John Shearer: Small Piece Of Hixson Residential History Disappears

Often on a busy street like Hixson Pike in Hixson, passersby see construction equipment on a lot and wonder what is going to be built there.
 
But sometimes the more interesting question is what the past story of that piece of land is, particularly if some kind of structure is still there or was until recently.
 
Such is the scenario at 5461 Hixson Pike on the north side of the Raceway gas station and just beyond the Earth Fare grocery store.
 
For decades a modest white home likely built in the first decade after World War II has stood there almost inconspicuously due to its unpretentious size and appearance.
 
The time period of it being a quiet home out in the country likely disappeared not long after it was built, as urban sprawl and suburban growth began sweeping through Hixson starting in about the 1960s.
 
Now the home itself is gone with hardly a trace.
 
Hints of its future demise became quite obvious within the last week or so, when a large yellow Komatsu excavator was parked in front of the home for several days like a mechanical grim reaper.
 
Then on Wednesday, the old home with its connecting one-car garage was quickly taken down.
 
“They probably did it in a couple of hours,” said general contractor Don Oscai of O.C. Construction over the telephone.
 
Mr. Oscai, who said the lot is scheduled to become a business called The Ark Pet Spa and Hotel, did not know much history about the home, but said it was probably built in the 1940s or ‘50s.
 
A representative of the Hamilton County Register of Deeds office said the home was built “about 1950” and that the property is currently owned by Jaybird Partners LLC.
 
The previous owner, according to the register’s office, was Pauline K. Downer. Based on some old city directories on file at the library, the Downers had apparently lived there since the 1950s.
 
The first time a Downer is listed as living on Hixson Pike was in 1957, when John Downer moved onto the street. It was apparently that home, although the exact street numbers were not listed in the city directory at a time when that part of Hixson Pike was rural.
 
Mr. Downer that year was an operator for the fairly new DuPont plant nearby and had previously been employed by the Standard-Coosa-Thatcher mill.
 
This was at a time when many modest homes were built for working-class DuPont employees in architectural styles that resembled understated and simplistic colonial, Cape Cod or cottage residences.
 
For decades, Walter S. Wilson, another employee of DuPont, lived on the south side of the Downer residence with his wife, Corinne, until his home was torn down in recent years to make way for the Raceway.
 
Mrs. Downer, who evidently went by Frances as well as Pauline, continued to live in the home for decades. She was listed in the 1970 city directory as being a cashier at the M&J grocery store, likely the one where the U-Haul facility on Ashland Terrace by Hixson Pike is now.
 
In 1980, she was listed as a cashier at Pruett’s Food Town, probably near Highway 153.
 
She apparently moved over to Wauhatchie Pike in Lookout Valley, but efforts to reach her or any other family members for memories of the home were unsuccessful.
 
But plenty of Chattanoogans have memories of it, even if they are just simple-but-pleasant ones of passing it often and thinking of the simpler and more rural Hixson of yesteryear when that would have been a comfortable place to live.
 
Jcshearer2@comcast.net