Rutherford B. H. Yates, Sr., House
Houston, Harris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Rutherford Birchard Hayes Yates (1878-1944), son of the Rev. John Henry "Jack" and Harriet Yates, grew up next door to this property (in a house later relocated to Sam Houston Park.) Yates followed in his father's footsteps as a civic and religious leader in Houston's Fourth Ward, originally known as Freedmen's Town, a spiritual, cultural and business district for African Americans in Houston since the Civil War. Following his graduation in 1906 from Bishop College in Marshall, Texas, with a degree in printing, Rutherford Yates taught school in Vinto, Louisiana, and Palestine, Texas, before moving to Dallas with his wife, Erie (Sherrod), and their infant daughter. In 1908, they moved to Houston and resided in the Yates family home until this house was completed in 1912. A well-preserved and typical example of the middle class residences built in the Fourth Ward in the early 20th century, the Yates house features leaded glass windows, a wraparound porch with Classical columns, and doors with transoms and sidelights. During the time that the Yates family occupied this house, Rutherford Yates worked with several African American printers and taught at the Houston Academy (founded by his father) where he had attended school as a young boy. In 1922, he and his brother Paul established the Yates Printing Company, which grew and prospered over the years until it closed after 1978. At a time when commercial lodging for African Americans in Houston was limited, Rutherford and Erie Yates and their children -- Johnnie Mae, Olee and Rutherford -- often opened their home to visiting dignitaries and delegates to church and other conventions. The house remained in the Yates family ownership until 1994. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1998
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1912 in Houston's Fourth Ward — the district known as Freedmen's Town, a hub of Black spiritual, cultural, and commercial life since the Civil War — this house belonged to Rutherford B. H. Yates, son of the pioneering Rev. Jack Yates. A trained printer and teacher, Yates co-founded the Yates Printing Company in 1922 and taught at the Houston Academy his father had established. With few hotels open to African Americans, the Yates family regularly hosted visiting dignitaries and convention delegates in this home.
Why it matters
The house embodies the entrepreneurial, self-reliant Black middle class that Freedmen's Town produced, and the hospitality networks African Americans built to survive the constraints of a segregated city.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The Rutherford B. H. Yates house was built in 1912 in Houston's Fourth Ward, the district long known as Freedmen's Town. Since the Civil War, this neighborhood had been a spiritual, cultural, and business heart for African Americans in Houston — a place founded by people emerging from slavery who built, block by block, a community of their own making.
The years this house belonged to the Yates family — the early twentieth century, spanning the Gilded Age's close and the Progressive and modern era — were the high tide of racial segregation in the American South. It was a time of hard limits and, at the same time, of remarkable Black institution-building: churches, schools, newspapers, and businesses that formed a parallel world within a segregated city.
Freedmen's Town was one of the most important such worlds in Texas. The homes built there in this period, this one among them, were the physical expression of a rising Black middle class determined to put down permanent, dignified roots in the city they were helping to build.
People & events
Rutherford Birchard Hayes Yates (1878–1944) was born into leadership. He was the son of the Rev. John Henry "Jack" Yates and Harriet Yates, and he grew up next door to this property, in a house that was later moved to Sam Houston Park. He followed his father's path as a civic and religious figure in Freedmen's Town — but he also carved out a distinct calling of his own in a trade.
After graduating in 1906 from Bishop College in Marshall, Texas, with a degree in printing, Yates taught school in Louisiana and in Palestine, Texas, and lived for a time in Dallas with his wife, Erie (Sherrod), and their infant daughter. In 1908 the family came to Houston, living in the Yates family home until this house was completed in 1912 — a handsome, characteristic middle-class residence with leaded glass windows, a wraparound porch on Classical columns, and doors framed by transoms and sidelights.
From this house, Yates lived a full working life. He worked alongside other African American printers and taught at the Houston Academy his father had founded, the very school where he had once been a pupil. In 1922 he and his brother Paul launched the Yates Printing Company, which grew and prospered for more than half a century. And because commercial lodging open to African Americans in Houston was scarce, Rutherford and Erie — with their children Johnnie Mae, Olee, and Rutherford — regularly opened this home to visiting dignitaries and to delegates arriving for church and other conventions. The house stayed in the family until 1994.
Its place in the American story
This house tells a national story in miniature: the rise of a self-reliant Black middle class in the decades after emancipation, and the entrepreneurship that flourished even under segregation's constraints. A printing company founded by two brothers in 1912's Freedmen's Town and still running after 1978 is a testament to skilled trades passed down and businesses built to last.
The detail about hospitality carries special weight. Across the segregated United States, hotels and restaurants routinely refused Black travelers, and so African American families and communities built their own networks of lodging and welcome. When the Yateses opened their doors to convention delegates and visiting leaders, they were part of a nationwide, informal infrastructure of dignity — homes standing in for the hotels that would not serve.
There is also a thread of continuity across generations here: a father who was a pioneering minister and educator, and a son who carried civic and religious leadership forward while adding a craftsman's trade and a family business. That handing-down of purpose, in a single neighborhood, is how communities like Freedmen's Town accumulated strength.
If you visit
Approach this as a piece of architecture you can read. The house is described as a well-preserved, typical example of the Fourth Ward's early-twentieth-century middle-class homes, so let its details tell you about the aspirations of the people who built it: the wraparound porch and Classical columns, the leaded glass, the doors with transoms and sidelights. These were the marks of a family claiming a permanent, respectable place in the city.
Set the house in its neighborhood. Freedmen's Town is one of Houston's most historically significant districts, and this home was one thread in a dense fabric of churches, schools, and businesses. Walking the surrounding streets with that in mind turns a single house into a doorway onto a whole community's story.
Because much of Freedmen's Town's historic fabric has been lost or is under pressure over time, a surviving landmark like this rewards a thoughtful, unhurried visit. Read the marker, take in the craftsmanship, and consider that behind this porch a printing family once welcomed travelers who had nowhere else in the city that would take them in.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Rutherford B. H. Yates
- · Rev. John Henry "Jack" Yates
- · Erie Sherrod Yates
Themes & tags
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