The Chattanooga Ball
The Chattanooga Ball is held each summer to raise money, build volunteer opportunities and bring awareness
to charities benefitting women and children in the Chattanooga area. While the event is steeped in tradition,
the mission of The Chattanooga Ball Association is focused on helping young women make a difference in
the Chattanooga community, as well as instilling an appreciation for volunteerism in each of them that
they will carry into adulthood.
Early Years
Since its creation, The Chattanooga Ball has had a charitable focus. The Ball began in 1933 as The Fall Fashion Show Floor Show Chattanooga Cotton Ball, to benefit the Children’s Hospital Free Ward Fund and the Chattanooga Museum Association. With the nation in the grip of the Great Depression, the Ball was intended to help cheer up the people of the area as well.
As time passed, the Ball grew in size and stature. Thousands of people thronged to the Memorial Auditorium to view the festivities, which at times included such events as fashion shows, floor shows by local dance studios, barbecues and even a three-day horse show.
In addition to the traditional King and Queen, whose identity has always been kept secret until the curtains open, many balls included maids of honor, trainbearers, crown bearers and pages. Hundreds of high school students have participated in the popular Grand March.
Since its inception, the Ball has served a community purpose as well as fulfilled a social function. Funds from three balls helped purchase and renovate the U. S. Grant Headquarters here. During the 1953 celebration that culminated the effort, Cotton Belles were named “aides for a day” to the governors of Tennessee and Georgia. In 1962 the board decided to utilize the surplus funds from Cotton Ball ticket sales in a way that would be beneficial to Chattanooga, establishing the Zella Armstrong Fellowship for Advanced Music Study - a grant of up to $2,000. The field then broadened to expand the grant from a music award to an honor for deserving talent in any field of the arts. Today proceeds from the ball are given to charitable agencies that benefit women and children in the Chattanooga area.
Following the 1976 Bicentennial Ball, the board of directors voted to reduce the size of the event from a spectacular pageant to a dinner-dance that would more closely involve family participation during such an important night in the Belles’ lives. With the event continuing to thrive, in 2019, the board voted to change the name to reflect more on the city Chattanooga has become, rather than the city’s past.
