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Clarksville

June 17, 2026

Clarksville

Address: Clarksville Historic District — bounded by West Lynn St, Waterston Ave, West 10th St, and the MoPac Expressway (Loop 1); about two miles west of downtown Austin Hours: Always open (individual sites vary) Cost: Free

The Hook

Founded in 1871 by a formerly enslaved man on land once tied to a Texas governor, Clarksville is the oldest surviving freedom colony west of the Mississippi — and today, after surviving a highway, a development boom, and decades of displacement, it’s also one of Austin’s most expensive zip codes.

Key Facts

  • Founded in 1871 by Charles Clark, who had changed his name from Charles Griffin after emancipation
  • Clark bought two acres from Confederate general Nathan G. Shelley, on land that had previously belonged to Governor Elisha M. Pease
  • Sweet Home Baptist Church, established in 1871, is still active at 1725 W 11th St; its current building dates to 1935
  • The Haskell House (1703 Waterston Ave), built around 1875, is Clarksville’s oldest surviving structure and is now a small museum
  • Listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 1, 1976 — the same decade the neighborhood lost nearly 40% of its homes to highway construction
  • Elias Mayes, a Black state legislator, lived in Clarksville from around 1875 and bought land from Clark in 1884

Story / History

Charles Clark arrived in Austin a free man in 1871 and bought two acres from Confederate general Nathan G. Shelley, building a house on what is now West 10th Street. The land had previously belonged to Governor Elisha M. Pease. Clark subdivided his purchase and sold sections to other freedmen and women, and the community grew from there — isolated wildland at first, crossed only by dirt tracks and, by the 1870s, the rail line of the International-Great Northern Railroad. Despite the isolation, Clarksville fell within Austin’s city limits from early on, which mattered later when the city had to decide whether to extend services there.

The community’s anchor was Sweet Home Baptist Church, established in 1871 and organized in the home of Mary Smith before the congregation purchased its own property in 1882; Rev. Jacob Fontaine served as its first minister. The current building, the fourth on the site, went up in 1935 and still stands at 1725 W 11th St with an Official Texas Historical Marker. Mary Smith’s house is itself still standing: built around 1875 by formerly enslaved carpenter Peter Tucker and his wife Betty, it was sold to Edwin and Mary Smith not long after, then later deeded to their daughter Catherine and her husband, Hezikiah Haskell — a Buffalo Soldier who had served with the Union Army. The Haskell House, at 1703 Waterston Ave, is Clarksville’s oldest surviving structure and is now run as a small museum by the Clarksville Community Development Corporation.

Elias Mayes, a Black state legislator who represented Grimes and Brazos counties, lived in Clarksville as early as 1875 and bought land from Clark in 1884; his son Ben later lived on West 10th Street. Most residents worked the cotton industry, farmed, or worked in surrounding communities. A school was operating by 1896 with 47 students, and a new one-room “Clarksville Colored School” went up in 1917. The following year, the city cut off the school’s funding — a year before East Austin’s better-known displacement was formalized by the 1928 Koch & Fowler master plan, but driven by the same campaign to concentrate Black Austinites and Black services on the east side of town. Many Clarksville families refused to leave; the community kept its own school running independently, with enrollment holding at 69 students in 1924, 66 in 1934, and 70 in 1940, until the schoolhouse was finally moved to O. Henry Junior High in the 1960s. Residents lit their homes with kerosene lamps until 1930, even as “spacious, middle-class” white homes filled in the surrounding area.

The 1970s brought the neighborhood’s sharpest blow: the MoPac Expressway was routed along the old Missouri-Pacific rail corridor that already cut through western Clarksville, over residents’ objections. Twenty-six families were relocated and twenty-three left voluntarily; between 1970 and 1976 the number of homes in Clarksville fell from 162 to fewer than 100. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 1, 1976 — official recognition arriving in the same years the community was being hollowed out. A development company began buying lots in 1977 and building houses aimed at a young, white, middle-class market, driving up rents and pushing out longtime residents. In 1978, neighbors formed the Clarksville Community Development Corporation to provide low-cost housing and community services and to encourage displaced families to return.

Clarksville’s name also has an unlikely footnote in Austin’s food history. In 1980, Craig Weller and Mark Skiles’s Clarksville Natural Grocery merged with John Mackey and Renee Lawson’s SaferWay to open the original Whole Foods Market in the 900 block of North Lamar, right at Clarksville’s eastern edge. That original storefront is long gone, but the company it started traces its name back to this neighborhood. Today Clarksville is one of Austin’s most desirable and expensive addresses — a reversal that makes the surviving 19th-century cottages, the active church, and the Haskell House museum feel less like background and more like the point of the visit.

Local Legend

The version of the founding story passed around Clarksville credits Governor Elisha Pease with generosity: that he gave land to his formerly enslaved workers so they’d stay nearby and keep working for him. The kernel of truth is there — the land Clark settled had been Pease’s, and freed people did remain close to their former enslavers’ households more often than the tidier emancipation narrative suggests. But the documented transaction is plainer than the legend: Clark bought his two acres from Confederate general Nathan Shelley, not as a gift from Pease, and “staying close for the convenience of a former enslaver” is a less flattering motive than the version usually told on porches.

Insider Tips

  • Sweet Home Baptist Church (1725 W 11th St) — the fourth building on the site (1935), with a state historical marker out front; still an active congregation, so be respectful of services
  • Haskell House (1703 Waterston Ave) — Clarksville’s oldest surviving structure (~1875), now a small museum run by the Clarksville Community Development Corporation; check ahead for open hours
  • West Lynn Street is the neighborhood’s small commercial strip and a natural bookend for a walking stop
  • The block-to-block contrast — a modest 1870s-1900s cottage next to seven-figure new construction — is most of what makes the tour land
  • The original Whole Foods Market opened in 1980 in the 900 block of North Lamar; worth a mention even though the building itself is gone
  • MoPac Expressway, visible along the neighborhood’s western edge, is the same corridor residents fought losing their homes to in the 1970s

Logistics

  • Tour stop duration: 45–60 min (walking)
  • Parking: street parking near West Lynn St or Reed Park
  • Nearby stops: East Austin, Pease Park, downtown Austin

Sources

EB

By EB in Austin, Texas.