Historic home of civil rights advocate burns down in Taylor

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TAYLOR, Texas (KXAN) — A historic landmark in Taylor burned down early Sunday morning, the town reported.

The Taylor Fire Section responded to a get in touch with about a structure fireplace at 3:32 a.m., and when they arrived “the creating was engulfed in flames,” for every the city. Various fireplace crews responded to the fire, but the house burned to the ground.

An investigation is ongoing. The Taylor Law enforcement Department is thinking of the hearth “suspicious,” though the Condition Fireplace Marshal did not discover that accelerants ended up employed, a town launch stated.

  • The Dickey Museum & Multipurpose Center in Taylor, Texas, burned down early Sunday morning. An investigation is ongoing. (KXAN Photo/Christian Marcelli)
  • The Dickey Museum & Multipurpose Center in Taylor, Texas, burned down early Sunday morning. An investigation is ongoing. (KXAN Photo/Christian Marcelli)
  • The Dickey Museum & Multipurpose Center in Taylor, Texas, burned down early Sunday morning. An investigation is ongoing. (KXAN Photo/Christian Marcelli)
  • The Dickey Museum & Multipurpose Center in Taylor, Texas, burned down early Sunday morning. An investigation is ongoing. (KXAN Photo/Christian Marcelli)

The creating was property to Dr. James Lee Dickey, a medical doctor and civil legal rights advocate in Taylor. The household was extra to the Countrywide Sign-up of Historic Areas in 2017.

Dickey, who died in 1959, was the only African-American medical professional in Taylor when he settled there soon after serving in Environment War I to assist his widowed mother raise his siblings, according to the historic marker.

Some of Dickey’s regional attempts integrated addressing Taylor’s general public overall health demands, improving h2o provide, admitting African American people to state tubercular clinics, leading an exertion from a typhoid fever outbreak, functioning for faculty bond passage and heading initiatives for local recreation services and federal housing, according to the metropolis.

Dickey also launched the Taylor Negro Chamber of Commerce and was a Tillotson Faculty trustee, where he attended faculty.

Taylor Mayor Brandt Rydell mentioned the metropolis and neighborhood will go after approaches to honor Dickey’s memory and existence as “a winner for health and fitness, wellness, training, and civil legal rights.”

“It is heartbreaking to shed this essential section of Taylor heritage,” Rydell claimed in a statement. “But Dr. Dickey’s legacy was considerably a lot more than the bodily framework of his previous residence.”

The Taylor house, situated at 500 Burkett Street, was going through restoration with programs to make the Dickey Museum and Multipurpose Centre, the nonprofit claimed in a launch.

A restoration task on the household commenced in 2018, and the project was in its final design stage ahead of a 2023 opening, in accordance to the nonprofit. Men and women wishing to donate to restoration initiatives can find more facts at www.dickeymuseum.org.

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