Thomas Dixon certainly had a lot of ups and downs. In 1885, he lost all 5 of his tannery and boot-making buildings in a fire, the 1893 flood swept away a tannery building, in 1908 another fire destroyed a major building with all its equipment, and finally a blaze in 1952 destroyed a large amount of stock. Despite weathering a crisis from cheap imports in the 1930s, it succumbed to the same issue 50 years later.