Dixon: ‘I don’t think they meant to kill us’
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The news is particularly disturbing to building owners Mel and Janice Dixon and Travis McVey, but is also of concern to those with neighboring businesses and buildings which suffered peripheral damage from the effects of the blaze. These are people like Ken Roberts, owner of the former Fraley’s building, who lost a significant portion of his roof, and Penny and Junior Medley, who suffered extensive water damage to their basement.
Dixon says the determination of arson is just another shock in a long list of dispiriting consequences resulting from the traumatic loss of his home and belongings, along with the sobering realization he and his wife might have lost their lives in the blaze.
But even with this knowledge, Dixon was hesitant to accuse the alleged arsonist of deliberate malice.
‘I really don’t know what to say,’ Dixon said. ‘I don’t think they meant to kill us. I think it was set much earlier, and I don’t think they meant to harm us. But of course my life is never going to be the same.’
Still, even though he gives the arsonist the benefit of the doubt, Dixon doesn’t deny he is angry.
‘I’m human,’ he said. ‘So of course I am. Because every day I have to live with it. The hardest thing is I can’t find my stuff. I have 15 years of habit where I knew where everything was. I had a comfort zone. Now I don’t have a comfort zone. Now we have to shop every night to buy things that we had before.’
One of the things Dixon regrets most is the loss of his extensive, and irreplaceable, collection of military memorabilia, much of which was supplied by friends and fellow collectors.
‘The people who gave them to me are just amazing people,’ Dixon said. ‘They trusted me with their collections. I’ve had many of them contact me, and of course they’re disappointed, but they’re glad we survived.’
Dixon says the only bright spot in the tragedy is the reaction of his friends and neighbors.
‘My town is amazing,’ Dixon said. ‘The people in our town are amazing. Everybody has treated me with great compassion and respect. They shared what they had with us. They’ve been wonderful.
‘But I’m never going to get over this,’ Dixon said. ‘There’s no way. But we’re alive and we’re safe, that’s the most important thing.’
Ken Roberts says he has been able to repair the majority of the damage to his building, but he is still very much aware of the trauma the Dixons are enduring.
Roberts says he was shocked, and even a bit surprised, to hear it was deemed arson and that someone deliberately destroyed the historic property.
‘Obviously I am deeply disappointed that kind of thing would happen,’ Roberts said. ‘But I am more concerned with the danger that Mel Dixon and his wife were put in. My heart just goes out to them. They lost everything. We had some damage, and we had just finished renovating our building next door. We had opened up for lease and I had some prospective tenants, and then the fire came along and just kind of blew all that away.
‘But now our repairs are virtually complete,’ Roberts continued, noting he still had some repairs to do to the outside wall. ‘But the inside of my building has all been repaired.’
Roberts says he has been interviewed by authorities and turned over video recorded by cameras he installed behind the buildings on the block after problems with vandalism in the months prior to the fire.
‘They did a very thorough job,’ Roberts said. ‘But I’ve seen the tape and there was no evidence of vandalism that night. So I was surprised to hear it was considered arson. If they had found some accelerant or something, then yes, but I’ve seen cases when arson was suspected and it didn’t pan out.’
Other neighbors, like Monty Wanamaker and Chris Keathley, proprietors of the Southern Museum & Galleries across the street from the former opera house, say they were not surprised to hear of the arson verdict.
‘We thought it was arson all the time, from the very beginning,’ Wanamaker said. ‘So we weren’t surprised to hear that.’
Wanamaker says if the fire is proven to have been set deliberately it is a double tragedy for everyone concerned.
‘I think it’s outrageous,’ Wanamaker said. ‘It’s a tremendous shame, and it makes it even more sad and unfortunate for the town that it was set by somebody. We were just heartbroken that the building went up in flames.’
Like everyone else, Wanamaker says he is most concerned for Mel and Janice Dixon.
‘It’s very tragic for them because they lost everything,’ Wanamaker said. ‘They lost their home and he lost his artifacts, they lost everything they had been working for all these years. They had been doing all kinds of renovations. He was getting ready to do some displays of his artifacts on the first floor.
‘So it’s very tragic for them, but the whole thing is tragic and sad because it was such a special building,’ Wanamaker continued. ‘It was built in 1888 and it probably was the oldest remaining building in the downtown area, or at least on this block. It was so magnificent when it was built, and it’s had such a venerable past, because of the King’s Department Store was there for so many years, and then Locke’s was there, I think it was from 1926 to 1994. It’s hard to explain how we feel about this. It was a great loss.’