Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Ooltewah, TN

Ooltewah is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Hamilton County, east of Chattanooga, and it forms an enclave surrounded by the city of Collegedale.

The Census Bureau counts Ooltewah as a CDP covering just 0.62 square miles, making it one of Tennessee's smallest census places by area.

Ooltewah was the county seat of James County, a Tennessee county created in 1871 that went bankrupt in 1919 and was absorbed into Hamilton County, the only Tennessee county ever abolished after being fully organized.

The former James County Courthouse still stands on the square in downtown Ooltewah, is the community's major landmark, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The 2020 census counted 684 people in the Ooltewah CDP.

Those residents formed 337 households and 195 families at the 2020 census.

The name Ooltewah is thought to derive from a Cherokee or Muscogee word meaning "principal ground" or "water town," and local tradition translates it as "Owl's Roost."

During the Civil War, Ooltewah resident Alfred Cate and his men destroyed three Chattanooga-area railroad bridges on the night of November 8, 1861, as part of the East Tennessee bridge-burning conspiracy.

In November 1863, Union cavalry entered Ooltewah, captured Confederate soldiers, and destroyed the community's railroad bridge and its stores of flour.

The wider Ooltewah postal area, ZIP code 37363, is served by schools including Ooltewah High School, Ooltewah Middle School, and East Hamilton Middle/High School.