page_title: Fourth Ward, Houston
section_title: Decline
hierarchical_section_title: Fourth Ward, Houston / History / Decline
caption_attribution_description: English: Jack Yates House - 1870 - Originally located in the Fourth Ward, it was moved to Sam Houston Park, and opened to the public in 1996
context_page_description: Fourth Ward is one of the historic six wards of Houston, Texas, United States. The Fourth Ward is located inside the 610 Loop directly west of and adjacent to Downtown Houston. The Fourth Ward is the site of Freedmen's Town, which was a post-U.S. Civil War community of African-Americans.
context_section_description: The Fourth Ward lost prominence due to its inability to expand geographically, as other developments hemmed in the area. Mike Snyder of the Houston Chronicle said that local historians traced the earliest signs of decline to 1940, and that it was influenced by many factors, including the opening of Interstate 45 and the construction of Allen Parkway Village, a public housing complex of the Housing Authority of the City of Houston or HACH (now Houston Housing Authority) that opened in the 1940s. Located on the north side of the Fourth Ward, it originally was an all-White development that had the name San Felipe Courts.
  The opening of Interstate 45 in the 1950s separated an eastern portion of the Fourth Ward area from the community; that portion became the Allen Center business and hotel complex and is now considered to be a part of Downtown Houston. The freeway also severed the community's connection with Downtown itself. After the civil rights reforms of the 1960s, black homeowners began leaving the Fourth Ward, leading to further decline.
  The freeway construction and urban renewal programs led to the loss of portions of the community.
caption: The Jack Yates House, originally in the Fourth Ward and now at Sam Houston Park
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