Washington Avenue: The First Century

            The Washington Avenue Corridor grew from the heart of newly founded Houston.

            In 1839 the State Capitol had moved to Austin and only a pioneer bridge crossed Buffalo Bayou at the intersection of Milam and Commerce Streets connecting Washington Street to Houston’s commercial center at Court and Market Squares. The gateway for west and northwest travel was established. An 1844 map shows this link to the towns of Montgomery, Washington-on-the-Brazos, Bastrop and Austin.

            Incoming colonists were rapidly settling the interior counties, Waller, Montgomery, Grimes, Washington, Austin and Fayette. Commodities and products from their plantations and small farms poured into Houston, and Houston was their source of supply. Five distinct wagon trails led to and from Houston. All had an intersecting trail allowing wagons and teams to turn and cross Buffalo Bayou to the north and west of the city by way of the Washington Road.

            Jarod Groce moved with his son Leonard from Alabama to settle at a site on the Brazos near Hempstead where he planted the first cottonseed and built the first cotton gin in Texas. In 1842, Leonard won both the silver and gold cups offered by Houston merchants for bringing in the season’s first five and next twenty bales of cotton. Demands by farmers for better access to the city resulted in the construction of a new bridge from Washington to Preston Streets replacing the pioneer bridge where stagecoaches connected with San Antonio and San Diego. The new “Long Bridge,” the only means of communication between Houston and inland towns, is known to have been crossed by more than 400 wagons a day. By this route, in 8 to 12 yoke ox wagons, the entire cotton crops came to Houston and all goods shipped to the interior went out. In Texas, 80% of the commerce passed over this bridge. The city’s traffic congestion of saddle horses, carriages, stagecoaches, mule carts, ox wagons, and even camels traveled through thick mud or on dusty dirt streets. In 1849, to improve conditions on the route that had become crucial to Houston’s commercial success, Washington Road was graded at a cost of $1,500 for six completed miles.                                                                                                                                                                             

            Founder John K. Allen had designated Railroad Street in 1836 and stated: “This is the street which the great Texas railroad will traverse”. Ten years later The Galveston and Red River Railroad began laying track westward from Railroad Street paralleling Washington Street/Road and following the proposed route shown on a map dated 1844. In 1857 the railroad, renamed Houston and Texas Central, reached Hempstead. The Civil War halted expansion, but the established H&TC route made it possible for A. C. Gray, of the Houston Telegraph, to make round-trip runs, connect at Cypress with Pony Express couriers and return to Houston with dispatches and war news. Eureka Mills, where a cotton factory was built in 1867, became the first stop out of Houston on the H&TC and later developed into an important rail junction. H&TC offered the first Pullman service in Texas on its Houston/Austin route in 1872. The following year H&TC reached Red River City and Houston was linked by rail to St. Louis and the East. By 1892 the H&TC depot at the east end of Washington Street was considered the finest in the South, 44 passenger and 100 freight trains provided daily service and three railroad shops employed 2518 Houstonians. Electricity replaced mule power to drive Houston’s street railway. Its longest line ran all night on Washington to accommodate railroad workers on late shifts. One of the city’s few paved streets, Washington Avenue, was upgraded from wood plank to brick paving as far as the city limit at the edge of park-like Glenwood Cemetery, a popular outing destination.

             German shoemaker turned real estate entrepreneur, Anton Brunner, became the first Houstonian to open an addition and sell city lots. Three miles out of Houston with Washington Avenue as its east-west thoroughfare, extending from Shepherd’s Dam on Buffalo Bayou to White Oak Bayou and from Patterson to Reinerman Streets, the city of Brunner was lavishly advertised. Round-trip excursions were offered from the Kansas plains to lure prospective purchasers with ‘one day only’ lot prices of $100 - $150. Described as the highest piece of land adjoining the city with beautiful magnolia and live oak trees and an electric rail line to soon be completed, Brunner, a community with comfortable residences, modest cottages, two schools, a college, churches, a fire station, post office, park and electric plant, remained an independent city from 1888 until 1915.

In Europe the First World War was under way. In Houston the Ship Channel opened. Mayor Rice spoke of heavy traffic congestion on Washington Avenue at Preston Street and recommended construction of a new bridge at Texas Avenue. On both sides of Washington Road, just east of a heavily wooded site that was soon to attract national attention, the residential additions of Rice Military and Woodcrest were plotted. Smokeyville, a small freedman's town with two churches and a school became surrounded by neighborhoods of blue-collar European immigrants. These areas were subdivided from a homestead tract settled by John Reinerman and his family who had arrived from Germany prior to Houston’s founding. Harris County maps from 1879 and 1928 show this large tract extending roughly from Buffalo to White Oak Bayous and from Reinerman Street to South Post Oak Road. In 1838 when the Reinerman heirs perfected the claim to this tract it was valued at $500. The original Reinerman house built circa 1834 was the subject of a Houston Post feature in 1915 when it was temporarily saved from demolition. On an industrially cultivated plantation with slave cabins, a watermelon farm and hunting grounds this frontier home was located in what is now Cottage Grove and was believed to be the oldest house in Harris County.

            A National Guard Training Camp named for Civil War General John A. Logan, established in July of 1917, employed thousands of Houston residents who built roads, wooden warehouses, offices, mess halls, stables, showers and canvas topped sleeping quarters in the woods West of the turn in Washington Road. Completed in 1918, Camp Logan trained over 30,000 infantry and artillery soldiers and contributed approximately $60,000 a week to the Houston economy. After the Armistice, Camp Logan was designated a demobilization center and convalescent hospital for wounded soldiers. The camp’s American Red Cross building served as a charity hospital until the site was deeded to the city in 1924 by the family of former Governor James Hogg to become Memorial Park in honor of the camp’s soldiers who died in World War I. But, it is the rainy night of August 23, 1917 for which Camp Logan is most remembered. In a reversal of decision by the War Department to refrain from sending African-American troops into the South for training or tours of duty, the Third Battalion 24th US Infantry comprised of 645 young black soldiers and 8 white officers was stationed to guard Camp Logan during its construction. Following weeks of racial insults, there was fear in the camp that white Houstonians had launched a mob attack after a city policeman was suspended for brutally attacking Charles W. Baltimore, a black military police officer. In an ensuing confrontation twenty-five people were killed including black and white soldiers, police officers and civilians. The battalion was immediately transferred to New Mexico where 118 of the soldiers were arrested, charged with murder and mutiny and tried by General Court Martial. Although none were individually identified as participants, 110 men were convicted and 13 were executed.

            Between the First and Second World Wars Houston experienced a building boom. Prime residential development shifted to the newly accessible scenic areas to the West and South of Buffalo Bayou. The West End neighborhoods of Washington Avenue grew to house an ethnically diverse working class population. Old homes on the avenue were replaced by businesses providing supplies and services for farms to the North and West, necessities and entertainments for area residents, and conveniences for the motoring public. The gateway, Washington Avenue, had become a busy urban State Highway.

“Historic old Houston should be preserved for future generations,

as the city is growing so fast the old landmarks are rapidly disappearing”

Jesse A. Ziegler, The Houston Post, 1938

This history was compiled by Tom Dornbusch, Historical Committee Chairperson of the

Washington on Westcott Roundabout Initiative, Inc. from resources in the Texas Collection

of the Houston Public Library.

References are available upon request.