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Chattanooga.gov
Edward David Bass
Lived March 28, 187 ? March 12, 1960
Elected mayor in 1927, Edward David Bass became only the second mayor to have been born in Chattanooga. Unlike the other, Hugh Whiteside, Bass?s family was not a family of great wealth. Orphaned at the age of eleven, Bass left school to begin work along the production line at the D.M. Stewart Manufacturing Plant. By 1900, Bass had saved enough money to follow in his father?s footsteps and open a grocery on the corner of Main Street and Central Avenue.
In 1906, as a group of businessmen formed the Highland Park Business League and searched for a candidate to run for the Hamilton County Court; Bass agreed to be a candidate. Upon winning the seat, Bass sold his grocery store and dedicated his life to public service. In 1911, as Mayor T.C. Thompson led the campaign to change the city government to the commission format, Bass ran for the state senate. As a Senator, Bass helped pass the legislature that allowed Chattanooga to change its city government structure. After his senate term, Bass returned to Chattanooga and served as Commissioner of Streets and Sewers for three terms. During his service as a commissioner, Bass attended the University of Chattanooga?s Law School and passed the bar at the age of forty-six.
Upon the resignation of Mayor Chambliss in 1923, Bass?s fellow Commissioners elected him mayor. However, state politics kept Bass from accepting the position. In 1923, as Governor Austin Peay prepared to appoint Mayor Chambliss to the Tennessee Supreme Court, he was pressured to not appoint Chambliss if it meant that Bass would become mayor in Chattanooga. Governor Peay then asked Bass to promise that, if elected, he would not serve. Bass did as the Governor asked. The motivation for this political action appears to have been pressure from the statewide Ku Klux Klan, who promised to have Chambliss? appointment blocked if Bass was to step up to the position of mayor in Chattanooga.
During his last term as Commissioner of Streets and Sewers, Bass performed an act that may be the one he is most remembered for; he extended Broad Street past Ninth Street (today, Martin Luther King Boulevard.) At the time, Broad Street ended at Ninth Street where a row of brick buildings sat upon the southern side of Ninth Street across from Broad Street. The warehouses, owned by the state of Georgia, sat empty, and Bass worked for many years to negotiate the purchase of the buildings so that Broad Street could be opened to the south. Georgia officials continually refused to sell the buildings. On May 6, 1926, a Friday night, without consulting the Mayor, city attorney or other commissioners, Commissioner Bass led a large crew of street department workers in descending upon the buildings and tore them down. Beginning this mission around 6:00 pm, Bass drove the first car through the opened buildings around midnight. According to news accounts, word of the escapade spread quickly, and the streets filled with citizens cheering Bass and his workmen. The Elks Club Band, said to be practicing nearby, appeared and played the song ?Marching through Georgia.? By Monday morning, the length of Broad Street was extended. The state of Georgia sought immediate action against the city, but the Supreme Court ruled that a state?s sovereignty ended at the state line. The following Saturday, Commissioner Bass and his crew began the destruction of buildings that blocked Broad Street at Eleventh. At the end of his project, Commissioner Bass had successfully opened Broad Street south to link with Whiteside Street (which ran from Lookout Mountain to Twelfth Street.) Today, Whiteside Street is known as South Broad Street.
In 1927, the city of Chattanooga elected Bass as mayor and re-elected him for the next five terms. Mayor Bass led the city through many events, including the nation?s Great Depression. Upon his retirement in 1947, Bass said he took great pride in the fact that, during the Depression, Chattanooga was one of the few cities able to meet its debts without issuing city script. At the time, Bass noted that not only did Chattanooga pay all its debt but continued to pay all of its city employees without raising the tax rate.
In 1929, Mayor Bass oversaw the annexation of many of Chattanooga?s suburbs including St. Elmo, Missionary Ridge, Alton Park, North Chattanooga, Brainerd and Riverview. These annexations doubled the size of Chattanooga.
In a press conference on June 17, 1946, Bass announced that he would not seek re-election the following year but would complete his term even though his doctors had asked him to resign from office due to health problems. On January 10, 1947, three months before his term ended, Bass?s health forced him to resign.
Tennessee and Tennesseans
Edward D. Bass
Engaged in the insurance business in the city of his Chattanooga, the place of his nativity, Senator Bass is known as one of the leading and representative citizens of Hamilton county and is also serving as a member of the state senate from the 8th district.
Edward David Bass was bor in Chattanooga on the 28th of March, 1876, and is a son of Captain James A. and Anne (Dill) Bass, the former of whom was born in Georgia, a representative of an old and honored family of that state, and the latter of whom was bor in Barbour county, Alabama, a daughter of Robert Dill. Captain James A. Bass was a valiant solider of the Confederacy in the Civil war, in which he served as captain of a cavalry company recruited in Barbour county, Alabama, and known as the Barbour Greys. He commanded his company in many important engagements and continued in active service until the close of the war. Soon afterward he came to Tennessee and established his home in Chattanooga, in which city he was a representative merchant for many years. He here continued his business activities until his death, in 1886, at the age of fity-three years. He was a man of sterling character and ever commanded unqualified popular confidence and esteem. He was a Democrat in his political proclivities and both he and his wife held membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Mrs. Bass long survived her honored husband and was summoned to eternal rest in 1900, at the age of fity-six years. Four children survive her and all are residents of Chattanooga, the subject of this review having been the third in order of birth.
To the public schools of his native state, Senator Bass is indebted for his earlier educational advantages, and later he was a student for two years in the National Normal University, at Lebanon, Ohio. After leaving this institution he served for five years as an assistant to the county engineer of Hamilton county and within this period he aided in much important civil engineering work in this native county. Thereafter he was identified with the mercantile business in Chattanooga for a period of about five years.
In 1906 Senator Bass was elected to the bench of the county court of Hamilton county, and he thereupon disposed of his mercantile business and entered upon the discharge of his judicial duties. He gave a most able administration on the bench and his service in this judicial office covered a period of six years, his retirement from the bench having occurred in September, 1912. Senator Bas has been one of the most active and influential workers in the ranks of the Democratic party in his state and has been a promiment factor in its councils as well as in the maneuvering of its campaign forces. In 1910 he was elected to the state senate, as representative of the 8th senatorial district, comprising the county of Hamilton, and in the upper house of the legislature he has been a most zealous and valued worker in behalf of his constituency and the state at large. He was re-elected in 1912, and this was a fitting recognition of his exellenet service as well as a distinct evidence of his personal popularity in his district. In the first term in the senate he was a potent force in furthering a large amount of important legislation for the benefit of his home city and district, and it was mainly due to his able championshiop that the legislature enacted th bill which gave to Chattanooga its commission system of municipal governemtn, this city having been the first in Tennessee to adopt this form of government, and having also been one of thest in the entire Union. The senator has been selected by the state tax commission and did introduce in the legislature bills providing for the revision of the state tax laws. In 1908 Senator Bass had the active management of the campaign of Hon. M.R. Patterson, the Democratic candidate for governor of Tennessee, in Hamilton county. This proved one of the most spirited and bitter gubernatorial contests in the history of the state, and the effective work of Senator Bass was the most influential force in bringning about the election of Governer Patterson. He served as election commissioner of Hamilton county in 1907-8, was chairman of the Hamilton county road commission in 1911-12, and has served on various other important committees and commissions of localized functions.
For several years past Senator Bass has given much attention to the real-estate business, in connection with which he has erected amny residences in Chattanooga and otherwise contributed to the material upbuilding of the city. He is interested principal in the South Chattanooga Land Company, the Bass Land Company and other local concerns of important order, and in the gernal real-estate business he is now associated with Sam. A. Conner, under the firm name of Bass & Conner, his partner having been sheriff of Hamilton county in 1910. He is an active and valued member of the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce and is in full accord with the high civic ideals and effective work of this institution. He is also identified with the Commercial Club and is affiliated with the local organizations of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias.
On the 19th of April, 1895, was solemnized the marriage of Senator Bass to Miss Hassie Brooks, of Chattanooga, and they have two children, Denton and Edna.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1873 - 1960 (86 years)