Quakertown
Denton, Denton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In the early 1880s, Quakertown emerged as a thriving African American community in the heart of Denton. Quakertown flourished through 1920, its growth due in part to its location near the city square and the opportunities it provided African Americans. The community was bounded by Withers Street on the north, Oakland Avenue on the west, Bell Avenue on the east, and by Cottonwood and Pecan Creeks on the south. Although many residents worked for businesses on the nearby city square, at the College of Industrial Arts (now Texas Woman’s University), and as servants for white households, Quakertown prospered as a self-supporting community. Several churches, a physician’s office, lodges, restaurants, and small businesses joined homes to line the streets of the community. The neighborhood school, the Fred Douglass School, burned in Sep. 1913 and was rebuilt along Wye Street in southeast Denton in 1916, foreshadowing events to come. By 1920, the proximity of Quakertown to the growing College of Industrial Arts and civic-minded interests of Denton’s white residents threatened the future of Quakertown. Many believed that it was in the best interest of the college and the Denton community to transform Quakertown into a city park. In Apr. 1921, with little input from its residents, the city voted 367 to 240 in favor of a bond to purchase Quakertown. More than 60 families lost their homes. The majority of the displaced residents relocated to southeast Denton on 21 acres of land, platted as Solomon Hill, sold to them by rancher Albert L. Miles. Others, including many Quakertown community leaders, chose to leave Denton altogether. By Feb. 1923, Quakertown had disappeared in the midst of the new park’s construction. (2010)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the 1880s, Quakertown grew into a thriving African American neighborhood in the heart of Denton, prospering as a self-supporting community of churches, businesses, lodges, and homes near the city square. Its very success and its nearness to the growing College of Industrial Arts made it a target: in 1921, white voters approved a bond to buy the land and convert it into a park, displacing more than 60 families with little say in the matter. By 1923 Quakertown had been erased, its residents scattered to Solomon Hill in southeast Denton or out of the city entirely.
Why it matters
Quakertown's destruction is a stark example of how thriving Black communities were dispossessed through 'improvement' and park-building in the Jim Crow era, a pattern repeated across the country.
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