Featured Image: Rock City Enterprises
These days, “marketing” feels a bit like a buzzword in and of itself. What does it mean, exactly? Mailers, billboards, commercials, digital advertising… all of these things combine to create position brands in front of their target audiences.
But before there were Meta ads and media buys, there was an expert marketer making the most of what they had an abundance of in the South: Barns.
Learn how Rock City pioneered marketing and continues to do so today.
| Planning your trip? Here’s everything you need to know about Rock City.
The Birth of an Idea
Rock City opened to the public on May 21, 1932, and almost immediately ran into a problem that was sparked by the very thing that set the attraction apart: it was perched on the top of Lookout Mountain, which gave it that spectacular geographical interest, but also meant that nobody was driving past it by accident.
Founder Garnet Carter needed a way to put Rock City in front of travelers so they knew when, how, and why to detour. He hired a young sign painter named Clark Byers and sent him out onto the nation’s highways with a deal: paint a farmer’s barn, free of charge, in exchange for three words on the roof: See Rock City.
Byers spent the next three decades on that job. He painted through lightning storms, dodged bulls in pastures, and worked on rooftops slick with morning dew, eventually covering some 900 barns across 19 states, as far north as Michigan and as far west as Texas.
Most of the barn owners were happy for the free paint job, some also procuring a stack of Rock City passes and a box of promotional thermometers. Anyone who didn’t need a thermometer could ask for cash instead, a modest three dollars.
Considering I’m sitting here writing this in 2026 and Rock City is as popular as ever, it’s no surprise the innovative marketing worked.
Marketing Wasn’t the Only Thing Rock City Pioneered
Garnet and Freida Carter weren’t just marketing gurus; they also invented a game that, today, we consider a beloved pastime.
Carter grew up in the Tennessee hills himself, born in Sweetwater in 1883 and raised near Chattanooga on Lookout Mountain from age 11. In 1924, he launched a residential community on the mountaintop called Fairyland, named for his wife Frieda’s lifelong fascination with European folklore. The plan included a golf course, but construction dragged on far longer than residents were willing to wait. Carter solved the problem by building a scaled-down course of his own, and Freida had the bright idea to incorporate statuary and obstacles to up the ante on the competition. It became the country’s first miniature golf course, which was franchised nationwide under the name Tom Thumb Golf.
Rock City Today
Byers’ successors still climb barn roofs today, drawing droves of visitors to, well, see Rock City. The attraction has grown beyond the original gardens to include whimsical additions like Fairyland Caverns, a swinging bridge, dining spaces and event pavilions, and scattered gnomes.
Doug Chapin, Garnet and Frieda’s fourth-generation descendant, now leads the attraction under a mission to enrich lives through wonder and connection. It’s a fitting legacy for a place built by opportunistic entrepreneurs who turned a rocky garden into a worldwide wonder, a delayed project into a timeless game, and a beaten-down barn into the cheapest and most effective marketing campaign, possibly, ever.
In 2026, in conjunction with America 250, Rock City is honoring its birdhouse legacy in a big way. Throughout the summer, 14 barn and birdhouse installations created by 10 local artists will be displayed across the Chattanooga area as part of the “Barns2Birdhouses” campaign. You can set out on a mini road trip to see them all and learn more about this piece of American history.
| This article is presented in partnership with Rock City Enterprises, a Modern South Founding Partner.
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