{"nrhp_refnum":"97000549","name":"Cyrus, Ben C. and Jenetter, House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"325 E. 25th St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Houston","county":"Harris County","state":"TX","lat":29.818219918000068,"lon":-95.39282118899996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1997-06-04","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Black"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A one-story vernacular center-passage house built about 1915 at 325 E. 35th Street, at the corner of North Main, near the center of the Independence Heights neighborhood in Houston, Harris County, Texas.","why_significant":"The house is listed under Criterion A in the area of Ethnic Heritage (Black). It is typical of middle-class housing in Independence Heights. It also served as the headquarters of Ben Cyrus's jitney service, a Black-owned transportation business that Houston banned in the early 1920s.","narrative":"Built around 1915 near the center of the Independence Heights neighborhood in Houston, this one-story house follows a vernacular center-passage form. It sits on concrete piers beneath a large hipped asphalt-shingle roof, with six-inch horizontal siding and a hipped porch whose lower half is enclosed and upper half screened. A chain link fence and mature shrubs mark the lot, and no outbuildings are recorded. The house is modest in detail but typical of homes built in Houston in the mid 1910s. Its importance lies in its link to Ben Cyrus, who ran a jitney service in downtown Houston from about 1915 to the early 1920s from this home. Jitneys were automobile-based transit that competed with streetcars, and Black-operated lines gave African American riders an alternative to segregated transportation. Houston restricted and then abolished Black-owned jitneys around 1922-23 after pressure from the streetcar operator. The house is recognized for its role in Black ethnic heritage.","period_of_significance":"c. 1915-1947","architect_builder":"Unknown","architectural_style":"Vernacular Center-Passage","criteria":["A"],"status_note":"Still used as a single dwelling; modified on the porch but otherwise retains its principal architectural features.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:23.205893-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/87/9694/40969487/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_TX/97000549.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/97000549/142ff7226c-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/97000549/142ff7226c-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 3.0","author":"Ed Uthman, Houston, Texas, USA","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ben_C._and_Jenetter_Cyrus_House_Houston_(HDR).jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Ed Uthman, Houston, Texas, USA</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ben_C._and_Jenetter_Cyrus_House_Houston_(HDR).jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/40969487","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_C._and_Jenetter_Cyrus_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60750200"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/texas/harris-county/cyrus-ben-c-and-jenetter-house-97000549/"}