Chattanooga: A Creative Sanctuary

Fifteen years ago, we planted Whiteboard’s roots in Chattanooga. We could have chosen anywhere, but we chose here. And if you’ve ever stood on the Walnut Street Bridge at sunset, watched fog curl over the Tennessee River, or felt the hum of a city reinventing itself, you might understand why.

Renowned designer Robbie de Villiers once described Chattanooga as a “creative sanctuary,” a place where imagination feels both grounded and free. Known for his refined design work, ranging from elegant typography to timeless brand identities, de Villiers brings a global sensibility shaped by his South African roots and decades of international experience. Yet, he finds in Chattanooga a uniquely inspiring balance of nature, community, and artistic energy.

Chattanooga is more than our headquarters; it’s our creative sanctuary.

A LEGACY OF VISIONARIES 

Long before co-working spaces and startup accelerators, Chattanooga was a city where ideas took bold, unexpected shape.

In 1899, local lawyers Benjamin Thomas and Joseph Whitehead made a fateful deal with Coca-Cola, securing exclusive rights to bottle and distribute the drink. What began here in a small plant transformed Coca-Cola from a fountain treat into a global brand.

In 1917, a baker at the Chattanooga Bakery responded to a miner’s request for a snack “as big as the moon.” The result: MoonPie, a Southern staple that’s now shipped around the world, a treat of nostalgia and joy.

Other hometown originals, such as Double Cola, founded in 1922, and the Chattanooga Medicine Company (later Chattem), demonstrate the city’s knack for building brands that endure. Even The New York Times has a local tie, thanks to Chattanooga-born Adolph Ochs, who bought the paper in 1896 and transformed it into the journalistic institution we know today.

More recently, companies like Legacybox, founded in Chattanooga, have carried that same inventive spirit forward, transforming how families preserve and pass down their treasured memories through thoughtful, human-centered innovation.

Chattanooga’s story is one of people who saw opportunity where others saw obstacles.

FREIGHT VALLEY

Innovation didn’t stop with confections and colas. Chattanooga has evolved into a modern logistics powerhouse, earning the nickname “Silicon Valley of Freight.” Strategically positioned at the crossroads of interstates, railways, riverways, and air routes, it’s a city built for movement.

Legacy freight companies coexist with new-era disruptors such as FreightWaves and Reliance Partners, blending tradition with technology. This ecosystem fuels more than commerce; it creates a fertile ground for entrepreneurs who thrive at the intersection of creativity and efficiency.

One of the city’s most influential entrepreneurial stories began with Access America Transport, a logistics company founded in 2002. After rapid growth and a merger with Coyote Logistics, its founders launched Lamp Post Group, a venture incubator that invested in and mentored dozens of startups. Out of that network came Brickyard, a founder-focused venture fund and accelerator that continues to shape Chattanooga’s role as a launchpad for new ideas. Together, these companies illustrate how a single success story can ripple outward, seeding new ventures and fueling the city’s reputation for entrepreneurial reinvention.

LANDMARKS OF CULTURE & CONNECTION

Here, history and imagination live side by side. The Tennessee Aquarium helped spark a downtown renaissance in the 1990s, drawing millions of visitors to the riverfront. The Incline Railway on Lookout Mountain has been carrying guests up one of the world’s steepest passenger railways since 1895. The Tivoli Theatre, known as the “Jewel of the South,” remains a stage for music, film, and community.

The Hunter Museum of American Art stands watch over the river, while the Walnut Street Bridge (once destined for demolition) now connects neighborhoods, festivals, and countless sunsets.

These spaces are more than attractions. They’re symbols of a city that invests in beauty, creativity, and shared experience.

BEAUTY & RESILIENCE

Chattanooga is a paradox in the best way; a place where you can kayak a glassy river in the morning and catch an art opening that night. It’s framed by mountains but wired with the fastest internet in the Western Hemisphere.

This city knows resilience. Once burdened with the title “Dirtiest City in America” in the 1960s, Chattanooga transformed itself through environmental cleanup, civic vision, and community will. Today, it stands as a model of reinvention, proof that a city (like a brand) can rewrite its own story.

A CREATIVE SANCTUARY

Our headquarters was built in an era when Chattanooga defined itself through making. Built in the early 20th century as a knitting mill, it was part of the Southside’s industrial backbone, a place where raw materials were turned into something durable. As the city changed, the machines went quiet, but the structure remained. Instead of being erased, it was reimagined, adaptively reused and woven back into the life of Chattanooga, its industrial bones preserved as a foundation for new kinds of work.

That lineage is why this space feels like home to us. Our work is different from knitting fabric, but the impulse is the same, taking raw inputs—vision, belief, tension, ambition—and shaping them into something coherent, useful, and enduring.

Ninety percent of the clients we serve live outside the State of Tennessee. Many of them choose to visit Chattanooga, not only to work with our team, but also for a change of scenery and a deep breath from their daily grind. They find a city that invites rest and curiosity in equal measure. From trails that lead to mountaintop views, to coffee shops that hum with creative energy, and a riverfront that slows the pulse.

For our clients and our team, time here often becomes a reset, a reminder that the best ideas often arrive when you step outside the usual.

THE COURAGE TO BUILD

For Whiteboard, Chattanooga is the perfect intersection of inspiration and practicality.

It offers:

• Natural beauty that reminds us to slow down and see clearly.
• An entrepreneurial heartbeat that inspires bold, meaningful work.
• A collaborative community that believes in building things that last.

It’s a place that challenges us to think bigger while staying grounded. A city with enough grit to keep going and enough grace to welcome dreamers.

For fifteen years, this has been our home, our muse, and our proving ground. And as we look ahead, Chattanooga will continue to be a creative sanctuary, not just for us, but for anyone with the courage to build.

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