Sallie Howard Memorial Chapel

Milford W. Howard was a lawyer, congressman, writer, and reformer whose life took many turns, from the Alabama hills to California and back again. He and his wife, Sallie, were devoted to each other and to Lookout Mountain, where they helped shape the little community that grew around Mentone. When Sallie died in the early 1930s, Milford resolved to build a lasting memorial to her on the mountain they shared.

He chose a spot where a great boulder broke through the ground and built the chapel around it rather than moving or cutting it, so the stone became the heart of the building. Over the doorway he set the words that give the chapel its spirit, a dedication to God and to the memory of his wife. Milford Howard is remembered as one of the founders of Mentone as a mountain retreat, and the chapel remains the most personal thing he left behind.

The chapel sits atop Lookout Mountain, a long, forested plateau that runs from Georgia and Tennessee down into northeast Alabama, ending near Gadsden. Unlike a single peak, it is a broad tableland of sandstone capped ridges, cut by creeks that tumble off the edges as waterfalls. The cooler air and hardwood forest have drawn summer visitors here for well over a century.

This corner of the mountain around Mentone became known early on as a place of retreat, with summer camps, cabins, and inns tucked among the trees. The land was long the country of the Cherokee, whose towns and trails threaded these ridges and valleys until the forced removals of the 1830s along the Trail of Tears. The high, quiet feel that draws people to the chapel is part of what has always made this mountain special.

What makes the Sallie Howard chapel so memorable is the way it embraces the boulder rather than hiding it. Fieldstone walls, gathered from the mountain, rise on three sides, and simple wooden beams and a modest roof shelter a small interior. Behind the altar there is no painted wall or window, only the natural face of the great rock, lit softly through the doorway and windows.

The effect is unexpectedly moving. Visitors often describe a sense that the building and the mountain are one thing, that the chapel does not sit on the land so much as grow out of it. It is small enough that a handful of people fills it, and that intimacy is part of its charm. Couples still marry here, and travelers pull off the winding road just to sit for a few quiet minutes.

The chapel is best enjoyed as part of a day on the mountain. Nearby are some of Alabama's prettiest waterfalls and overlooks, and the DeSoto State Park country lies just up the road, with trails through mountain laurel and rhododendron and creeks that run bright after rain. The whole area rewards an unhurried loop by car with stops on foot.

Spring brings wildflowers and flowering shrubs and the fullest waterfalls, while autumn turns the hardwoods gold and red and draws leaf peepers up the mountain. Summer is cooler here than in the valleys, a big reason the retreats grew up in the first place, and even winter has a stark beauty when the bare trees open up the long views. Any season, the drive up the mountain is part of the reward.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.