[editor]

Not architecture related, but this photo from October, 1913 caught my attention because of its description:

"Eleven year old Western Union messenger #51. J.T. Marshall. Been day boy here for five months. Goes to Red Light district some and knows some of the girls."

[DJ V Lawrence]

J. T. Marshall. That name sounds familiar. Didn't he become one of Houston's richest dude?

[Mark F. Barnes]

Is that the guy who married Anna Nicole Smith??

[FilioScotia]

Mark F. Barnes, on Monday, August 14th, 2006 @ 6:17pm, said:

Is that the guy who married Anna Nicole Smith??

No. You're thinking of J. Howard Marshall, who was born and raised in Pennsylvania. In his younger days he was one of the country's most outstanding corporate leaders. He got to be a billionaire the old fashioned way -- he earned it -- but he got very frail of body and mind in his old age, and Anna Nicole Smith took full advantage of it.

Here's a link to his bio http://factweb.net/Profile.htm

This post has been edited by FilioScotia: Monday, August 14, 2006 at 6:44 PM

[TJones]

FilioScotia, on Monday, August 14th, 2006 @ 6:40pm, said:

No. You're thinking of J. Howard Marshall, who was born and raised in Pennsylvania. In his younger days he was one of the country's most outstanding corporate leaders. He got to be a billionaire the old fashioned way -- he earned it -- but he got very frail of body and mind in his old age, and Anna Nicole Smith took full advantage of it.

Here's a link to his bio http://factweb.net/Profile.htm

Not trying to defend Anna Nicole, I find her utterly disgusting. IMO, Anna did not take advantage of J.H.Marshall. From all reports she treated him like most hookers would treat an ailing oldman that they didn't give a rat's patootey about. J.Howard knew the score though, and he got exactly what he wanted, he used his money and got Anna, but he didn't realize that the Anna Nicole package was "damaged goods", and there was no return policy on it.

[WestGrayGuy]

Question: Where was the 1913 Red Light District?

[TJones]

editor, on Monday, August 14th, 2006 @ 4:00pm, said:

Not architecture related, but this photo from October, 1913 caught my attention because of its description:

"Eleven year old Western Union messenger #51. J.T. Marshall. Been day boy here for five months. Goes to Red Light district some and knows some of the girls."

J.T. Marshall was very popular with the ladies back then, his nickname was "Tripod" and he used the kickstand off that bike to hold up his....................oh nevermind, but he was VERY POPULAR with the ladies.

This post has been edited by TJones: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 at 2:30 PM

[DJ V Lawrence]

Mark F. Barnes, on Monday, August 14th, 2006 @ 6:17pm, said:

Is that the guy who married Anna Nicole Smith??

That was what I was thinking as well. Thanx for the clear-up, yo.

So if this picture is of a different dude, then how did this tripod Western Union dude get a picture taken in 1913. I'm thinking that if U had a camera back then and weren't working for the Chronicle, you must have been a rich dude, right?

[dbigtex56]

DJ V Lawrence, on Tuesday, August 15th, 2006 @ 2:52pm, said:

That was what I was thinking as well. Thanx for the clear-up, yo.

So if this picture is of a different dude, then how did this tripod Western Union dude get a picture taken in 1913. I'm thinking that if U had a camera back then and weren't working for the Chronicle, you must have been a rich dude, right?

Not at all. Photography had been common and affordable since 1888, thanks to George Eastman.

[Subdude]

WestGrayGuy, on Tuesday, August 15th, 2006 @ 2:23pm, said:

Question: Where was the 1913 Red Light District?

I don't have the source to back this up (a Fuermann book?), but I believe I read that the red light district was west of downtown in the Fourth Ward, approximately where Allen Parkway Village was eventually built.

[Montrose1100]

I always thought it was westheimer, you know, those 24 hour chiropractor/spa places. Oh yeah, you know...

[native_Houstonian]

Don't know about the 1913 Red Light District, but in the 40's and 50's it was on Mid Lane. Mid Lane is about 1/2 mile east of the West Loop and runs between San Felipe and Westheimer.


Don't know about the 1913 Red Light District, but in the 40's and 50's it was on Mid Lane. Mid Lane is about 1/2 mile east of the West Loop and runs between San Felipe and Westheimer.

[FilioScotia]

native_Houstonian, on Friday, September 1st, 2006 @ 9:52am, said:

Don't know about the 1913 Red Light District, but in the 40's and 50's it was on Mid Lane. Mid Lane is about 1/2 mile east of the West Loop and runs between San Felipe and Westheimer.
Don't know about the 1913 Red Light District, but in the 40's and 50's it was on Mid Lane. Mid Lane is about 1/2 mile east of the West Loop and runs between San Felipe and Westheimer.

Mid Lane? I don't remember Mid Lane that way, but it came close. There was a lot of young swinging action on Mid Lane in the 50s and 60s, but it wasn't a "red light district". A red light district is a whorehouse neighborhood. Mid Lane was an apartment complex area filled with young up and coming "swingers", and all the action was "FREE". Didn't cost a thing, beyond your rent and liquor bills.

In the early sixties, I had a college buddy who lived on Mid Lane, and another friend on the next street over, Bancroft, and they were partying ALL the time. I slept off a fair number of hangovers in one friend's apartment or another, trying to remember the name of the young lovely I had spent most of the night with.

Mid Lane was called "Sin Alley" by the newspapers, and everybody who -- like me -- couldn't wait to get their name on the waiting list for a vacant apartment. Turned out I never did move there because I found a better area to live and enjoy that kind of life style -- the Clear Lake area around NASA. Now that was a hot part of town in the sixties.

[native_Houstonian]

FilioScotia, on Friday, September 1st, 2006 @ 2:05pm, said:

Mid Lane? I don't remember Mid Lane that way, but it came close. There was a lot of young swinging action on Mid Lane in the 50s and 60s, but it wasn't a "red light district". A red light district is a whorehouse neighborhood. Mid Lane was an apartment complex area filled with young up and coming "swingers", and all the action was "FREE". Didn't cost a thing, beyond your rent and liquor bills.

In the early sixties, I had a college buddy who lived on Mid Lane, and another friend on the next street over, Bancroft, and they were partying ALL the time. I slept off a fair number of hangovers in one friend's apartment or another, trying to remember the name of the young lovely I had spent most of the night with.

Mid Lane was called "Sin Alley" by the newspapers, and everybody who -- like me -- couldn't wait to get their name on the waiting list for a vacant apartment. Turned out I never did move there because I found a better area to live and enjoy that kind of life style -- the Clear Lake area around NASA. Now that was a hot part of town in the sixties.

Thanks for the correction. My information came from my mother, who is very straight-laced. It sounds like there were loose women there, and that's close enough for my mother to call them whores.

[WestUNative]

My reality sensor tells me I am sitting here at the computer, but I must be doing the Time Warp AGAIN! In 1964, my husband and I, married in 1963, moved into an apartment on Mid Lane. We were on the corner at the far north end of that stretch. It was utterly quiet, no heavy traffic or cars piled up at curb all night. The guy who lived upstairs from us was a John Birch Society weirdo, lived alone, never had visitors and his only objectionable habit, other than his politics was his propensity for attempting to life weights. Every night, he'd raise the barbells a bit, then drop them on the floor over our heads. I thought they would come through the ceiling any minute.

We knew nothing of its reputation, this is the first I have heard of same. We chose the spot because my husband was working at the Highland Village Post Office around the corner. Apparently the "swingers" made a hasty exit by 1964.

I tell you, Filio, it is becoming eerie, how often our paths 'almost' crossed!

[Subdude]

I believe that for a while South Main was considered a bit of a red light district. All those cheap motels..

[FilioScotia]

native_Houstonian, on Saturday, September 2nd, 2006 @ 10:40am, said:

Thanks for the correction. My information came from my mother, who is very straight-laced. It sounds like there were loose women there, and that's close enough for my mother to call them whores.

Yes there were a lot of "loose women", and a lot of "loose men". "Whores" of both sexes, I suppose, guilty of all manner of "immoral" behavior, but they didn't get paid for it. They just did it for the fun of it. Ah yes. Those wonderful days before AIDS.

[isuredid]

Subdude, on Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 @ 4:28pm, said:

I don't have the source to back this up (a Fuermann book?), but I believe I read that the red light district was west of downtown in the Fourth Ward, approximately where Allen Parkway Village was eventually built.

I looked at the George Fuermann book "Houston: Land of the Big Rich" and he said the red light district was on Howard Street which was the street in Fourth Ward just to the south of the old Cemetery on Valentine.

[enviromain]

isuredid, on Wednesday, December 27th, 2006 @ 9:12pm, said:

I looked at the George Fuermann book "Houston: Land of the Big Rich" and he said the red light district was on Howard Street which was the street in Fourth Ward just to the south of the old Cemetery on Valentine.

This is from O.W. Gray "National Atlas" published in 1884.

[57Tbird]

isuredid, on Wednesday, December 27th, 2006 @ 9:12pm, said:

I looked at the George Fuermann book "Houston: Land of the Big Rich" and he said the red light district was on Howard Street which was the street in Fourth Ward just to the south of the old Cemetery on Valentine.

This cropped portion of a 1913 map shows a little more detail of that area. What was a little confusing on the older map above was that Howard was north of the only cemetery noted just below it, and Valentine Street was not named. Maybe Fuermann was referring to the Glenwood Cemetery shown here. However, it is not on Valentine. ???

[musicman]

from the map the cemetery referenced may be the Allen Parkway village cemetery that was forgotten.

[dbigtex56]

Founders Memorial Cemetery

Founders Memorial Cemetery, located at 1217 West Dallas at Valentine Street, was dedicated by the city as a memorial park in 1836.

It's plausible that Mr. Fuermann got his norths and souths confused; everything else about the location fits with his description.

[57Tbird]

You can see that cemetery/park on this Google Map

Some of the 1913 street names are still the same, but some have changed. San Felipe Road on the 1913 map became West Dallas.
I think you're right about Mr. Fuermann being confused on his directions.

[isuredid]

57Tbird, on Saturday, December 30th, 2006 @ 12:17pm, said:

You can see that cemetery/park on this Google Map

Some of the 1913 street names are still the same, but some have changed. San Felipe Road on the 1913 map became West Dallas.
I think you're right about Mr. Fuermann being confused on his directions.

I think I was the one that got my directions mixed up. Mr. Fuermann was alive much closer to the period than I. I thought I saw Howard south of the Cemetery on a Sanborn Map, but I had my directions backwards

[57Tbird]

isuredid, on Wednesday, December 27th, 2006 @ 9:12pm, said:

I looked at the George Fuermann book "Houston: Land of the Big Rich" and he said the red light district was on Howard Street which was the street in Fourth Ward just to the south of the old Cemetery on Valentine.

Oh! So Fuermann actually said Howard was north of the cemetery instead of south, as you mentioned here. I had wondered about that.

[isuredid]

57Tbird, on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 @ 1:40pm, said:

Oh! So Fuermann actually said Howard was north of the cemetery instead of south, as you mentioned here. I had wondered about that.

Fuermann didn't give a direction. I was turned around on the map by Valentine Street.

[dbigtex56]

isuredid, on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 @ 3:08pm, said:

Fuermann didn't give a direction. I was turned around on the map by Valentine Street.

What an amazing document! Such a cast of charectors! I've taken the liberty of transcribing your scan:

there, which swayed hope full in the unpredictable whimsey of law and order until the late thirties when the street was destroyed to make room for the huge San Filipe housing project.

The erection of San Felipe was the beginning of a less extravagant era for this particular branch of Houston's sin, and never was this more clear than one day in 1950 when two young prostitutes were jailed for shoplifling. "For us," one of them complained to a cop, "things are so tough here that we have to steal to make a living." But the two girls were young, and experience is the best teacher. The city's veterans of the oldest profession were still finding ways to make ends meet in the early 1950s.

Most of the scattered brothels in Houston in 1951 though sadly run-of-the-mill, compared to their former luxury, are run by madams who have been active for at least a quarter of a century. Two of them were spangled operators during Howard Street's heyday, and at the midpoint of the twentieth century, they are the only two who are rich in cash and legend.

The richest and the best known is a shrewd, smart woman Negro woman in her seventies who began in a small way on Howard Street in the 1890's. The citizens know less and speculate more about Addie Sasser than about any other character in the history of the city's bawdyhouses. Addie showed from the start two talents which were to endear her to several thousand Houston males: uncommonly artful discretion and the ability to get the most spectacular girls. She moved to a huge, old-fashioned house on Bastrop Street when Howard Street folded, and there she built an immense 12-story garage so her customers could park their cars in seclusion, painted the house a shiny white, and put striped awnings above every window.

At least one of her rooms is a marvel of Victorian splendor,
(I'll do more later)

[FilioScotia]

dbigtex56, on Saturday, January 13th, 2007 @ 4:20am, said:

Lost in Transcription?

"The eradication(??) of San Felipe was the beginning of a less extravagant era for this particular branch of Houston's sin."

Look again suredid. Enlarge that page again and you'll see that it says "the erection of San Felipe etc etc etc.

I'm old enough to remember reading George Fuermann's columns, and I recall his fondness for sly and mildly risque puns and jokes. I know he was referring to the construction of the old San Felipe Courts -- now Allen Parkway Village -- but I'm betting that it was NOT by accident or chance that he used the word "erection" when writing about the city's old Red Light District. No, that was deliberate.

Howard Street -- which went east-west -- doesn't exist anymore. Several north-south streets on that old Sanborn Map -- Crosby, Arthur, Burton (now Buckner) and Valentine -- are still there , but only Valentine and Crosby extend north of West Dallas.

I see on the latest Google map of that area that everything west of Heiner, east of Gillette, and north of West Dallas -- an entire neighborhood that was the old Red Light District in days of yore -- is now occupied by Allen Parkway Village, the City of Houston's Public Works Department and the Federal Reserve Bank. There's no trace of it anymore. A pity.

This post has been edited by FilioScotia: Monday, January 15, 2007 at 1:25 PM

[dbigtex56]

FilioScotia, on Sunday, January 14th, 2007 @ 6:55am, said:

"The eradication(??) of San Felipe was the beginning of a less extravagant era for this particular branch of Houston's sin."

Look again suredid. Enlarge that page again and you'll see that it says "the erection of San Felipe etc etc etc.

I'm old enough to remember reading George Fuermann's columns, and I recall his fondness for sly and mildly risque puns and jokes. I know he was referring to the construction of the old San Felipe Courts -- now Allen Parkway Village -- but I'm betting that it was NOT by accident or chance that he used the word "erection" when writing about the city's old Red Light District. No, that was deliberate.

Howard Street -- which went east-west -- doesn't exist anymore. Several north-south streets on that old Sanborn Map -- Crosby, Arthur, Burton (now Buckner) and Valentine -- are still there , but only Valentine and Crosby extend north of West Dallas.

I see on the latest Google map of that area that everything west of Heiner, east of Gillette, and north of West Dallas -- an entire neighborhood that was the old Red Light District in days of yore -- is now occupied by Allen Parkway Village, the City of Houston's Public Works Department and the Federal Reserve Bank. There's no trace of it anymore. A pity.

Thanks for pointing out my error in transcription - I've made the correction.

I agree, his choice of words is pretty funny in this context.

[Don Julio]

I always assumed that Houston had a "red light district" in the early 1900s, but have never found a mention of one anywhere. It was the local author and historian, Mack McCormick, who revealed that it was located in the Fourth Ward area and was called "The Reservation." He did extensive research on this in the 1960s and interviewed several old-timers who remembered it. There was still one remaining "sporting house" operating at that time.

I understand it was located in the area that later became the San Felipe Courts (Allen Parkway Village).

Does anyone else know anything about "The Reservation"?

[musicman]

there's a thread here that talks about a red light district.

[Mark F. Barnes]

Here is some mention of the Red Light District of 1913




On March, 30, 1908, Houston City Council passed an ordinance establishing a segregated vice district.

The Houston Post reported the move was in response to the petitions of several residents throughout the city that action needed to be done to "relieve their surroundings of the immoral element that has overflowed from the places formally understood to be set apart for them."

The City Council resolution states that "such houses are scattered throughout the city and in many cases in residence sections and in the neighborhood of public schools." It went on to conclude that prostitution was creating a "menace to public order and decency, to the sanctity of the home and to the moral welfare of the young."

So where was this segregated vice district?













http://bayoucityhist...issue-1-of.html

[Vertigo58]

I know for a fact that Congress Avenue was a very well known pick up location for "ladies of the night" during the 1940's-50's.

Jokes were circulated all the time about this local.

Might have been kind of neat to see movie starlet look-a-likes roaming that area. Bet some old retired cops could tell some spicy stories. Oooo la-la!

[TJones]

Why it is right HERE: http://maps.yahoo.co...&...61527&mag=3

Click the link, the area is just west of the I-45 & 75. signs on that map, just south of the Allen Pkwy.

This post has been edited by TJones: Thursday, July 26, 2007 at 11:02 AM

[Mark F. Barnes]

Found only an index on this don't know if it's related or not.

XIV - Vol 3 - 1992 - Mackey, Thomas C. - Thelma Denton and Associates: Houston's Red Light Reservation and a Question of Jim Crow

[Mark F. Barnes]

This post has been edited by Mark F. Barnes: Thursday, July 26, 2007 at 7:22 PM

[houstonmacbro]

Mark F. Barnes, on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 @ 10:37am, said:

Here is some mention of the Red Light District of 1913
On March, 30, 1908, Houston City Council passed an ordinance establishing a segregated vice district.

The Houston Post reported the move was in response to the petitions of several residents throughout the city that action needed to be done to "relieve their surroundings of the immoral element that has overflowed from the places formally understood to be set apart for them."

The City Council resolution states that "such houses are scattered throughout the city and in many cases in residence sections and in the neighborhood of public schools." It went on to conclude that prostitution was creating a "menace to public order and decency, to the sanctity of the home and to the moral welfare of the young."

So where was this segregated vice district?




http://bayoucityhist...issue-1-of.html

"immoral" ???

Ha!

Vertigo58, on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 @ 10:57am, said:

I know for a fact that Congress Avenue was a very well known pick up location for "ladies of the night" during the 1940's-50's.

Jokes were circulated all the time about this local.

Might have been kind of neat to see movie starlet look-a-likes roaming that area. Bet some old retired cops could tell some spicy stories. Oooo la-la!

And I know that certain parts of mid-town (especially along San Jacinto) are now pickup spots for ... male companions.

[FilioScotia]

Don Julio, on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 @ 7:36am, said:

I always assumed that Houston had a "red light district" in the early 1900s, but have never found a mention of one anywhere. It was the local author and historian, Mack McCormick, who revealed that it was located in the Fourth Ward area and was called "The Reservation." He did extensive research on this in the 1960s and interviewed several old-timers who remembered it. There was still one remaining "sporting house" operating at that time. I understand it was located in the area that later became the San Felipe Courts (Allen Parkway Village).

You nailed it. That's precisely where it was. The area that was Houston's infamous red-light district of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is now Allen Parkway Village.

It was bounded on the east by Heiner, on the south by West Dallas, on the west by Gillette, and Buffalo Bayou on the north. Allen Parkway didn't exist then, so the neighborhood extended farther north toward the bayou than AP Village does now.

In fact, the old map posted by Mark Barnes shows no less than five east-west streets between West Dallas (San Felipe) and the bayou. That neighborhood went right up to the bayou banks. It was at least half again as big as it is now.

My point is there were a lot more streets and houses in the old red-light district than we can imagine today, so it must have been a busy place in its hey-day. No doubt there was some red-light spillover into the neighborhood south of West Dallas, but most of the brothels were between West Dallas and the Bayou.

That area is now occupied by AP Village, the Federal Reserve Bank and the City of Houston's Public Works Department. There's no trace of the old Red Light District. A pity.

This post has been edited by FilioScotia: Thursday, July 26, 2007 at 6:53 PM

[Propps]

http://www.chron.com...l?id=1985_14687

This looks like it will work, but if not, please forgive. It's my first attempt.

In any case, this link to the Houston Chronicle archives takes you to a story published 06-09-85, about some evidence of old Brothels and other interesting stuff found while contractors were preparing the site to build the George R. Brown Convention Center.

[Mark F. Barnes]

Here's what it says for those that don't want to register:




Paper: HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Date: SUN 06/09/1985
Section: 1
Page: 1
Edition: 2 STAR

Ashes of past sifted at site for center

By BOB TUTT
Staff

"My guess is that somebody who lived there died of yellow fever, and the house was burned."

RESEARCHERS who probed the ashes of a long-ago house fire at the site of the new George R. Brown Convention Center on the east side of downtown say the house may have been deliberately set on fire because some of its residents were yellow fever victims.

The undisturbed condition of the house's charred remains, discovered under a parking lot at the northwest corner of Crawford and McKinney, indicate they were covered with a foot of dirt immediately after the fire.

Anthropologist Kenneth L. Brown, director of an archaeological study of the area, says that, as best as can be determined, the fire occurred in 1859. The story of the fire probably will never be known with certainty, but Brown has deduced a possible explanation.

They didn't poke around in the ashes as you might expect to try to recover the glassware, which was very expensive at the time," he said. My guess is that somebody who lived there died of yellow fever, and the house was burned along with all the personal belongings in it."

In the mid-19th century, people had not yet learned that a mosquito-borne virus caused yellow fever. In some cases the personal belongings of fever victims were burned after their deaths in the belief that would protect others. In this case, Brown says, a whole residence might have been torched for that purpose.

Records show the house belonged to William Thompson. He appears to be the same William Thompson who, with his family, turned up as a Galveston resident in the 1860 census. Brown theorizes there might be a connection between this Thompson and a Mr. Thompson" and a T. Thompson" listed as yellow fever victims in Houston newspapers in October 1859.

Discovery of the burned house came as a surprise because historical records didn't mention it. Above remains of the fire were some remains of another house built on the same spot in 1865.

Investigating the fire turned out to be part of the study the Texas Antiquities Committee commissioned to determine the impact on the city's archaeological heritage of construction of the $104.4 million convention center. To preserve things that might have historic importance, state law requires such a determination when public projects are constructed.

The east side of downtown that includes the 13-block construction area once was home to middle- and upper-class merchants and shop and saloon keepers. In the 1890s, however, a growing number of small shops sprang up there, the large, regal residences began to be divided into apartments, and hotels and brothels began operating.

In the 20th century, the residential and commercial mix continued, and long before that part of town was proposed for the convention center, much of it was blighted.

The contract for the study went to Brown, chairman of the Anthropology Department at the University of Houston-University Park, and another UH anthropologist, Randolph Widmer. Assisted primarily by UH students, they began exploratory digs in the construction area last August. Parking lots covered most of the area.

Brown says the study has caused no delays in construction, scheduled for completion in August 1987.

The work has yielded about a million artifacts, including an 1857 quarter, scores of bottles and bits and pieces of glassware, old nails and other metal scraps, a carved phallic effigy" found in a cistern at a site where a brothel once operated and items that span the full history of Anglo occupation of this portion of the Houston area."

These finds are in boxes in two big storerooms at UH. The tedious job of sifting through them and analyzing their significance conceivably could take several years.

Barring new discoveries unearthed during construction, the researchers may end their digging in a matter of weeks when excavation is completed at the site of what appears certain to have been a log cabin. This spot is near the southeast corner of McKinney and Chenevert, across McKinney from the site where the historic Pillot House later would be built. (That house was moved to Sam Houston Park 18 years ago.)

The cabin appears to have been built in the 1820s, maybe 10 or 15 years before the Allen brothers founded Houston in 1836. Brown says it could have been part of a farm established in what was then a very heavily wooded area.

About 150 feet from the cabin site researchers found the remains of an outhouse and another structure of undetermined nature that also could have been part of the same farm. An old well uncovered when pavement was stripped from Hamilton may also have been on the farm.

Brown says the farm may have belonged to George Harrison, an early settler in this area who later moved to what is now Brazoria County, or possibly to a squatter who crossed over into Texas when it was under Spanish or Mexican rule.

But he doubts it was a squatter because ceramic remains found in the vicinity of the cabin were from expensive glassware that probably would have belonged to someone of greater means.

In the vicinity of what appears to have been the cabin's kitchen, Brown says, we found the most incredible collection of animal bones I've ever seen. There were many big bones that may have come from cattle or even buffalo. The bones might have been used to feed hogs and dogs."

Brown says the study has thrown new light on the city's early growth. Historical accounts say the part of downtown that includes the convention center area didn't grow much until about the 1870s, he says, but the new archaeological evidence indicates substantial growth there during Houston's first two decades, then stagnated growth for more than a decade.

One explanation for the slowdown, Brown says, might be that the city was growing in other areas, but he believes the most likely reason is the yellow fever epidemics that ravaged the whole Houston area in late summer and early fall from the 1850s into the 1870s.

All the way through the late '50s, '60s and early '70s," he says, you can see in the newspapers lists of 200 to 300 people dying yearly from yellow fever. That was a sizable dent in the population."

Contrary to a popular impression, he says, Houston's growth was due to the bringing in of families. It was not a frontier cowboy town, not a town made up mostly of single men. It became a substantial city early, and stayed that way."

[FilioScotia]

danax, on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 @ 7:36pm, said:

I'd say they just consolidated their operations.

LOLLL...you're right of course. Public Works and the Fed are now doing what denizens of the old "Reservation" did a century ago.

[Vertigo58]

FilioScotia, on Friday, July 27th, 2007 @ 7:15am, said:

LOLLL...you're right of course. Public Works and the Fed are now doing what denizens of the old "Reservation" did a century ago.

Even funnier is it's on the Crater Houston list. >

[Subdude]

Duplicate topics merged.

[Mark F. Barnes]

Here's a Photo fron West Dallas St. in the old Red Light District

[fortbendtomontrose]

editor, on Monday, August 14th, 2006 @ 4:00pm, said:

"Eleven year old Western Union messenger #51. J.T. Marshall. Been day boy here for five months. Goes to Red Light district some and knows some of the girls."

That would explain the smile on his face.

[Poppahop]

The creator of jazz music lived there for awhile

[Mark F. Barnes]

Man that's a great article, thanks Poppa.....

[tmariar]

Be sure to read HAIFer (and Houston Chronicle history blogger) J.R. Gonzales' posts on the red-light district here and here (I didn't see a third installment).

Here are some newspaper articles that provide some additional history.

This post has been edited by tmariar: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 at 11:20 PM