A Register of Places
The historic landmarks of Clarksville
Five places that hold the story of one of the oldest freedmen’s towns west of the Mississippi, and the reason the neighborhood feels the way it does today.
Clarksville is not a marketing name. It is a community founded by freed people in 1871, and its landmarks are not monuments behind velvet rope, they are a church still holding service, a park where children play, homes people still live in. Walk the neighborhood and you walk its history. Here is where to look.
Charles Clark's House
1618 West 10th Street · 1871
The neighborhood begins here. In 1871 Charles Clark, born enslaved in Mississippi about 1820, bought two acres from a former Confederate general and built his home at 1618 West 10th Street, then subdivided and sold parcels to other freedmen. Every block of Clarksville traces back to this single act.
Sweet Home Missionary Baptist Church
1725 West 11th Street · Congregation 1871, building 1935
The spiritual and social cornerstone of Clarksville. The congregation traces to 1871 with Rev. Jacob Fontaine as its first minister; the current sanctuary dates to 1935. For over 150 years it has anchored the community that Charles Clark founded.
The Hezikiah Haskell House
1703 to 1705 Waterston Avenue · c. 1875 to 1887 · City of Austin Landmark
One of the clearest links to the founding generation: a surviving hall-and-parlor home and a designated City of Austin Local Historic Landmark. Modest in scale and set on a small lot, it established the grain of the streetscape that newer construction still has to respect.
Mary Baylor Clarksville Park
Clarksville · Site of the Clarksville School, 1917 to 1965
Green space with a history. The park sits on the site of the Clarksville Colored School, which educated the neighborhood's children from 1917 until 1965. Today it ties the community's daily life directly to its past.
The Old West Austin Historic District
Clarksville and its neighbors · National Register, 1976
In 1976 Clarksville was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, recognized as one of the oldest freedmen's towns west of the Mississippi. The surrounding streets of restored cottages and bungalows carry that protection and that story forward.
See them on foot
All within a ten-block walk
The landmarks of Clarksville sit within an easy stroll of one another, and of the West Lynn dining corridor. It is one of the few neighborhoods in Austin where you can walk through 150 years of history and be home in time for dinner.
Work with Luke
Own a piece of the story
Clarksville homes are scarce and the historic ones scarcer still. Reach out to Luke to find and buy a home in one of Austin's most storied neighborhoods.
Luke Allen
Licensed Texas REALTOR, TREC #788149
Austin Marketing + Development Group