Green Eyes Festival takes its name from “Old Green Eyes,” a mysterious figure in Chickamauga-area oral tradition. Accounts disagree about what Green Eyes is supposed to be, ranging from a ghostly presence to other supernatural interpretations, so the festival treats the story as folklore rather than presenting one version as established fact.
Downtown Chickamauga fills with speakers on cryptids and the paranormal, arts and crafts vendors, food, live music, costumes and family activities. Festival programming has also included trolley tours connected with Chickamauga Battlefield and indoor presentations at the local library, linking regional strange tales with the area’s better-known Civil War landscape.