FOR PRESERVATION NEWSLE II ER OF lHE GREAlER HOUSTON PRESERVATION ALLIANCE
Houston's National Register Historic Districts Part VII. The Old Sixth Ward District
T
he Old Sixth Ward National Register Historic District, located north of Buffalo Bayou just west downtown Houston, is a neighborhood of mostly late 19th and early 20th century cottages. Bounded by Washington Avenue and Union Street on the north, Houston Avenue on the east, Capitol (north Memorial Way) on the south, and Glenwood Cemetery on the west, the Old Sixth Ward Historic District has the largest concentration of Victorian houses in Houston and represents the oldest intact neighborhood in the city. The district maintains the feeling of a modest selfcontained neighborhood displaying predominantly small one-story Victorian and early 20th century bungalow houses, churches, an elementary school, and a few small neighborhood businesses. Although many of buildings have been demolished since the district was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, in most respects this neighborhood has better survived the pressures of unregulated growth and development than most of Houston's other unrestricted inner city neighborhoods. The Old Sixth Ward Historic District was originally part of the 1824 two-league John Austin grant. On July 6, 1838, two years after John K. and Augustus C. Allen founded the town of Houston, S. P. Hollingsworth filed a survey of this area in which he divided the land into large, narrow tracts that ran northward from Buffalo BayouBy early 1839, the part of the Hollingsworth survey that now comprises the Old Sixth Ward Historic District had been conveyed to several prominent early Houstonians: James S. Holman, William R. Baker, Nathan Kempton and Henry R. Allen. Holman, who arrived in Texas shortly after the Battle of San Jacinto and acted as an official agent for the Allen brothers, was Houston's
first mayor. Henry Allen, brother of Augustus C. and John K. Allen, lent his support to the organization of Houston's first chamber of commerce in 1840, served as city alderman, and, during Reconstruction, actively promoted the creation of the Houston Ship Channel Company. W. R. Baker, one of Houston's earliest settlers, was most responsible for the layout of the district as it appears today. Having arrived in Houston at the age of sixteen from Baldwinsville, New York, to work for the Allen brothers, Baker was elected Harris County Clerk in 1841, an office which he held until the eve of the Civil War. From 1880-1886 Baker served as the mayor of HoustOIL Prior to the Civil War, when his financial interests were centered primarily in real estate acquisition,
Baker began buying property in the Hollingsworth tract. By 1858 he and his friends owned or held mortgages on most of this land. Engaging Samuel West as the county surveyor, Baker restructured the plat by converting the entire area to a subdivided lot and block system, laying out the grid to true north, in contrast to the original Houston town plat, which is laid out at a 45 degree angle to true north. The first sale under the new platting occurred on January 31, 1859, when Baker transferred two blocks to W. W. Leeland. As the primary director of railroad operations in Houston, Baker served as president of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad for many years. The development of Baker's addition coincided closely with the
Restored 2118 Decatur exemplifies characteristic 19th century cottage construction in Old Sixth Ward District (photo by Clarence Bagby).