holds one of the most significant collections of American art in the Southeast, spanning the Colonial era through contemporary works.
Sources
The Hunter Museum's haunted reputation rests on a documented 1924 discovery and several decades of staff and visitor reports compiled by Ghost City Tours and Visit Chattanooga.
In 1915, according to Ghost City Tours' reporting, a 60-year-old woman named Augusta Hoffman disappeared from the mansion at 15 Bluff View, where she lived with her sister and did seamstress work. In 1924, during renovations to the basement of the Bluff View property, carpenters working with hammers struck what proved to be a human skull. Period news accounts cited by Ghost City Tours reported the remains had been treated with acid and were identified as Hoffman through dentures matched by the dentist who made them. The homicide was never solved.
Hunter Museum spokeswoman Katrina Craven told Ghost City Tours that the mansion portion of the museum is reportedly haunted by five apparitions, with the spirit of George Thomas Hunter himself said to 'watch over his estate.' Augusta Hoffman has reportedly appeared in photographs as a figure in one of the mansion windows and as a shadow figure in dark hallways. Staff and visitors describe objects moving on their own, shadows following guests, and cold spots in the historic rooms.
The mansion sits on a bluff overlooking land sacred to the Cherokee and used as a Civil War vantage point, factors which local ghost-tour narratives sometimes connect to the activity.
Notable Entities
Self-guided exploration of the Hunter Museum's American art collection housed in the 1905 Faxon-Hunter mansion and adjoining modern wings, with views of the Tennessee River from the bluff.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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