National Register Listing

Wheatley Place Historic District

Bounded by Warren, Atlanta, McDermott, Meadow, Oakland and Dathe, Dallas, TX

Wheatley Place Historic District is an intact neighborhood of early 20th-century bungalows that is significant as one of the first and most successful residential subdivisions developed specifically for black families in Dallas. Situated in South Dallas, Wheatley Place lies between the Trinity River to the west and the State Fairgrounds to the east, four blocks south of Martin Luther King Boulevard, which was the route of the Forest Avenue crosstown streetcar line. Platted in 1916 by Alex Camp, Wheatley Place was a planned residential community complete with a neighborhood school and par. It became a model for other additions geared to black clientele in South Dallas but enjoyed a status of its own within the black community as an exclusive residential neighborhood similar to those offered to white families in Highland Park and Munger Place. The neighborhood including, and immediately to the west of the original Wheatley Place Addition, is a remarkably intact grouping of substantial bungalows dating from 1916 to the mid-1930s. The district is eligible under Criterion C in the area of Architecture. The district is also eligible under Criterion A in the areas of Community Planning and Development and Ethnic Heritage because of its role in the rise of Dallas' black middle class during the 1920s and 1930s. Many of Dallas' citizens who came to prominence in the areas of education and civil rights lived in the Wheatley Place Historic District at that time, creating a community devoted to the betterment of its African-American citizens. Although it has been overshadowed by the more elegant houses along nearly South Boulevard and Park (NR 1979), now a predominantly African-American district. Wheatley Place is significant because it was designed and built for Dallas' black citizens from its inception, making it an important and unique part of Dallas' suburban development. The district is associated with the context of The Development of East and South Dallas: 1872-1945.

The origin and development of the Wheatley Place Historic District is closely associated with an older black community parallel and several blocks to the west, centered on Atlanta and Latimer (then Vine) streets. There is evidence of a black farming community in South Dallas, called The Prairie, shortly after the Civil War which formed the basis for the thriving suburban enclave that existed by the turn of the century. By 1905, Queen City, as the area became known, contained a number of churches including Mt. Moriah Baptist Church (3611 Latimer Street) and St. John Primitive Baptist Church (3633 Atlanta Street) whose congregations in are dated to 1902 and 1892, respectively. Small commercial enterprises flourished in the early years of the century as well. Louis Hayden had a frame store on Atlanta Street by 1910 and in 1925 he replaced it with the 2-story brick building at the corner of Romine and Atlanta streets (3735 Romine Street). The area was well outside the city limits and was separated from Dallas by a large tract of undeveloped land belonging to Mrs. W.A. Warren, the widow of Aaron C. Camp, a partner of William H. Gaston in Dallas' first banking enterprise, and later widow of James Warren, a south Dallas farmer, and real estate developer.

When Mrs. Warren's South Dallas lands began to develop, about 1902, the advent of improved city services and streetcar access had an appreciable effect on the adjacent tracts of land in her South Park Addition (1888; replatted 1902), a middle- and working-class white neighborhood. Simultaneously, former farmland, below South Park, was being developed for African-American housing, particularly in the Queen City area. It is apparent, from church records and early city directories, that some of the lands in the Queen City area was already occupied by African-Americans before it was platted into city additions. By the time the Queen City Heights addition was platted, in 1908, the surrounding community had become established as an enclave of African-American settlement in South Dallas.

In response to increased development in the area, the Myrtle Street carline was drawn into far South Dallas about 1912, making it possible for African-American residents to commute into the city for work. Shortly afterward, in 1916, Alex Camp, Mrs. Warren's son by her first husband submitted the plat for Wheatley Place to the south of the Warren lands. Wheatley Place, named for the 19th-century American poet, Phyllis Wheatley, was promoted in the same manner as many other contemporaneous subdivisions: with city services and sidewalks and in close proximity to streetcar service. Unlike those subdivisions, Wheatley Place was developed as a residential addition exclusively for black families. Although Camp continued to be involved in its development through the early 1920s, Wash Russell, a black resident of Wheatley Place, was actively promoting the sale of the lots and houses in the subdivision through advertisements in a black newspaper, by 1918. Although much of the history of Dallas' early African-American developments is unknown and remains to be discovered, Russell's involvement lends credence to the local belief that Wheatley Place was not only developed for blacks but also by blacks.

Russell advertised Wheatley Place,

For Colored People. An ideal addition with 33 completed homes and 100 lots sold. All streets at city grade, cement sidewalks, city water and sewerage, complete bathroom in every house. Easy monthly payments. I want you to see it. (Dallas Dispatch, July 19, 1918)

A comparison of the advertisement with those promoting Munger Place, a restricted white subdivision, and the Ideal Addition, a black residential community, helps put Wheatley Place in perspective. Munger Place was promoted in a 1909 advertisement as having,

all the advantages possible for money to obtain" with "all streets paved with Bitulithic. sidewalks, curb, and gutter of first-class cement" (McDonald, 1976: 162).

In the 1920s the Ideal Addition, a black subdivision south and west of Wheatley Place, was touted as having "No mud" and for the owner's ability to "have a garden, raise chickens, [and] keep a cow" (Dallas Express, October 30, 1920: 6) Clearly, while Wheatley Place was not on par with exclusive Munger Place, neither was it a semi-rural community of farmers. The amenities and lifestyle Wheatley Place afforded its resident was very similar to the suburban ideal promulgated throughout Dallas. Wheatley Place, therefore, represented a significant opportunity for the black middle class to enjoy some measure of economic and social parity - if not true equality - with white families of similar standing within their respective communities.

At first glance, early residents of Wheatley Place have occupied quite modestly by plumbers, porters, and laborers, even when judged by middle-class standards of the day. This reflects the lack of professional and skilled jobs available to blacks more than their status within the black community. As Wheatley Place developed, a number of professionals bought or built houses in the subdivision. Wheatley Elementary school originally called Queen City School, and Wheatley Park were both parts of the original plan and were attractive amenities to black families. The Wheatley Place Social Club had a regular column reporting its activities in the Dallas Express during the 1920s. By the mid-1930s, Wheatley Place was home to a number of influential black citizens including D.B. Garner, a businessman, and dietitian who built the first house in Wheatley Place (3703 Dunbar Street) and brought the Negro Chamber of Commerce to the area; John B. Rice, (3603 Dunbar) teacher, principal of Booker T. Washington High School and editor of the Dallas Express, a historic black newspaper with a large readership throughout the state of Texas; Herbert Newell Gibson, Dallas' first black mail carrier (3725 Havanna); and Dr. Harold Wendell Land, Sr., noted educator, scholar, and historian (2830 McDermott). In the 1940s, Juanita Jewell Shanks Craft moved to 2618 Warren Avenue, adjacent to Wheatley Place, where she helped found 182 branches of the NAACP in Texas and worked to effect the integration of the State Fair in 1954. Both Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr., visited Mrs. Craft in her home to discuss the future of the civil rights movement.

The success of Wheatley Place prompted other black subdivisions in South Dallas. From 1922 to 1934, the area between the Wheatley Place addition and the Queen City area was developed as English Place Additions One, Two, and Three, with houses similar to those built earlier in Wheatley Place. The first houses were built in the blocks closest to Atlanta Street and later ones in blocks abutting Wheatley Place. Although the orientation of houses to the streets in the subdivisions are oppositional, the houses in Wheatley Place face one another on the north/south streets of Havana, Meres, Dunbar, and Meadow while those in English Place face one another on the east/west streets of Twyman, Tanner, Burger, Dathe (then Waverly), Metropolitan and Casey. The close resemblance to one another and virtually all the houses conform to the popular cottage and bungalow forms displayed in plan books of the 1910s, 1920s, and early 1930s. Promotional advertisements of the day usually offered potential buyers the option of purchasing a 3-5 room house already built by the development company or hiring the company to build a new house from their plans. In either case, there was little variation in the housing styles and floor plans typical of those produced by Dallas-based Ye Planery or national companies like Sears.

One of the most attractive "amenities" of Wheatley Place was the elementary school and playground at the southern end of the addition. The original frame school, built about 1919, was first called Queen City School after the established African American neighborhood to the west, but it was soon changed to honor black poet Phyllis Wheatley (Schiebel, 1966;40). Although there had been several African American schools in South Dallas prior to Wheatley School, they were either church-related or rural one- or two-room schoolhouses. Wheatley School, absorbed by the Dallas School District in 1921, was the first substantial school for African American children in South Dallas and, as such, was a boon to real estate sales that targeted aspiring middle-class black families. In 1929, the current Wheatley School building was constructed on the site of the original frame school. It was designed by Flint and Broad, architects, and built by the construction firm of L.M. Burford and Son (plaque).

Because of its adjacent location, the similarity of development and construction style, and contextual relationship, this area is included in the Wheatley Place Historic District. In addition to this connection with Wheatley Place, the area is significant as the first black subdivision to abut the traditionally white additions to the north. The subdivision pushed the limits of the "color line" drawn roughly along Warren Avenue by members of the South Dallas Improvement League, a white neighborhood organization that tried to contain black development south of the line. In eh following decade, the growth of the black community led to the abandonment of neighborhoods north of Warren by their white occupants. Black families moved into those areas during the 1940s and 1950s until all of South Dallas eventually became identified with the black community.

Today the Wheatley Place Historic District is a remarkably intact neighborhood of similarly styled bungalows and cottages dating from about 1916 through the mid-1930s. The current Wheatley School (1929) and adjacent Wheatley Park, which was the playground for the original school built in 1920, were part of the long-range plan for Wheatley Place and are integral elements of the district. There are few non-residential buildings and few intrusions in the district. The district, with its well-maintained yards and gardens, retains much of its historic character despite some alterations to the original historic fabric of the houses including covering original wood siding with synthetic materials and replacing original wood porch posts with wrought iron. In addition to its architectural characteristics, the district is significant for its role as one of the first planned residential additions for black families in Dallas. Historically, Wheatley Place remains a symbol of the aspirations and achievements of Dallas' black citizens in the early decades of the 20th century and, as such, is worthy of recognition and preservation.

Local significance of the district:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1995.