Saint Paul A. M. E. Church

The First Ward, northwest of Main Street and Congress Avenue, was the smallest of Houston's four original wards, settled largely by German farmers and noted for springs that gave cleaner water than Buffalo Bayou. By 1870 it was, in the Handbook's words, highly integrated, with 448 White and 250 African American residents, which made it hard for Black candidates to win, though two Black aldermen, Jason Rice and Taylor Burke, represented it during Reconstruction. Its oldest school was the First Ward Colored School, and St. Paul's stood among several Black churches there despite the ward's small Black population.

What the plaque says

Saint Paul A. M. E. Church Organized in 1869, Saint Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church has been a part of First Ward history for over a century. The first pastor of the church was the Rev. David Wren. Services were held in a brush arbor until a sanctuary was built in 1873. The building was destroyed by the 1900 hurricane. It was rebuilt and has been modified several times over the years. An elementary school, established by the church in the 1870s, became part of the public school system and in 1927 was named for Richard Brock, early church member and city alderman. (1987)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 14 mi
  Ten historic buildings gathered in a downtown park below the skyscrapers, among them the 1870 house of the Reverend Jack Yates, built five years after emancipation.
• The Menil Collection — 15 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.
• Rothko Chapel — 15 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 15 mi
  A museum in Houston's 1925 Light Guard Armory that tells the service of Black soldiers from the Revolutionary War onward, built from one veteran's thirty years of collecting.

More markers nearby

• The Klein Community — 6.8 mi
• Daniel Denton Cooley — 10 mi
• Heights Church of Christ — 11 mi
• Houston Heights — 11 mi