The
tree lined south bank, as you canoe downstream beyond the Elysian
Viaduct, gives no indication that you are passing beyond Frost Town,
the 231 feet of the Moody Addition and Schrimpf's Field. The boundary between Moody's tract and Schrimpf's Field is also the boundary between John Austin's two league grant of 1824 and one of the eleven leagues of land granted to Samuel May Williams in 1828. Schrimpf's Field encompassed the northwestern tip of Williams' league and it was bounded by Buffalo Bayou in its course along the eastern half of the horseshoe bend downstream of Main Street. Its most prominent feature is the massive concrete architecture of the US 59 overpass complex that rises majestically from the former cow pasture. With some measure of elegance, the highway structure is quite impressive when it is viewed by boaters from the little-traveled bayou. Automotive travelers riding the lanes high above the bayou scarcely realize that they are traversing the historic land and commercial waterway so important to nineteenth century Houston.
Schrimpf's Field is a tract of land that is approximately thirty-five acres in size. It is bounded on the west by the survey line which separates the John Austin league from the Samuel M. Williams league, running from Buffalo Bayou on the north to near Runnels Street on the south. Today, US 59 lies on this line. The boundary of the tract then follows Runnels Street east to the International and Great Northern Railroad tracks that lie west of the Alexan Lofts, the former Myers-Spalti Manufacturing Company, then it follows the railroad tracks north to the bayou and back to the origin along course of the bayou. The field was named for the Schrimpf family, a prominent German family living in the Second Ward during the middle of the nineteenth century, and this tract of land is the centerpiece of an epic story of two German families of historic importance to the city.
The story of Schrimpf's Field begins within three years of the establishment of the town when the two Schrimpf brothers, Johann Wilhelm Schrimpf and Johann E. Schrimpf, immigrated to Houston from Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It is possible that the Schrimpf men were among the three hundred families that arrived in October and December, 1839, but certainly, they had come by the fall of 1840 since Johann Wilhelm Schrimpf is listed among the founding members of the German Society of Texas on November 29, 1840.
The
similarity of the brothers' names, with the same first name and
distinguishing middle names, has caused some confusion among later
historians who failed to recognize that there were two individuals and
their families living and working in the Frost Town area during the
mid-1800's. The brothers used the names John W. and John E. in some
instances, while identifying themselves as J. W. and J. E. Schrimpf at
other times. Further ambiguity has arisen because they worked together
in their butcher business and lived with their families in adjacent
homes prior to 1870.When they arrived in 1840, John W., at age 30, was five years older than his brother John E. Schrimpf. John W. also seemed to be more outgoing than his younger brother, and he soon became actively involved in the local German community, as mentioned above. He married Henrietta Carl, the daughter of an early Frost Town resident, Henry W. Carl, on May 19, 1842. And, as evidence of his gregariousness and involvement in local politics, John W. Schrimpf was one of two aldermen from the Second Ward in 1843.
Although Houston had suffered an economic downturn when the capital was moved to the small hamlet of Austin in 1839, the placement of the capital of the republic near the western frontier may have benefitted Houston more than its residents realized at the time. Large land grants encouraged the colonization of Texas, and the prospect of statehood overcame the fears brought on by the prospect of war with Mexico. Settlers looked to the lands on the frontier, and the easiest route to this territory was through Houston via the port of Galveston.
Texas was particularly attractive to the German-speaking peoples of Europe. Hundreds of Germans had arrived in Houston by 1840, and by the end of the decade, the tally of German immigrants would number several thousand. Carl, Prince of Solms-Braunfel, as Commissioner-General of the Adelsverein, was a principal figure in the settlement of Germans in Texas. On July 3, 1844, Prince Carl arrived in Houston to begin a year long survey of Texas in order to establish a colony for German immigrants.
John W. Schrimpf was visited by Prince Carl on October 7, 1844. On that day, the Prince attended a dinner prepared by August Senechal at the home of Major Robert S. Neighbors, who later became the Indian Agent to the Lipan and Tonkawa tribes, with the mayor of Houston Horace Baldwin, local merchants and other local dignitaries, after which he visited the City Arsenal, before stopping at Schrimpf's where he looked at pictures of old friends and familiar places in Frankfurt. Afterwards, Prince Carl spent the evening in discussions with Capt B. Owen Payn, Capt of Ordnance.
The relationship between Schrimpf and Prince Carl appears to have been more personal than business. These two men in their mid-thirties seemed to share a common vision of the opportunities that Texas presented. The town of Solms is less than fifty miles north of the city of Frankfurt. They were able to relax amid the intense business negotiations involved in the Prince's work for the Adelsverein and discuss the mundane topics of their common homeland in Hessen.
On his final trip through Houston, on Sunday, May 25, 1845, Prince Carl of Solms spent the evening at Schrimpf's home in Frost Town. The Prince noted in his journal that he ate sausage while awaiting the arrival of the steamer to Galveston. After a year of hard travel and difficult circumstances, it was just one final, relaxing evening with his German friend before wrapping up the business of the Adelsverein and returning to Germany via New York. Within a year, the influx of German immigrants to Texas and the colony in the Hill Country began a transformation of Texas and its people, a heritage that is with us even today.
The Schrimpf brothers operated a butcher shop and the success of that business allowed John W. to pursue investments in other areas. In July, 1847, John W. Schrimpf made two significant purchases of land. On July 20, he acquired from Richard Insall two lots, designated in the deed as "in Frost Town," that were located in Square One of the Moody Addition. The deed indicated that part of his residence occupied portions of these two lots. Four days later, John W. purchased about 337 acres of the Samuel M. Williams league east of the Houston city limits from Mangus J. Rodgers.
Included in the Rodgers transaction was a 31.1 acre tract that became known as Schrimpf's Field. The original deed for Schrimpf's Field describes the bounds of the tract as "...31 & 1/10 acres according to said plan bounded on the north by Buffalo Bayou, on the east by Lot No. 1, on the south by Ann St. and on the west by the line of the S. M. Williams original survey..."
Also included in the purchase were three other tracts of land that ensured Schimpf's control over the large areas of growth along Buffalo Bayou east of town. The first tract included twenty-two lots on the near east side of the City on the south bank of Buffalo Bayou and lying on both sides of Runnels Street. Two other tracts, one of slightly more than 116 acres and the other slightly more than 121 acres, consisted of land extending from Buffalo Bayou to Canal Street, and bound on the east by the modern North Milby Street and the west by the modern North Super Avenue.
Numerous land transactions during the decade of the 1840's reveal that John W. Schrimpf not only ran a successful butcher and meat market business with his brother John E., but he also capitalized on the heady economic activity of Houston through land speculation. By the end of the decade, his wealth was estimated at approximately $20,000. With assets of that amount, John W. Schrimpf was among the top 3 percent of the population of Harris County. His wealth and assets compared favorably with other young men in the county whose names are more familiar to us today, including William Marsh Rice, Paul Bremond, Benjamin A. Shepherd and Thomas W. House. Schrimpf was the wealthiest German in Houston in 1850.
John W. Schrimpf's personal life prospered during the decade as well. His marriage to Henrietta had produced three children by 1850, including their five year old son Augustus, three year old Carl and their infant daughter Anna. After ten years in Houston, John W. Schrimpf had achieved a good measure of financial success and he was poised for further gains in the decade prior to the Civil War.
In spite of one's plans, events over which one has no control often occur which change the outcome of a person's destiny. During the 1850's, a number of events happened in Houston which greatly affected to fortunes of the Schrimpf family in later decades. One such event was the arrival of the Settegast family in Houston in 1851.
Maria William Settegast, his wife and four children came to Houston from their home in Koblenz, Germany. John W. Schrimpf often welcome newcomers, especially those from Germany, to Houston and frequently provided them with the means to get settled and to establish a foothold in their new home. Within a year of his arrival, Settegast bought thirty-five acres of land along Buffalo Bayou from Schrimpf. In all probability, this was the land which became known as Schrimpf's Field. Schrimpf had purchased it in 1847, but he sold it four years later. Only a quirk of fate would intervene so that this tract retained the name of Schrimpf.
The epidemics of yellow fever stuck Houston frequently during the nineteenth century, often changing the course of history when the prominent and powerful of society died in equal measure with the anonymous common people. In 1853, yellow fever reappeared in Houston with its usual devastating results. In particular, the Settegast family was decimated by the epidemic, and all of the members of the Settegast family died except for sons William, age seven, and Julius, age five. John W. Schrimpf took responsibility for the orphaned young boys, placed them in the home of his brother and put them to work in the butcher market to learn a trade.
Business was good. Houston had prospered during the 1850's and the Schrimpf brothers expanded their business accordingly. The meat market developed into a large scale slaughterhouse and meat packing operation by 1860. By that time, John W. Schrimpf owned real estate valued at $75,000 with personal assets of $5,000, nearly four times his wealth of a decade earlier. His younger brother John E. also prospered and had real assets of $15,000.
The approach of war, however, posed problems for John W. Schrimpf. According to the census of 1860, his household included only his wife Henrietta and his son Charles. His other children, Augustus and Anna, did not survive, and it is possible that they may have fallen victim to the same epidemic that took the lives of the Settegast family. As the war between the states grew imminent, the prospect that his only remaining child, a young man of fourteen at the beginning of the war, could be lost in military service may have prompted him to send is son Charles to Germany for schooling. His efforts to shelter is family, however, proved futile. John W. Schrimpf, in his mid-50's, is reported to have died on a trip to Germany to visit his son in the mid-1860's. The City Directory of 1867 lists Mrs. Henrietta Carl Schrimpf, indicating that she was a widow at this time. Charles Schrimpf, her 20 year old son, lived with her.
After thirty years in Texas, the first generation of the Schrimpf family was fading from the scene. With the death of John W., the family lost its patriarch and its leader. John E. Schrimpf, the younger brother, had never showed the type of drive and leadership that his older brother had. At age 55. in 1870, John E. Schrimpf endured the difficulties of the Civil War with only a slight diminishment of his assets which stood at $10,500. He continued to live to the east of Frost Town on Ann Street with his teenage son William and daughter, but, having listed his occupation on the census form as "none", he appears to have retired. He is not listed in the City Directory after 1871 and is presumed to have died about that time. Henrietta Schrimpf, John W.'s widow, retained the assets of her husband which amounted to $50,000 in 1870, and she continued to live in the Frost Town home until her death sometime around 1873. It is believed that both Henrietta and John E. Schrimpf, her brother-in-law, were buried on the Schrimpf's Field property, however, the location of the family cemetery has never been confirmed.
Charles Schrimpf, John W. and Henrietta's son, was twenty-six years old in 1874, and as the surviving member of the family, should have been in line to manage the Schrimpf businesses for the next generation. Charles, however, did not have the charisma and business acumen of his father. In addition, he was challenged by the two orphaned boys that his father had accepted into his household in 1853.
William Joseph Settegast and Julius J. Settegast, both now in their late twenties, had worked in the Schrimpf family businesses since they were children, and they had become successful butchers in their own right. With the passing of all of the elder Schrimpfs, persons for whom they may have held strong sentiments of gratitude for their upbringing, the Settegast brothers felt that they should have shared equally with Charles Schrimpf in the wealth created during the previous twenty years. When Charles Schrimpf began to sell parcels of the family estate in 1877, the Settegasts filed suit and obtained an injunction to prevent the further sale of property. The Settegast claimed, in at least two suits, compensation for $90,000. They based their claim on the fact that they had not been fairly compensated for their work in the family businesses and that the thirty-five acre tract, known as Schrimpf's Field, had been bought by their father before his death, but the land had been kept and used by John W. Schrimpf since 1853.
The suit progressed slowly through the Harris County District Court for two years. Finally, on July 30, 1879, an agreement was reached between the two parties. The court documents provided that the terms of the agreement were sealed. However, with the single transaction of the sale of Frost Town Block E, Lot 5, south half to W. J. Settegast and J. J. Settegast, all of their claims against Charles W. Schrimpf were dropped. Ironically, the sale of one half of a lot which usually sold for about $25 closed a deal worth over $100,000, and it propelled the Settegast family into ranks of the prominent businessmen of Houston.
After the settlement, the Schrimpf name faded from history in Houston. Charles Schrimpf left town and no Schrimpfs appeared in the City Directory of 1880. Eventually, he made his way to San Antonio. By 1900, Charles W. Schrimpf, at age 52, was a widower. He lived at boarding house of Ella White at 816 Avenue B in San Antonio, and he was employed as a cattle buyer. Schrimpf remarried in 1904 and, in 1910, he was living with his wife Eugenia, age 54, at the boarding house of Oscar R. Schultz at 817 Nolan Street in San Antonio. Shrimpf continued to work as a sheep stockman as his circumstances were obviously modest and seemed to be a far removed from the life of wealth of his youth. He died some time prior to 1920.
Julius Settegast turned twenty-one in 1867 and that year he married Katie Floeck, the seventeen year old daughter of Frost Town brewer Martin Floeck. Julius showed he had learned the lessons of business well and, by 1870, the J. J. Settegast and Company was his own meat market on Commerce Avenue, between Chenevert Street and Hamilton Street, on the south edge of Frost Town. Older brother William, similarly, followed the lead of Julius, and, by 1873, William Joseph Settegast had moved from the Frost Town neighborhood where they had grown up and had established his butcher shop across town near the San Felipe Road.
The boys had grown into men, and they were ready and willing to assume the mantle from of the first generation. After they had successfully sued for their share of the Schrimpf estate, they bought cheap grazing land for their cattle, opened a small dairy, built their butcher businesses and, through Julius, found themselves to be among the largest landowners in Houston.
During the 1870's, William and Julius Settegast bought a large tract of land across from the Fairgrounds on the south end of town. About 1877, they built a rectangular two-story, white house with a front porch at each level. The house was large enough for both families. And, following a pattern of migration that persists even today, the succeeding generation in Houston moved from their in town neighborhood to the more affluent and elegant suburban neighborhoods south and west of downtown.
The Settegast's house was located at modern 2218 Valentine Street, between Hadley Street and McGowen Street. Julius and Katie had ten children, and, in time, each child worked in the family businesses which included the cattle business, a lumber yard, a paint and hardware store and hundreds of rent houses.
William J. Settegast died at his home in 1895 at age 51. Julius' family remained close, and in addition to those children still living at home, several of the married children and their families resided in nearby in a house at 2218 Bagby Street. In an ironic turn of events that seems to tie together in a strange way, the founders of Frost Town and the German families that made Frost Town a dynamic neighborhood for over a half a century, John Miles Frost, Jr., grandson of Samuel Miles Frost who platted the Frost Town Subdivision, married Julia Estelle Settegast, daughter of J. J. Settegast, on July 6, 1909.
In 1910, Julius J. Settegast moved the family home from its original site a couple blocks to 102 McGowen Street and remodeled it. The family lived at 2404 Bissonnet Street during the renovations, but Julius, Katie and the unmarried children returned to the home and continued to live in the house on McGowen Street into the 1930's. Katie Settegast died in 1924, and Julius died in 1933 at age 88. So undeniable was the impact of the Settegast family on the Second Ward of Houston and the east end that in 1919, when the U. S. Geological Survey was mapping Houston, the agency named the 7-1/2 minute quadrangle map that covers the east side of Houston the "Settegast Quadrangle."
For most of the nineteenth century, Schrimpf's Field was used for grazing cattle in support of the Schrimpf family butcher and meat market operations. Situated on a "splendid hill," to use the description of Jesse Ziegler who grew up in the area during the late 1800's, Schrimpf's Field was a well-drained grassland that served as an excellent pasture. The first development on the property was the laying of tracks during the post-Civil War railroad building boom. By 1869, two railroads crossed diagonally across the field to connect the warehouse and compress facilities on the north bank of Buffalo Bayou with the Union Depot near the east end of Commerce Avenue at St. Emanuel Street. The Texas Western Narrow Gauge Railroad ran parallel to the standard gauge tracks of the Gulf Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad as both sets of tracks spanned the bayou near where the modern US 59 highway does.
By the 1880's, the Frost Town area was a residential neighborhood in decline. The original families that settled in the neighborhood were dying out and their children moved to more attractive and affluent neighborhoods. Industrial sites, such as the Bering Planing Mill on the south side of Runnels Street opposite Schrimpf's Field, were built in proximity to the rail lines, and the character of the area was becoming more industrial than residential. The housing that was in the area tended to be rental houses and dwellings for low income workers. By 1885, a row of about ten small houses, the first structures constructed on the otherwise vacant Schrimpf's Field, lined the north side of Runnels Street. Maps of the time indicate that these houses were occupied by black families.
Early in the twentieth century, the industrialization of the area accelerated. In addition to the recently-expanded Bering Mills, the Hartwell Iron Works was built on the western edge of Schrimpf's Field in the Moody Addition between Schrimpf Street and Pine Street. The J. C. Carpenter Fig Company Canning Factory was located southeast of the corner of Runnels Street and Schrimpf Street, and the Tofte Boiler and Sheet Iron Works was the first plant built on Schrimpf's Field along the east side of Schrimpf Street, north of the narrow lane known as Schrimpf Alley. The need for housing for immigrants and plant workers was prompting development on the field. Chartres Street was extended north of Runnels Street to the cross street of Schrimpf Alley. By 1907, small houses lined these new streets, and the Sanborn insurance maps showed Schrimpf's Field consisting of forty-eight houses, one store and nine frame buildings.
The emergence of Houston as a commercial, industrial and transportation center during the first quarter of the twentieth century continued the transformation of Schrimpf's Field. Vacant land so near to town and the rail lines would not stay idle for long. By 1924, the Anderson Lumber Company comprising two structures, a lumber shed and a planing mill, was located at the north end of Schrimpf's Field on the west side of the GC&SF railroad tracks near the banks of Buffalo Bayou. Schrimpf Street was extended north in a curving fashion parallel to the railroad tracks and it was lined on the east side with twenty-eight simple dwellings. A mostly Mexican neighborhood, famous for conjunto (accordion) players, the street dead ended in a curving pattern of shotgun houses along the end of Schrimpf Street which suggested both the curl of a shrimp tail and the stinger of a scorpion. The Mexican immigrants who lived there and in Frost Town, with some sense of amusement and, perhaps, cynicism, called their neighborhood El Barrio del Alacran (the community of the scorpion).
In the south half of Schrimpf's Field, the number of houses doubled in the first two decades of the century. Chartres Street extended farther north into the field and it sprouted three side streets, Schrimpf Alley, Chartres Alley and Settegast Alley. A total of one hundred six houses clustered along this maze of alley ways which also included three small stores and one business.
At the north end of Charters Street stood the St. Ollie Colored Baptist Church which served the residents of this part of the neighborhood.
Few
major changes had occurred to Schrimpf's Field by mid-century. The
lumberyard near the bayou was replaced by the Humble Oil and Refining
Company Production Warehouse and pipe yard. The South Texas Stone
Company's stone cutting facility, and it neighbor, the Gooch Monument
Company were on the east side of Schrimpf Street at Lyle Street. And,
the number of small houses along the narrow streets of Kaiser (formerly
Chartres) Alley, Schrimpf Alley and Settegast Alley was essentially the
same as it had been twenty-five years earlier. However, the wear and
tear of a quarter of a century on the neighborhood had produced the old
Schrimpf Alley slum. During the 1930's and 1940's, Schrimpf Alley was a
wild and lawless slum ridden with vice, gambling and prostitution. In
1952, it was regarded as the worst slum in the city.The blight, however, was too blatant to ignore. Susan Vahn Clayton, wife of Will Clayton, the co-founder of Anderson, Clayton and Company, a large cotton exporting firm, purchased the twenty-three acre tract, about two-thirds of Schrimpf's Field, that contained Schrimpf Alley, and she donated it to the Houston Housing Authority for the Clayton Homes project. This public housing project, completed 1952, was designed to transform the slum into a healthy neighborhood. The remaining one third of Schrimpf's Field was purchased by the state in the mid-1950's for the construction of US 59.
Forty-six years later, in 1998, the Clayton Homes public housing project was renovated and replaced by low income housing in a mix of styles for rental or ownership. Three hundred of the original three hundred thirty-two apartments were torn down, and in their place, one hundred sixty new townhomes were constructed on the site at 1919 Runnels Street. Although located within a half mile of Minute Maid Park and just east of the affluent loft and townhome development of the Alexan Lofts, the Clayton Homes project remains a rough neighborhood rife with drugs and crime. Only time will tell if the revitalization of the Second Ward will ultimately recreate the long sought after neighborhood that beckons back to first decades of Houston.