Wyatt Street Shotgun House Historic District

The simple dwellings that comprise the Wyatt Street Shotgun House Historic District represent an important link to an often-overlooked segment of Waxahachie's past. These were, and continue to be, home to poor black laborers. While the massive and intricately detailed houses of the town's more affluent individuals have been well maintained and long recognized for their architectural significance, this row of shotgun dwellings reveals much about lower-class, black housing of the early twentieth century. Most of the residences in this block have remained virtually unaltered since originally constructed about 1918. Sanborn Maps of Waxahachie suggest that many more such dwellings once stood in the town but have either been moved, razed, or completely remodeled such that little, if any, of their original appearance or plan remains recognizable, thus adding to the significance of this collection.

The origins of the shotgun dwelling, as noted by John Vlach, can be traced to tribal Africa. Black slaves who were resettled to Haiti were responsible for introducing the house form to the Caribbean. Eventually, the shotgun made its way to the southern United States, as the slave trade flourished prior to the Civil War. The first examples in this country were constructed in the mid-nineteenth century for black slaves who worked the plantations of the Mississippi Delta region. In subsequent years, the shotgun gained widespread acceptance, as the plan type could be found throughout the South, especially in more densely populated urban areas. The shotgun house retained its popularity well into the 1930s, making it a common vernacular house type of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America.