El Barrio del Alacrán
Houston, Harris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Between 1910 and 1920, Houston attracted a large number of Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans to the Second Ward where the Old Frost Town and Schrimpf's Field neighborhoods offered inexpensive housing for industrial workers. In the 1930s, the Spanish-speaking residents gave the area a new name - El Alacran, The Scorpion. Churches, the Rusk Settlement House, Rusk School and sports leagues provided social and educational services for the community. Urban renewal and highway construction in the 1950s demolished El Alacran. Once a notoriously impoverished neighborhood, El Alacran gave many residents a working start toward full integration into American society. (2013)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
As Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans poured into Houston's Second Ward between 1910 and 1920, the cheap housing of the old Frost Town and Schrimpf's Field neighborhoods drew industrial workers seeking a foothold. By the 1930s residents had given their barrio a defiant nickname—El Alacrán, The Scorpion—anchored by churches, the Rusk Settlement House, a school, and sandlot sports leagues. Highway construction and urban renewal erased the neighborhood in the 1950s.
Why it matters
El Alacrán shows how a poor immigrant enclave served as a launching pad into American life, even as postwar highway building destroyed the very community it nurtured.
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Related events
- · 1950s urban renewal and highway construction
Themes & tags
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