[11/30/02]City crews tore down the childhood home of late blues legend Willie Dixon minutes before family members, including his wife and children, arrived, eager to visit the house for the first time.

Still, family members who visited Vicksburg nearly two months ago say they want to work with the city to develop a memorial park on the site honoring Dixon.

“It was an amazing coincidence,” said Mayor Laurence Leyens. “And the family understood.”

The home at 1631 Crawford St. was believed to have once belonged to Dixon’s grandmother with whom he is believed to have lived with from ages of 3 to 9.

Though no one is positive about the house, Dixon is believed to have lived there before leaving the city in 1936.

Family members, in Vicksburg last month for the city’s naming of a downtown-area street in Dixon’s memory, asked for city help in finding the home.

They arrived 15 minutes too late and found the house demolished.

“There was no way to know this house was the childhood home of someone famous,” Leyens said. “And there are no sacred cows.”

Tearing down the structure was part of the city’s initiative to clean up the town including dilapidated homes. Before being cleared by the mayor and aldermen to be taken down, properties are investigated by the Architectural Review Board for historical significance, but nothing connected the house to Dixon.

Officials with the city’s inspection department first looked at the home in February when it began to collapse. Victor Grey-Lewis, building inspection administrator, said they do not know for certain who owns the property or how long it had been vacant.

Dixon, a Vicksburg native, has been called “the father of modern Chicago blues” and was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 for his contributions to post-World War II blues.

He died in California in 1992.

The family visit to the city in October was the first for many in Dixon’s family.

Family members who live in Chicago and California could not be reached for comment, but Leyens said they are purchasing the land where the house had been, now a vacant lot.

City officials are also optimistic about the family’s supporting a blues museum here and have announced they are working with the family to develop a blues festival for 2004.

Dixon moved to Chicago at the age of 17 and began a brief boxing career before working full-time as a songwriter and staff musician for Chess Records in 1951.

During his time there, he wrote such well-known blues hits as “Hoochie Coochie Man,” “I’m Ready” and “I Just Want to Make Love For You,” performed by Muddy Waters; “Back Door Man,” “Spoonful” and “I Ain’t Superstitious,” performed by Howlin’ Wolf; “My Babe,” for Little Walter and “Wang Dang Doodle” for Koko Taylor.

Dixon released his first album as a solo artist, Willie’s Blues, in 1960 and, in 1988, the release of Hidden Charms won Dixon a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Recording.