Houses caught fire on Tenth Street, Dallas’s historic city of freedmen

In recent months, several houses have caught fire in Dallas’ Tenth Street Historic District.

The Tenth Street Historic District was established by the city in the early 1990s. Freed slaves began to settle the East Oak Cliff area after the Civil War. Many of them were probably former slaves of William Brown Miller, a prominent Dallas cotton farmer. Some of them are buried in the Oak Cliff Cemetery, which is located in the heart of the area on East Eighth Street.

Today, the area is often referred to as the most untouched freedmen’s town in the country. According to Robert Swann, who owns a house on Tenth Street and is a commissioner in that part of town, Dallas City Council District 4, this is probably the only place with an intact freedman’s burial ground. the graveyard tries to contain it as well as possible.

Swann has become increasingly interested in the history of the freedmen’s town since he began renovating the house next door about 15 years ago.

Swann was working at Oak Cliff Cemetery on the morning of one of the fires. He reached the cemetery at about 11 am on Friday, January 27th. “I smelled smoke almost immediately when I got out of the car,” he said. Swann left the cemetery to find where the smell was coming from. Eventually, he saw a Dallas Fire and Rescue (DFR) firefighter on the roof of 1225 Boswell Street. The fire started and spread from a neighboring house. Swann said the house fire appeared to have been put out, but flames continued to erupt from a gas meter between the two houses. DFR was able to put out the remaining fires after the gas was turned off, but two houses sustained significant damage.

Seven days earlier, the house at 1014 Betteron Circle had caught fire. About a month earlier, the same had happened to the house at 1414 E. Clarendon Drive, leaving a lot of debris behind. A house at 1023 Church Street recently caught fire.

“I smelled smoke almost as soon as I got out of the car.” — Robert Swann, Dallas Landmarks Commission.

tweet it

There are many possible causes for such fires. Some of the houses in the neighborhood are abandoned and inhabited by the homeless, some of whom may start fires in houses or tamper with a nearby gas pipeline to keep warm. But whenever there’s a fire in the Tenth Street Historic District, Swann said, people in the neighborhood suspect arson. Swann said he did not speak on behalf of the landmarks commission and his comments about the fires and their causes are entirely speculative.

People often assume that the fires in the area may be economically motivated, he said, and that the people behind them simply don’t want to deal with the restrictions associated with historic structures like the Tenth Street houses. “Perhaps that is all I have to say about it,” Swann said. – I do not approve of this.

Larry Johnson, a temporary resident in the neighborhood, said he believed the fire at 1023 Church Street was accidentally started by homeless people staying at the house. But when asked about the others, he is sure they were installed on purpose. “Those [fires] were installed on purpose,” Johnson said. He thinks someone used the gas pipeline to burn down the houses on Boswell Street. “It was done on purpose,” Johnson said. “You don’t get access to gas lines by accident in a house that’s been empty the whole time I’ve been involved, which is more than five years.”

Johnson is a member of the Tenth Street Housing Association and the Tenth Street Task Force representative on the Landmarks Commission.

According to DFR spokesman Jason Evans, investigators have not yet determined the cause of the fire. Observer. Here’s what the fire department knows about fires.

Around 8:00 pm on December 26, DFR answered an emergency call about a fire at 1414 E. Clarendon Drive. By the time firefighters arrived, the house was engulfed in flames. “Firefighters launched an attack on the house and extinguished the flames within an hour of arriving at the scene,” Evans said. “Fortunately, no one was in the house at the time of the fire, so no casualties were reported.”

The fire was reported by a neighbor across the street who said he heard a loud crash that shook their house. “Believing it was a car accident, she looked out the front door of her house and saw a big fire in the house across the street,” Evans said. The house has been empty since the previous owner died about two years ago, but according to a neighbor, the back door could always be seen open.

“While investigators believe the fire started at or around the back of the house, they have not been able to rule out several potential ignition sources,” Evans said. “Therefore, the cause of the fire is listed as undetermined.”

Less than a month later, DFR answered another 911 call about a fire in a building next door. Firefighters arrived at 1014 Bittern Circle around 1:30 a.m. Jan. 20 to find an empty one-story building completely engulfed in flames, leading “firefighting efforts to go on the defensive early,” Evans said. Evans said neighbors reported homeless people coming in and out of the house frequently, but no one was there when firefighters showed up.

One neighbor said he heard clapping outside, and when they got up to look, the house was already on fire. DFR investigators believe the fire started at the back of the house and spread up and to the sides in both directions. This damaged much of the structure and exterior cladding of the neighboring house. “No injuries were reported as a result of this fire, and the cause is undetermined due to the failure of investigators to locate multiple possible ignition sources,” Evans said.

A week passed before the houses on Boswell Street caught fire. The DFR showed up around 11 a.m. on January 27 answering an emergency call about a fire at 1223 Boswell Street. When firefighters arrived, they saw flames coming out of the side window of the house. “In fact, the blaze was so intense that it caused significant damage to a nearby home at 1225 Boswell St.,” Evans said. At 1223 Boswell, DFR discovered a fire in a bedroom on the side of the house. Firefighters were able to extinguish the house fire fairly quickly, but flames continued to erupt from a gas meter between the two houses. This continued to cause damage to houses until Oncor turned off the gas.

According to Evans, at 1223 Boswell St. seven people live, but only three were home when the fire started. All survived safely, but one was taken to a local hospital after being exposed to smoke from the fire. Two people living in 1225 in Boswell were not at home at the time of the fire. The American Red Cross called for help from all affected residents.

Evans said investigators were told that a resident at 1223 Boswell Street smelled smoke coming from one of the bedrooms. When they went to check it out, they found the fire. The resident tried to put out the fire, but it got out of control and everyone left the house.

“Investigators believe the fire started in said bedroom and then spread vertically and horizontally throughout the home, causing significant damage,” Evans said. “After interviewing passengers and witnesses, in addition to documenting evidence in the remains, investigators were unable to rule out several possible sources of ignition. Therefore, the cause of the fire is listed as unknown.”

Swann does not believe the arson was deliberate. In any case, the historical parts of the area were destroyed. This is nothing new for the Tenth Street Historic District, Swann said.

“People, when they talk about why Tenth Street matters, why it’s important, they point to the degree of its sanctity,” Swann said. “Throughout the time they’ve been touting the integrity of Tenth Street, talking about why it’s important, houses have been demolished and many demolitions have been initiated and sponsored by the city.”

“Those [fires] were installed on purpose,” Larry Johnson, Tenth Street Historic District Resident.

tweet it

In 2019, Northwest Texas Legal Aid and the Tenth Street Housing Association sued the city, alleging it was demolishing neighborhood homes at a disproportionate rate. Ok Cliff Lawyer. The lawsuit alleged that from 1993, when Dallas declared the area a historic district, to 2017, the city demolished at least 72 Tenth Street homes.

“The city has not demolished homes at such a rate and on such a scale in any historic district where white history has been preserved,” the lawsuit says.

It also states that infrastructure on Tenth Street, such as roads, sewers, and storm drains, is in the city’s neglect compared to other historic districts.

“I think it’s foolish to think that the value of the Freedmen’s Town on Tenth Street depends on how well it’s been preserved, because that degree of preservation has been constantly undermined by fires, destruction, neglect and all these things,” he said.