ARTICLE TOOLS
Text Size: A
A
A
A
Jefferson Street/Davenport School lived several lives, students and teachers recall
 | |
|
| |
| Dillard "Dank" Hawkins | |
From green lunch tokens to his status as first-grade fire marshal to his whipping for swinging on bathroom stalls, there isn’t much Dillard “Dank” Hawkins has forgotten about William J. Davenport School.
The elementary school, first known as Jefferson Street School, was located in the block bordered by Jefferson, Madison, 18th and 19th streets.
“(It was) just a great atmosphere — the overall atmosphere for being in an elementary school,” said Mr. Hawkins, 50, facility manager of Eastdale Recreation Center for the Chattanooga Parks, Recreation Department.
Today, Jefferson Street Park occupies the block with new playground equipment and a pavilion that hosts an annual community reunion for several thousand people in late July.
A massive willow oak just off Jefferson Street and steps that descend from Jefferson to the site are all that remain of the property as it was when the three-level brick school occupied the block.
Staff Photo by Patrick Smith
Dank Hawkins stands at the site of the former Jefferson Street/William J. Davenport School. The school closed in the early 1970s, and the site has been made into a park.
Davenport was built in 1911, received the addition of an auditorium and cafeteria in the mid-1920s and peaked in enrollment at 406 students, according to newspaper accounts.
Ralph Kelley, mayor of Chattanooga from 1963 to 1969 and later a referee in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, attended the school in the 1930s.
By the 1959-1960 school year, enrollment had dropped to 167 students, and the decision was made for it to become an all-black school.
“The building is sufficiently large to accommodate 350 or more pupils and is conveniently located for a number of Negro children who travel a greater distance to the school they now attend than if they attended Jefferson Street,” Dr. John W. Letson, then city schools superintendent, said in a 1959 Chattanooga Times article.
As the school began its transition, principal Katherine Signiago remembered how the school first became a refuge for residents forced out of their homes by a 1917 flood. When high waters threatened the school, she said, the refugees had to be rescued by boat.
Later, she said, when so many children came to school hungry, she instituted a daily dose of cod liver oil for nutrients and a fruit drop to wash away the oil’s foul taste.
When the school re-opened in the fall of 1960, it was known as William J. Davenport. Mr. Davenport had been a former principal of Howard School.
John P. Franklin, later a Chattanooga city commissioner, was the now all-black school’s first principal. It was his first principal’s job, and he had a faculty assembled from several different schools. With only nine teachers, he also taught a sixth-grade class.
“They were nice, congenial, efficient faculty members,” he said. “Some stalwarts of the community organized the PTA and were active. It was a nice relationship.”
While he was there, a community group, the Citizens for General Improvement, raised some money for playground equipment, Mr. Franklin said. When a city schools maintenance crew installed the items, they added some surplus equipment, he said.
The second and final year he was principal, the school grew some and was desegregated with a few white students, he said.
When Mr. Hawkins attended, from 1964 through 1970, former state Rep. C.B. Robinson was principal.
The late Mr. Robinson remained principal until the school closed in 1971.
“I found an opportunity to do something for a lot of children,” he said in an oral interview now in the library of Tennessee State University. “That was the lowest census (tract) in Chattanooga. ... When I started seeing all those children benefit from my being there ... I began to enjoy it. Then I proceeded to try to improve the quality of the school. I took as a slogan ‘Better instruction of reading, better reading through better instruction of reading.”
When Mr. Robinson arrived, he said, there was no library, but he thought some room in the cafeteria might afford one.
“I had it partitioned off and built me a library in the back of that cafeteria,” he said, “and had the people at Kirkman (Technical High School) to build some shelves.”
The next year, according to the oral interview, a part-time librarian was hired.
Mr. Hawkins recalled holiday plays and talent shows — he once portrayed singer James Brown — throughout his elementary years at Davenport and plenty of room for outdoor play. In addition to a softball field, the site offered room for football for pupils in younger and older grades and a basketball court, he said.
In the cafeteria, he said, students often were allowed to wash lunch trays and silverware after school for free lunches.
The teachers, Mr. Hawkins said, were “all good,” all “down to earth.”
When he attended, houses filled the four streets around the school, he said. What he and fellow students called a packing house — in truth, a cattle slaughterhouse — sat across 19th street from the backstop of the school’s softball field.
“We used to throw rocks at the (penned up) cows,” Mr. Hawkins said. “We were bad.”
Today, gentrified houses are taking shape along Jefferson, Madison and 18th streets, replacing older homes and empty lots.
W.L. Goodman, owner of Office Coordinators Inc. on Main Street, said he lived on 23rd Street and grew up in an 11-block triangle that included the school. He said his business was broken into 52 times in 18 months around 15 years ago, so he is grateful the area has turned around.
“To me, it’s just overwhelming,” said W.L. Goodman, who went to then-Jefferson Street for five months in first grade. “To see it return, I’m just ecstatic. I always believed it would happen. I just never believed it would happen in my lifetime.”
- Kennedy: Affording college tomorrow
- Preparing for frat reunion takes tongue wagging
- Retirement means new emphasis on thrift
- Flustered Fred leads the charge to birth of grandbaby
- Designing homes outside the box: LEED certification means Madison Street houses meet high environmental standards
- Real Estate Roundup
- Tennessee: At 50, food supplier sees industry changes
- Chattanooga: Hot dog vendors fill area niche
- Peripheral artery disease is treatable
- Pseudogout looks a lot like gout but isn’t
- Donohue: Power and strength are not the same things
- Donohue: One kind of back pain has genetic roots
This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of Chattanooga Publishing Company, Inc.
Comments
Post a comment
Commenting requires registration.