author
Robert Sparks Walker
1878–1960
A lively Southern naturalist and storyteller, these books grow out of a life spent watching birds, walking mountain trails, and preserving the places he loved. His writing blends local history, nature study, and a deep affection for Chattanooga and the wider Appalachian South.
1 Audiobook
The Chickamauga Dam and its environs
by Robert Sparks Walker
About the author
Born on February 4, 1878, Robert Sparks Walker was a Tennessee naturalist, author, poet, local historian, horticulturalist, and editor whose life and work were closely tied to Chattanooga. Special Collections at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga describes him as a prolific writer, and his papers show a career that ranged across books, articles, poetry, and journalism.
For more than twenty-five years, he wrote a nature column for the Sunday Chattanooga Daily Times. He also helped found the Chattanooga Audubon Society in the 1940s and worked to turn his childhood home and farm into the wildlife sanctuary now known as Audubon Acres, showing that his interest in nature was practical as well as literary.
Walker wrote with the eye of an observer and the enthusiasm of a guide, whether he was describing birds, flowers, mountain landscapes, or Cherokee history. He died in Chattanooga on September 26, 1960, but he is still remembered there as one of the region’s best-known nature writers and local historians.