Pride lives on in Houston's six historical wards

Houston has always been a contender in the race for better, faster, more: taller buildings, wider freeways, bigger profits.

But one vestige of the city's history has survived the omnivorous quest for change. A century after the terminology slipped from the official lexicon, people still talk about the wards.

"When you ask me where I'm from, until the day I die I'll say I'm from the Fifth Ward," says Patricia Smith Prather, executive director of the Texas Trailblazer Preservation Association. "I'll never say Houston first."

It's a pride thing. And, loosely, a geography thing.

Most people here have heard of the Second Ward, the Third, Fourth and Fifth Wards — geographical designations based upon Houston's early form of municipal government. But few really know how they came to be or even where the boundaries are.

Nowadays, the wards are a social and cultural phenomenon, only loosely geographically defined and with no bearing on how our civic leaders are elected.

"It's becoming a source of pride for people now, to say they're from the wards," says Felix Fraga, a former city councilman who is active in Second Ward neighborhood issues.

Drawing new residents

"I think people moving in will say they're moving into the Second Ward."

The ward system, a precursor to today's City Council districts, was a common political tool of the early 19th century; it's still used in Chicago. So in 1839, Houston's civic leaders divided the city into four wards. The Fifth Ward was added in 1866 to accommodate the city's growth, and the Sixth Ward a decade or so later.

The idea wasn't to have an equal number of residents in each — for one thing, this was before women and African-Americans were allowed to vote. Instead, the lines were drawn along natural boundaries: Buffalo Bayou, Main Street, Congress Street. (Each ward elected two aldermen, and the mayor was elected citywide.)

The city's form of government changed in 1906, but nearly 100 years later the wards remain a cultural touchstone, especially in the areas that have remained primarily residential areas from the beginning — the Second Ward, the Third Ward and the Fifth Ward.

And so signs proclaiming "Third Ward is our home, and it's not for sale" began sprouting last spring, signaling a grass-roots uprising against developers angling to turn a chunk of the near southeast side into just another plot of town houses and strip malls. The neighborhoods may be modest, residents say, but their roots are worth fighting for.

"Everybody likes to feel they have a past," says local historian Ann Wilson. "I think it's good. I like to see it remembered."

As assistant manager of the Texas and local history department at the Houston Public Library, Will Howard has the ward system at his fingertips. Yellowed historical maps, sheathed in plastic and resting in narrow filing cabinets in the library's high-ceilinged Texas Room, show the system's evolution as the population grew throughout the 19th century.

In 1928, the wards disappeared from the city maps altogether as other landmarks — Memorial Park, River Oaks — replaced them as official geographic reference points. Still, the wards remained part of the local vocabulary, both on signs and in casual conversation.

"They are cultural entities today, not legal entities, and like any culture, they are almost obligated to change," Howard says.

That evolution allows people to designate the area around Texas Southern University the Third Ward, for example, even though the city limits stopped far short of there in the early 1900s.

Now Midtown

Marcia Johnson, chairwoman of the Fourth Ward Redevelopment Corp., can only sigh. Founded in the late 1990s, the organization is concerned with preserving the area's historical vibrancy, but many people claim it is too late.

"So much has been destroyed," Johnson says.

Prather is more blunt.

"The developers have literally stolen the Fourth Ward," she says. "It's gone. There's no high school there. There's no library there."

But the emotional connection remains, a mix of loyalty and pride and historical remembrance, and sometimes that's enough.

"Houston has River Oaks," Prather says. "It has the Heights, and you know how proud people are of the Heights. We have the Fifth Ward. Most people don't even know the Fifth Ward was the name of a political unit. All they know is this was my community."

jeannie.kever@chron.com