{"nrhp_refnum":"92001759","name":"Zion Hill Historic District","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Roughly bounded by Park St., Lanana Cr., Oak Grove Cemetery and N. Lanana St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Nacogdoches","county":"Nacogdoches County","state":"TX","lat":31.605581774000058,"lon":-94.64744541633922,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1993-01-07","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Black","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A residential historic district of about 10 acres in Nacogdoches, Texas, bounded roughly by Park Street, Lanana Creek, Oak Grove Cemetery and N. Lanana Street. It holds 70 contributing and 9 noncontributing resources dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.","why_significant":"The district is significant for its architecture and for Black ethnic heritage. It is a cohesive, intact neighborhood of modest frame houses that grew from land held by freedman Frank Walton and the first Black Baptist congregation in Nacogdoches. Zion Hill Baptist Church, built in 1914, is its focal point.","narrative":"Zion Hill is a small, densely built neighborhood in old Nacogdoches, just north of Oak Grove Cemetery and beside Lanana Creek. Most of its buildings are one-story wood frame houses from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mainly bungalows, shotgun houses, two-room or saddlebag dwellings and pyramidal-roof homes, with little decorative detail. The area began on ten acres given to freedman Frank Walton in 1881. Walton and his wife later offered land to the newly formed Zion Hill Baptist Church, the first Black Baptist congregation in Nacogdoches, chartered in 1879. The present church, built in 1914 with Gothic Revival features, a cruciform plan and an eight-sided corner tower, is the district's only nonresidential building and its landmark. The Park Street Cemetery, tied to the earliest settlers, is also included. The district is valued for its intact character, tight development and its record of Black community life in the railroad-era growth of the town.","period_of_significance":"ca. 1890-1940","architect_builder":"Rulfs, Dietrich A.W.","architectural_style":"Late 19th and Early 20th Century American Movements: Bungalow; Late Victorian: Queen Anne; Late Gothic Revival; vernacular shotgun, two-room and modified L-plan forms","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Mostly houses still in domestic use; some vacant lots remain where small houses were razed. The form lists a current function of vacant/not in use for part of the district.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:21.572039-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/86/9698/40969886/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_TX/92001759.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/40969886","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q109999738"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/texas/nacogdoches-county/zion-hill-historic-district-92001759/"}