Dr. Anne Elizabeth Davis Roark

Roark's life ran through two neighborhoods. In 1923 she became the first Black woman to operate a business downtown, a podiatry office that served white patrons in a segregated city. At home she belonged to the Eastside, which grew from the 1880s around Flood, Harding and Tulsa streets and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, once Eastside Drive. Flood Street was its hub, and the Roark Plaza Hotel and its coffee shop stood among its businesses. The Isis Theatre, another venue there, opened on June 19, 1947. Integration later opened the city to Black residents, but many Eastside businesses closed.

What the plaque says

Dr. Anne Elizabeth Davis Roark Following the local oil boom in 1918, the African American population in Wichita Falls increased as did the need for businesses and services. Dr. Anne Elizabeth Davis Roark was born in rural Texas in 1894 and educated at Paul Quinn College in Waco. She furthered her education by attending Schools of Chiropody (Podiatry) and Massage in Chicago. Dr. Roark opened a practice in Mineral Wells, but shortly moved to Wichita Falls with her husband, Daniel Henry Roark. Dr. Roark practiced Podiatry in Wichita Falls for nearly 60 years, opening her first office in 1923. Dr. Roark's office from the 1920s to 1940s was located in the downtown area, serving white patrons, an unusual occurrence in the segregated community of Wichita Falls. Meanwhile, Dr. Roark and her husband were active in their east side community. During the 1940s, they operated the Roark Plaza Hotel and Coffee Shop, a site that served as a poll tax location and a waitress training site for African Americans. The Roarks were active in their church, Anderson Chapel A.M.E., and contributed to the local NAACP and church women united. After Daniel's death, Dr. Roark continued their plans to open an African American theater, the Isis, on the east side of town. The theater brought in well-known African American artists and movies for the community. The theater was also used as the Negro Servicemen's Service Center as there were no facilities at Sheppard Air Force Base for African American soldiers. In the face of adversity, Dr. Roark persevered to achieve her goals and to better the cultural environment of her community. Dr. Anne Roark passed in 1984 and is buried beside her husband in Lake View Cemetery. (2016)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• World's Littlest Skyscraper — 0.5 mi
  A four-story brick tower in downtown Wichita Falls, 40 feet tall and 10 feet wide, the leftover of a 1919 oil-boom office deal in which, the story goes, investors misread inches as feet.
• Kell House Museum — 1.1 mi
  The 1909 Classic Revival house of Frank Kell, the miller and railroad builder who helped make Wichita Falls a city, shown by guided tour with its family furniture still in place.
• Lake Arrowhead State Park — 12 mi
  A prairie park on the north shore of the Wichita Falls water-supply lake, which drowned the town of Halsell in 1965-66, with mesquite campsites, a lighted pier and more than 200 bird species.
• Clay County 1890 Jail Museum — 18 mi
  Henrietta's 1890 stone jail a block from the domed courthouse, now the county museum, with its original cells, a gallows that was never used and the sheriff's family quarters.

More markers nearby

• Dr. Colonel Bertram (C. B.) Fuller — steps away
• Athletic Park / Spudder Park — 0.3 mi
• Site of St. James Hotel — 0.6 mi
• The Zale Legacy — 0.6 mi