St. Nicholas Catholic Church
Houston, Harris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Founded in 1887 as Houston's first Catholic church for blacks, St. Nicholas parish was located at the corner of Chenevert and Lamar streets. This building, designed by Leo Diehlmann, was completed in 1924. Prominent features include twin projecting towers-- one taller with an open belfry and one lower capped tower, corbelled brick detailing, and curvilinear parapets. St. Nicholas parish remains an important part of Houston's Third Ward. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1987
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1887 as Houston's first Catholic church for Black worshippers, St. Nicholas parish began at Chenevert and Lamar streets. Architect Leo Diehlmann designed the present building, completed in 1924, with twin towers — one taller with an open belfry — corbelled brickwork, and curvilinear parapets. The parish remains a pillar of Houston's historic Third Ward.
Why it matters
As the city's first Catholic parish for African Americans, it stands for the vital role Black churches played as centers of faith, community, and continuity in a segregated South.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Leo Diehlmann
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
St. John Missionary Baptist Church
Houston, TX
Organized in 1899 by Reverends Gilbert Green and Hilliard R. Johnson, St. John Missionary Baptist Church weathered a storm-demolished sanctuary, worship under a tent, and a 1917 congregational split before growing with Houston's postwar Black population. In 1946 James M. Thomas — a local Black contractor who became the city's most prominent architect for Black congregations — built its three-story Gothic Revival home, whose twin towers exemplify mid-century African American church architecture.
Fourth Missionary Baptist Church
Houston, TX
Founded as Watts Chapel in 1877 by the Rev. Henry Watts, a South Carolina native newly arrived in Houston, this congregation became Fourth Missionary Baptist Church in 1884 and repeatedly rebuilt after storm and fire. Under a father-and-son pastorate spanning decades, it grew into a leading institution offering a kindergarten, baby clinic, food programs, and low-income housing, while sending missions as far as Panama, Haiti, and the Philippines. In 1968 it became the first Black church to join the Union Baptist Association — a milestone in the integration of Texas churches.
Dr. Benjamin Jesse Covington and the Covington House
Houston, TX
Born on a Falls County farm around 1871, Benjamin Jesse Covington trained at Meharry Medical College and, with his wife Jennie Belle Murphy, moved to Houston in 1903, where he practiced medicine for 58 years and co-founded the Houston Negro Hospital. In an era of rigid segregation, the stately home the couple built in 1911 became the city's unofficial guest quarters for distinguished Black visitors—among them Booker T. Washington and singers Marian Anderson and Roland Hayes. Both Covingtons led civic and medical organizations that served Houston's African American community.
Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church
Houston, TX
Organized in 1866 — the year after the Civil War ended and slavery was abolished in Texas — Mt. Zion was one of Houston's first three African American churches, its congregation meeting at first in a tent on Commerce Street. That same fall the Freedmen's Bureau opened a school on the church's property, one of the earliest in the city for formerly enslaved children and adults, and the congregation kept teaching there into the 1880s. Through fires, a devastating norther, and the great hurricane of 1900, the church rebuilt again and again, helping to found many other congregations along the way.