Neighborhood History

John Austin and the Allen brothers

The largest and best known of the land grants in Harris County is the John Austin 2-league grant.  On July 19, 1824, Stephen F. Austin granted 2 leagues of land to John Austin.  The amount of land in a league varies from time to time and place to place, but in Texas in the nineteenth century it was the area of a square 5000 varas (1 vara = 33 1/3 inches) on a side, or in modern terms, 4428 acres or almost 7 square miles.  John Austin owned 2 leagues in the form of a square, the confluence of White Oak and Buffalo Bayous being near the southeast corner inside the square.  In modern terms the boundaries are West Dallas on the south, Reinerman Street on the west, the North Loop on the north, and Maury Street (a small street one block east of Elysian) on the east.

John Austin was one of the original 300 settlers who came to Texas with Stephen F. Austin.  They both came from Connecticut but were not related, or if related, only very distantly related.  John Austin was a prominent member of the colony and lived in Brazoria.  He died in the cholera epidemic of 1833, as did his 2 children.  His widow survived and remarried in January 1834.  She gave the upper league of her husband’s land grant to his father, who came to Texas from Connecticut to manage it, but he died of cholera in 1834.  On August 26, 1836. the Allen brothers Augustus C. Allen and John K. Allen purchased for $5000 the south half of the lower (eastern) league from Mrs. Austin and her new husband T. F. L. Parrott, and on August 24, 1836, they purchased the upper (western) league from John Austin’s brother William T. Austin for $1 per acre.  They now owned 3/4 of John Austin’s two-league survey, and they chose a point in the southeast corner where White Oak Bayou flows into Buffalo Bayou as the location of their new town.

S. P. Hollingsworth and W. R. Baker

In 1838 a local surveyor named Samuel P. Hollingsworth was commissioned to survey a sequence of tracts north of Buffalo Bayou.  All of these tracts are long north-south and narrow east-west and extend from Buffalo Bayou on the south to a straight line on the north side that coincides with Dart Street west of Houston Avenue.  Most (but not all) of what is today the Old Sixth Ward Protected Historical District is in a subdivision of the City of Houston with the legal name BAKER W R NSBB.  'NSBB' means 'North Side Buffalo Bayou', and BAKER W R' refers to William R. Baker, who in 1838 purchased 3 of the Hollingsworth tracts containing about 130 acres.  They were contiguous; the eastern boundary is the east side of Sabine Street and the western boundary is 100 feet east of the east side of Sawyer Street at Washington.  In 1858 Baker created a rectilinear grid of streets and blocks and lots and began to sell lots.  His first sale was in January 1859.

William Robinson Baker was a major player in real estate development and speculation in the 19th century.  He was born in New York and came to Houston as a young man.  He was Harris County Clerk for 16 years in the 1840s and 50s and Houston mayor for 6 years in the 1880s.  He served one term as a State Senator, and for a long period of time he was associated with the Houston and Texas Central Railroad as secretary, vice-president, president, and/or board member.  When he died in 1890, he owned huge amounts of land in many counties.  Today he resides in Glenwood.

Washington Road

The Washington Road is one of the oldest roads in Texas.  It went from Houston to Washington -- Washington on the Brazos, that is, which before the advent of railroads, was an important river port.  The Declaration of Independence from Mexico was signed there.  The Girard map, dated January 1838, shows the same tracts as the Hollingsworth map and additionally shows the Washington Road.  It is basically east-west and slightly sinuous.  An 1853 deed indicates that it crossed Sabine Street about 100 feet north of the north side of Lubbock Street.  That deed mentions both the old Washington Road and new Washington Road, which presumably was where Washington Avenue is today.

Houston and Texas Central Railroad

The H&TC (Houston and Texas Central Railroad) began track laying in 1856.  The railroad owned most of the land north of the tracks and south of Dart Street.  Repair shops, including a roundhouse were located there, and the railroad soon became the largest employer of people who lived in what is now the Old Sixth Ward Historical District.  In 1887 a passenger depot called Grand Central Station was built on the north side of Washington Avenue slightly east of where the Amtrak Station is today.

The Wards

When the City of Houston was organized in 1837, it was divided into 4 wards for purposes of governance.  The city council consisted of two aldermen from each of the 4 wards and a mayor.  Lines passing through the intersection of Congress Avenue and Main Street divided the city into 4 quadrants, numbered counterclockwise.  Buffalo Bayou split the Fourth Ward into two parts which gradually evolved in different ways.  By the mid-1880s, the phrase "Fourth Ward North" was in common use.  In 1896 Fourth Ward North officially became a new ward -- the sixth and last of the wards.  In 1866 everything east and north of Buffalo Bayou and White Oak Bayou had become the Fifth Ward.  The Sixth Ward as a political entity was short-lived.  In 1905 the ward system was abolished.  After 1905, the mayor and 4 commissioners were elected at-large.

Sixth Ward

If you look at GoogleMaps and use a ruler to create an imaginary extension of Congress Avenue north of the bayou, you will see that a substantial part of what people today think of as the First Ward (the Silos, for example) was historically a part of the Sixth Ward.  The Old Sixth Ward Protected Historical District is a small part of what was the Sixth Ward in the 19th century.

The street that is today North Memorial Way was originally Nicaragua, then Moore, then West Capitol, and then finally North Memorial Way.  The north side of Nicaragua was residential, just like the rest of the neighborhood.  The area south of Nicaragua and west of Sabine was never residential.  It has belonged to the city for more than 100 years.  Memorial Drive was constructed in the 1950s.  In 1896 Center Street was an ordinary residential street.  There were a few stores on Washington Avenue, but it was still mostly residential.  The curvy street that we know today as Sawyer was created in the 1960s. 

In the 1890s the local newspaper (Houston Post) lauded Fourth Ward North as one of the finest and healthful places to live in Houston. The area enjoyed the highest elevation in Houston and abundant artesian water, fed by the same aquifer that fed the Beauchamp Springs nearby.  Residents enjoyed close proximity to downtown, the Vauxhall Gardens, and the Highland Park resort, which was located nearly a mile north at the corner of Houston Ave and White Oak Drive.  It was one of the city’s earliest amusement parks.  So popular was Fourth Ward North that the newspaper ran a weekly section on it for several years documenting its daily happenings.

The Residents

An analysis of the 1900 and 1920 censuses for the residential area between the cemeteries and Houston Avenue and between the railroad and Nicaragua/North Memorial Way tells us a lot about the people who lived here.

In 1900, 79% were born in the United States and 21% were immigrants.  Of those born in the US, 28% were second-generation.  The immigrants were from 18 different countries.  Almost all were from Europe; 54% of the immigrants were from Germany.  The immigrants seem to be scattered throughout the neighborhood and not concentrated as to country of origin.  Residents categorized as black or mulatto tend to be concentrated in 2 places but are also scattered throughout the neighborhood.  There doesn't seem to be any rigid segregation.

In 1900, the railroad was by far the major employer.  Of the 139 railroad employees, 39 rode on the trains -- engineers, firemen, conductors.  A larger number, 59, worked in the shops -- blacksmiths, machinists, boiler makers, and a remarkably large number of carpenters.  In the modern world, you don't think of rolling stock being made of wood.

A smaller but still significant number were employed in cotton seed oil mills.  A majority of the residents of the Sixth Ward were blue-collar workers, but there are also professional people in the neighborhood -- 6 physicians, 9 ministers, 11 engineers.  There are 14 saloon keepers, 8 merchants, and 8 druggists.

In 1920, the railroad is still by far the largest employer.  There are immigrants from 27 different countries, but the percentage of immigrants is smaller than in 1900.  There has been a big decrease in the number of German immigrants, from 118 to 67, but there are still lots of them.  The number from England and Scotland has declined, but the number from Italy has increased substantially.  There were several major earthquakes in southern Italy in the early 20th century.  The number of Mexican immigrants has dramatically increased.  The Mexican Revolution began in earnest in 1911.  The increase from Russia and eastern Europe is mainly due to Jewish immigration.  The census does not indicate religion or ethnicity, but in 1920 it indicates native language.  Almost all of these immigrants speak Yiddish or Hebrew.

In the 19th century, where you lived depended more on where you worked and less on your social class than is the case today.  In the Sixth Ward it was not unusual to see an owner of an oil mill living next door to a railroad laborer, or a Baptist minister next to a saloon keeper.

Decline and Renewal

Sixth Ward’s ‘golden age’ lasted until the 1920s, when the advent of the automobile led to the rapid growth of new subdivisions along the city outskirts. These new subdivisions featured inexpensive homes complete with garages, modern bathrooms, and financing packages which attracted many people from the Sixth Ward and other older neighborhoods.  By that time, the original generation of homeowners had passed on and their heirs were eager to offload these properties. The Sixth Ward then entered an 80-year phase when most of her homes were rental property owned by absentee landlords.  Larger houses were often split up into small apartments or operated as rooming houses.

The country’s bicentennial in 1976 stimulated a new-found enthusiasm for the nation’s history and historic preservation.  The Sixth Ward was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and was Houston’s first neighborhood to be so designated.  The Old Sixth Ward was designated as a City of Houston Historic District on December 23, 1997. A decade later, the neighborhood took further preservation measures and applied for designation as a Protected Historic District. In August 2007, Houston City Council designated the Old Sixth Ward as Houston’s first Protected Historic District. As part of this designation process, City Council adopted Design Guidelines for Old Sixth Ward Protected District.  Historic buildings are protected.  They cannot be demolished, and if an owner wants to make any significant changes to the exterior of a building, he or she must obtain authorization from HAHC (Houston Archaeological and Historical Commission) in the form of a CoA (Certificate of Appropriateness).

Pages 001-020 (13 MB)

• Name

• Location

• Classification

• Owner of Property

• Location of Legal Description

• Representation in Existing Surveys

• Description

• Significance

• Major Bibliographical References

• Geographical Data

• Form Prepared By

• State Historic Preservation Officer Certification

• Hand written notes

• National Register of Historic Places Evaluation/Return Sheet

• National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet

Pages 021-101 (180 MB)

• Historic Preservation Certification Application Part 1 - Evaluation of Significance

• Many evaluations and photos of properties around the neighborhood

• Memorandums

• Topographic Maps

• Plat Maps

Pages 102-142 (12 MB)

• Current  Property Owners List (February 1977)

Pages 143-229 (62 MB)

• Old 6th Ward Historical Association By-Laws (March 2, 1976)

• Old 6th Ward Historical Association Charter (March 9, 1976)

• Old 6th Ward Historical Association Certificate of Incorporation (March 1, 1976)

• Old 6th Ward Historical Association Articles of Incorporation (March 1, 1976)

• Misc Letters

• Resolution

• Telephone Report

• Newspaper articles

Pages 230-291 (42 MB)

• National Register Data Sheet (January 23, 1978)

• The Old Sixth Ward, a Study in Neighborhood Preservation (1976)