Chattanooga's first professional baseball team was formed in 1885 when Chattanooga became a charter member of the Southern League. This team remained in Chattanooga for ten years, at which time the franchise was sold and moved to Mobile, Alabama. A new team was formed when Chattanooga became a charter member of the Southern Association in 1901, but this franchise was sold and moved to Montgomery, Alabama, only a year later. Baseball restarted in 1910 when the Southern Association franchise in Little Rock, Arkansas, relocated to Chattanooga. After winning championships in 1932, 1939, 1952, and 1961, the team was inactive between 1966 and 1975. The Lookouts returned to Chattanooga in 1976 as a member of the Southern League affiliated with the Oakland Athletics. They became affiliated with the Cleveland Indians in 1978, with the Seattle Mariners in 1983, and finally with the Cincinnati Reds in 1987. The team was sold to Richard Holtzman in 1987 and again to Frank Burke, Daniel Burke, and Charles Eshbach in 1995, but neither sale moved the Lookouts out of Chattanooga.

Engel Stadium was the Chattanooga Lookouts' home stadium from their first game on April 15, 1930, until 2000. The Lookouts' president, Frank Burke, announced his intention to build a privately funded baseball stadium for the Lookouts on Hawk Hill in downtown Chattanooga in November 1998, contingent upon the sale of 10 luxury boxes and the Lookouts' 1,800th season ticket. Construction began in March of 1999, and the Lookouts played their first game in the new BellSouth Park on April 10, 2000.