Selected Articles
Tree on the banks of South Chickamauga Creek at Audubon Acres. Photo by Ray Zimmerman.
Selected Articles
A complete description of the hundreds of pages of Robert Sparks Walker's magazine and newspaper articles, personal papers, and correspondence is beyond the scope of this work. I discuss a few significant short pieces.
1924 Walker, Robert Sparks, "The Tennessee State Flower,"
Tennessee Historical Society. Tennessee Historical Magazine. Nashville, The Society, 1924. [Series I] V. 8. N. 2 P 146-147.
On October 13, 2019, I examined and photocopied the article as found in a bound copy of the journal in the reading room of the Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee. Within the article, Walker described the state flower botanically and its symbolism.
At the time, the Passionflower was the state flower. It has since been replaced by the Iris but remains a symbol of Tennessee as the State Wildflower. Walker described the flower as a Christian symbol, with parts of the flower standing for aspects of the Good Friday Passion of Christ. An excerpt from the magazine Southern Fruit Grower, a list of the State Flowers of all states, follows the article.
1930 Green, Wyman Reed, "The Banding of Chimney Swifts in Chattanooga." Robert Sparks Walker is listed as an "other author."
This article appeared in a journal titled Bird Banding, July 1930, Volume I, since renamed the Journal of Field Ornithology.. It includes a photo of Walker placing a band on a swift, and Reed quotes Walker as a collaborator. The Chattanooga Public Library has a bound copy of the article. It is also available through JSTOR https://www.jstor.org.
Walker's granddaughter, Alexandra Walker Clark, has at least one story of Walker banding Chimney Swifts in her Walker biography.
1940 -1950 Walker, Robert Sparks, "Nature Answers."
This partial collection of Walker's nature column in The Chattanooga Times resides at Audubon Acres. It is bound in protective sheets in a three-ring binder.
Booklets
Walker wrote several booklets with photographs, promoting Chattanooga. One was titled “This is Chattanooga,” which is available for review att several libraries, accoring to worldcat.org. A companion volume The Chickamauga Dam and its Environs is available as a free ebook from Project Gutenberg.
The Georgia Review (Located through JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org
The Georgia Review has multiple entries with two pieces by Walker. Front Matter and back matter for each of two issues mention Walker in the table of contents and provide a brief biography in the “Contributors” section.
The Georgia Review, Vol 1 No 3 includes a “sketch” titled “Gold in These Hills,” by Robert Sparks Walker. It is a tribute to his father. The article, front matter and back matter are free to read.
The Georgia Review, Vol 3, No 1 includes a ten-page memoir piece titled “Kidnapping the General.” The article, front matter, and back matter are free to read online.
JSTOR
JSTOR is an online catalog of materials published in academic journals and is available for research purposes. A search of the database revealed several items relevant to Robert Sparks Walker. Most of the cited materials have only a free preview with reading online and downloads reserved for paying customers. A few are free to read online and some are free to download.
Walker memorial at Audubon Acres, photo by Ray Zimmerman.