This postcard depicts the Tadley Building, which stands at the corner of MLK Jr. Boulevard and Douglas Street. Click to enlarge.
According to the caption of a postcard that depicts it, the building that stands today at the southwest corner of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard and Douglas Street was originally called the “Tadley Office Building.”
A physician, Dr. John Clinton Tadley, built the three-story brick structure, and moved his practice there following its completion in 1928.
His new address was 430 ½ East Ninth Street, which was renamed in 1981 in memory of Dr. King.
Dr. J. C. Tadley had been a physician in Chattanooga since 1911.
At the time that Dr. Tadley moved to his new location, Ninth Street was a thriving commercial and cultural thoroughfare from west (East Terrace on Cameron Hill) to east (Central Avenue, originally “East End Avenue”).
Many customers were within walking distance of Ninth Street, and a trolley line brought in other shoppers.
A very small sample of Dr. Tadley’s neighbors from the 1928 city directory shows the following, listed as a passenger aboard a trolley headed east from Lindsay Street would have seen them:
Crossing Lindsay:
First Congregational Church
Booth Fisheries
Martin Hotel
Tennessee Jewelry
Alvin Truax, watch maker
S. B. Douglas, bicycle repair
East Side Café
McMahan Employment
B. H. Franklin, undertaker
Brazelton Photo Studio
Bon Ton Café
Bon Ton Billiard Hall
Bon Ton Barber Shop
Crossing Houston:
Rose Drug Company
N. P. Bacon, grocer
East Side Taxi Line
Blue Star Lunch
Liberty Theater
Cincinnati Café
Crossing Mabel:
Essie Newell, beauty parlor
Susman and Son, furniture
Jacob Berman, shoemaker
W. L. Conn, meat market
Knights of Pythias Lodge
J. F. Bonner, grocer
The 1928 directory lists many other stores along the street which was sometimes called “The Big Nine,” where blues singer Bessie Smith once performed.
Sharing space with Dr. Tadley in the new building were C. D. Gallos, a confectioner, and a dentist, Dr. J. M. Bynes.
On the third floor was something that the postcard of the building also noted in its caption: a roof garden dance hall that could accommodate up to 800 people. The Silver Slipper Dance Hall originally occupied the space, followed by the Wig-Wam Club. Patrons danced across a hardwood floor and underneath small ceiling lights, as they listened to the many popular dance tunes of the day.
In the late 1940’s, Dr. Tadley moved his office to 902 Park Avenue, just off East Ninth Street near Central Avenue. He died in 1961, having been a physician for 50 years.
In a 1983 interview with Moses Freeman, Clarence B. Robinson, former local educator and state representative, mentioned Dr. J. C. Tadley as being one of the prominent people who had influenced his life.
See http://www.tnstate.edu/library/digital/interview.htm and interview2 for the rest of the interview.
If you have memories of Dr. J. C. Tadley, or businesses which were in his building (such as the dance hall), please contact me at jolleyh@signaldata.net.