Curtis Hixon, a pharmacist, won three mayoral elections to become one of the longest-serving mayors.
By MICHAEL CANNING
Published August 1, 2003
One of the namesakes for one of Tampa's longest-serving mayors is gone, but two remain.
The first, Curtis Hixon Convention Center, opened in 1964. Thirty years later, crews demolished the downtown riverfront arena to make way for Curtis Hixon Park, an 11-acre green space that connects Ashley Drive with the Hillsborough River.
The Cuesta-Hixon house, a 1912 bungalow in Old Hyde Park, was once owned by Hixon and, before him, West Tampa cigar magnate Angel Cuesta.
Hixon, born in Louisville, Ala., in 1891, began his career as a druggist. After attending pharmacy school in Atlanta, he returned to Louisville, where he and his brothers worked in the drug business. He ran his own pharmacy for two years before World War I, and during the war served as a pharmacist mate.
After the war, Hixon moved to Tampa and bought King's Drug store on Franklin Street. He sold it soon after and bought another one at Nebraska Avenue and Columbus Drive.
Four-time Tampa Mayor D.B. McKay urged Hixon to get into politics. In 1929, he was elected to the city board of aldermen, a precursor to the Tampa City Council.
Hixon won a second term and retired from the board in 1937. Two years later, voters elected him to the Hillsborough County Commission, representing Seminole Heights and Sulphur Springs. In 1943, with a year still left on his four-year commission term, Hixon won the mayor's seat, beating R.E.L. Chancey by a large margin.
Hixon remained popular enough to win the next three mayoral elections. During his tenure, he oversaw the installment of the city's current City Council with a strong mayor form of government, the merging of several city and county agencies, and the expansion of the city's boundaries that added 80,000 people to Tampa's population.
Hixon died in 1956 at age 65, seven months into his fourth four-year term.
- Source: Tampa Preservation Inc., Tampa-Hillsborough Library System.
