Dixon-Moore House

The Dixon-Moore House, built about 1900 in the newly opened South Park Addition, is worthy of recognition as one of the few late-Victorian-era shotgun dwellings to survive from the earliest years of South Dallas' phenomenal streetcar-driven development. Further, unlike other early South Park houses, the Dixon-Moore House retains its original Victorian-era detailing, such as its elaborate bargeboard and turned porch posts. Although the house is a modest-sized shotgun occupied for most of its historic past by working-class families, its nicely detailed porch and decorative gable end render it among the more noteworthy representatives of the housing available for working- and trades-class families at the turn of the century. The Dixon-Moore House is therefore nominated to the National Register under Criterion C in the area of Architecture and is associated with the historic context, The Development of East and South Dallas: 1872-1945.

The Dixon-Moore House is one of the very few houses in the 400+ acre South Park Addition (1898) whose architecture imparts a sense of the housing type that was common throughout the district when lumber and investment companies were constructing houses by the hundreds to meet the demand or moderate-priced housing in the post-depression years between 1903 and 1910. City directories first list the Dixon-Moore House, then outside the city limits, in 1906. It is possible that the house was built prior to that date but earlier city directories did not include this suburban street. The first known resident was William M. Dixon, a traveling salesman, about whom little is known. Several other residents briefly occupied the house, including a painter and a pressman, before John J. Moore purchased the house about 1914. Moore was typical of the residents of South Park. He was white, married, and a tradesman. He repaired plumbing and appliance hardware, and he and his wife, Mary, owned their own home, as did many other working-class and lower-middle-class families on Peabody Street. Although John Moore died about 1926, his widow continued to own and occupy the house until after 1940. It is noteworthy that although South Park families were not employed in high-salaried jobs, the degree of owner-occupancy on Peabody and Pennsylvania streets was very high before the 1940s, surpassing 60 percent even during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Although the Dixon-Moore House is in need of repair, its condition does not greatly detract from its significance as a rare, relatively intact example of a once-common vernacular house form. Moreover, the Dixon-Moore House is representative of the mass-building efforts undertaken in South Dallas during the post-depression boom of the early 20th century to fill the demand for housing by families of moderate income. Most other dwellings in the South Park Addition (1898) that date to its earliest years have been so altered that they no longer retain their architectural integrity. Typical alterations include the application of synthetic siding such as asbestos, the removal of windows or replacement with aluminum framed windows, the enclosure of porches, or the replacement of decorative porch posts with wrought iron or 4 x 4 building timbers. The Dixon-Moore House, on the other hand, retains its most important physical features, making it a noteworthy architectural landmark in South Dallas.

Although it is in a part of South Dallas that has a large number of turn-of-the-century, working-class houses, the Dixon-Moore House is a rare example of a shotgun dwelling and is further distinguished by its Queen Anne-style detailing in the gable end. While some alterations detract from the building's overall integrity, these changes are reversible and do not destroy or compromise its historic character.