Clarksville Historic District

Clarksville is a small historic Black neighborhood in the hills of West Austin, founded in the 1870s after Emancipation. Charles Clark, a former slave, bought two acres in 1871, and the community took his name. Other freedmen followed, farming and later working as laborers and domestics. The district contains about 98 small, one-story frame or board-and-batten houses, most built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with Victorian details such as narrow windows, steep roofs and turned porch posts. Sweet Home Baptist Church, rebuilt in 1935 to a plan by builder W. S. Edmerson, serves as the community's focal point. The neighborhood has survived white suburban growth, the loss of over 60 homes to the Mo-Pac Expressway in 1971, a proposed crosstown expressway, and limited city services. It is considered one of the oldest continuous neighborhoods in Austin and one of only two surviving early Black enclaves. Housing and drainage conditions remained poor, and the city committed rehabilitation funds in 1976.