A different kind of red-light issue (2 of 3)

(Catch up with part 1 here.)

So why was Houston's segregated vice district created?

According to a report by the city's ordinance committee, the city had received numerous complaints from residents of the First and Second wards and the school system.

"There exists at the present time in our city a most deplorable state of affairs with reference to these women," the 1908 report stated. "This unfortunate state of affairs has not existed in Houston until lately."

The committee's report hints at an unofficial vice district that previously existed in the city:

"During a great number of years, probably as many as 25 years, the majority of these women lived to the exclusion of other residents within a district or reservation which, while not declared by law or ordinance, existed in fact."

Actions by the courts and the state Legislature did away with that older vice district and caused many prostitutes to spread throughout the city, which eventually led to the complaints.

But in advocating the creation of the segregated vice district, the committee concluded that:

"The successful and permanent exclusion of prostitution from the limits of a city the size of Houston is impossible. It is a fact of general knowledge that the successful permanent exclusion of prostitution from any city of large size has never occurred in the history of the world...."

Kicking prostitutes out of the city limits would "form clusters on the outskirts of the city, most probably on the principal avenues and street car lines leading out of the city. Electric transit has carried a large portion of the residences of the people to the outskirts of the city. These citizens would have these offensive establishments brought in close contact to their homes and would have the lines of street car communication to their homes ruined by the presence of immoral men and women."

And what about those Fourth Ward residents living near the vice district?

"The district selected is considered from all points of view the best selection that could have been made. The property is of very little value and will be increased rather than diminished in value by the ordinance. No public school is situated in or near it, nor is there any occasion for school children to pass through it in going to school. It is not situated on any public thoroughfare in general use and largely the land is vacant and unoccupied by residents and is of little value, situated in the bends of the bayou and cut up by gullies."

Think about that the next time you drive down Allen Parkway near Eleanor Tinsley Park.

Actually, the whole idea of a segregated vice district wasn't exactly new to anyone. Chicago, New Orleans and Des Moines, Iowa, were a few of the cities to have their own districts. In Texas, "Guy Town" in Austin, "Frogtown" and "Boggy Bayou" in Dallas, the Utah Street reservation in El Paso, "Hell's Half Acre" in Fort Worth, the Post Office Street district in Galveston, the "District" in San Antonio, and "Two Street" in Waco were each of those town's vice districts, according to the Handbook of Texas.

Houston's was referred to as "Happy Hollow."

But as the city geared for war and as attention turned elsewhere, the city's vice district would come to a close in about 10 years. By that time, according to the Handbook of Texas, 60 percent of the women who led households of prostitutes in the vice reservation were Anglo, 35 percent black, and 5 percent Hispanic.

A different sort of red-light issue (1 of 3)

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?

Rather than list the convoluted boundaries City Council created, I've drawn it out on various maps. This is a Sanborn Fire Insurance map from 1907. Look familiar?

Of course, it's the Fourth Ward. Long before Buffalo Drive, which later became Allen Parkway. The area, made up of mostly scattered dwellings inhabited by blacks, later became San Felipe Courts and the Allen Parkway Village apartments.

Here's how the area looked in 1913:

Note that the district's boundaries changed somewhat between 1907 and 1913. By 1911, the district expanded slightly to include the intersection of Howard and Lamb streets.

As you'd likely guess, hardly any of the streets that made up the sex district exist today with the exception of Crosby, Lamb Street and Nash Street. Both Lamb and Nash barely exist as streets today, as this next image shows:

Once enacted, the ordinance made it illegal for anyone to rent, lease or hire any house, building or room to any female "notoriously abandoned to lewdness, or for immoral purposes" outside the district.

It also was illegal for prostitutes to stand on the sidewalks near the premises, to beckon any person walking by, to walk around the city indecently attired or "to behave in public as to occasion scandal or disturb or offend the peace and good morals of the people."

The death of Anson Jones

Anson Jones, the Republic of Texas’ last president, killed himself on Jan. 9, 1858. It was done at the Old Capitol Hotel, where the Rice Lofts sit today.

According to the Tri-Weekly Telegraph, Jones was found “lying across his bed…with a discharged pistol in his hand, and his brains blown out.”

A physician, the Massachusetts native bounced from Norwich, Conn., Philadelphia, and even spent some time in Venezuela for a couple of years.

Eventually, he landed in Texas just before it sought independence from Mexico. According to the Handbook of Texas, Jones didn’t actually figure on making his stay in Texas a long-term thing: He had engaged passage back to New Orleans when the citizens of Brazoria urged him to “give Texas a fair trial.”

He stayed, became involved in Texas’ fight for independence, got into politics and was eventually elected the young nation’s president in 1844.

I’m probably skipping over a lot of Jones’ contributions to Texas history and his efforts at annexation. For more on Jones, click here.

This entry is about his death. According to the Handbook of Texas, Jones became increasingly moody about losing a bid for the U.S. Senate. In 1857, Jones figured the legislature would send him to Washington as senator, but he received no votes.

Just a few days into 1858, friends said Jones came to Houston from his home in Washington County to find a place to live in the region, the Telegraph reported.

“He desired, he said, to spend the remainder of his days in more social life than was possible on his farm, and also to give his children the opportunities of a good education,” the paper reported.

He visited Galveston, returned to Houston and stayed at the hotel.

“He had apparently been drinking, perhaps more freely than was his wont; he was observed to be in low spirits,” according to the Telegraph.

Shortly after his arrival in Houston, Jones reportedly told his friend, W.D. Smith:

“I have been having some very serious thoughts today. My public career, you are aware, began in this house, and I have been thinking that perhaps it might close here.”

Smith, sensing alarm, turned the conversation away toward more light matters. The paper, quoting Smith, said Jones expressed “a satisfaction with his public career, and observing there was nothing in it he would desire to change.”

On Jan. 9, Jones appeared in good spirits. But as the day went on, he again became glum, making references to ending his public career in the place where it began.

A servant was called to Jones’ room at about midnight and again at 3 a.m., when Jones asked him for a glass of “spirits.” Jones dismissed the servant and sent him on his way after learning the servant was unable to get any.

Later that morning, Smith arrived at Jones’ room to find the door locked. After getting no response, Smith had the door broken open. Inside was Jones’ body. No one reported hearing the sound of gunfire that night.

The Telegraph noted that Jones was the latest Texas statesman to have committed suicide.

“Collinsworth, Birdsall, Grayson and Rusk, had gone that way, and Jones has now followed them. Peace to his ashes!”

(James Collinsworth, signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, fell or jumped off a boat in Galveston Bay and drowned in 1838.

Birdsall could refer to John Birdsall, attorney general under the Republic of Texas, but he died of yellow fever in 1839.

Peter Wagener Grayson, attorney general for the Republic of Texas and naval agent to the United States, died in 1838 after he reluctantly agreed to be the Houston party candidate for president. According to the Handbook of Texas: On June 20, he left Galveston for Washington, D.C. July 8 found him in Bean’s Station, northeast of Knoxville. That evening, he wrote of the terrible mental “fiend that possessed me” and bemoaned his acceptance of the presidential nomination, which had led to falsified, bitter campaign charges against him. The next morning he fatally shot himself. Besides a history of mental illness and the terrible calumnies of the campaign, his suicide has been blamed on an alleged rebuff to his marriage proposal by a Louisville woman whom he had long courted.

Thomas Jefferson Rusk, chief justice of the republic’s Supreme Court and U.S. senator from Texas, died in 1857 after his wife died of tuberculosis. He also was ill from a tumor at the base of his neck.)

Jones is buried at Glenwood Cemetery.

Tardy bell

Thousands of Houstonians crowded the Grand Central Depot at Washington Avenue the night of Nov. 18, 1915, to get a glimpse of the Liberty Bell, which was on tour at the time.

The bell was scheduled to arrive in Houston by 10 p.m. But larger-than-expected crowds in Dallas delayed the bell’s arrival in Houston by a few hours.

Apparently, the bell was carried on a rail car through Dallas streets. But one sharp curve was encountered and the car left the track, the Houston Chronicle reported. The bell was already late reaching Dallas, and that mishap increased the delay by another two hours.

So Houstonians waited. By midnight, the crowd began to disperse.

They didn’t stay away for long.

“It seemed as if hundreds had set alarm clocks to arouse them out of their slumber about 3 o’clock. Fifteen minutes later a veritable parade of automobiles and taxicabs, at times three blocks long, pulled up in front of the Grand Central Depot. The occupants made a dash for the gates and the crowds kept coming and going the whole time the bell was on exhibition,” the Chronicle reported.

Ceremonies to honor the bell’s arrival were scrapped. H.F. MacGregor, Texas delegate to the Republican National Convention, was to meet Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Boies Penrose, but the senator was sound asleep on the train carrying the Liberty Bell.

Houston loses a mayor

"I am going to try to make a mayor such as Houston never had before."
-- Joseph Pastoriza, 1917


Mayor Joseph J. Pastoriza hadn't been in office very long.

Before taking office in 1917, the New Orleans native was the city's tax commissioner. Online references credit him with taxing land values more and buildings less and being a follower of the economic ideology of Georgism.

On July 9, 1917, Pastoriza began his day at City Hall, according to The Houston Press. Later that morning he reported feeling ill and was driven home about 10 a.m. to rest.

After arriving at his house at 2204 Austin St., Pastoriza went upstairs, changed clothes, and went to the restroom to take some medicine.

A few minutes later, his wife went to check on him after realizing he was still in the bathroom. When she opened the door, she found him lying across the bathtub.

Frantic, she called a nearby friend to help her take him to the bedroom. A doctor was called and Pastoriza was pronounced dead sometime around 11 a.m.

A physician on the scene -- Dr. E. Marvin Bailey -- said heart trouble and job stress likely led to Pastoriza's death. Bailey told him that running for mayor wouldn't be good for his health.

Tax Commissioner Daniel Moody was named interim mayor until Joseph Hutcheson was elected to office in a special election.

Born to Spanish parents in 1857, Pastoriza was orphaned at a young age, according to The Houston Press. His mother died a few days after his birth, and his father died of yellow fever when Pastoriza was just over a year old. Death struck again when Pastoriza's foster parents died when he was just 7.