NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 United States Department of the Interior National RegisterSBR of Historic Places Registration Draft Form

1. Name of Property

Historic Name: House Other name/site number: NA Name of related multiple property listing: NA

2. Location

Street & number: 1705 Newton Street City or town: Austin State: Texas County: 78704 Not for publication:  Vicinity: 

3. State/Federal Agency Certification

As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended, I hereby certify that this  nomination  request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property  meets  does not meet the National Register criteria.

I recommend that this property be considered significant at the following levels of significance:  national  statewide  local

Applicable National Register Criteria:  A  B  C  D

State Historic Preservation Officer ______Signature of certifying official / Title Date

Texas Historical Commission State or Federal agency / bureau or Tribal Government

In my opinion, the property  meets  does not meet the National Register criteria.

______Signature of commenting or other official Date

______State or Federal agency / bureau or Tribal Government

4. National Park Service Certification

I hereby certify that the property is:

___ entered in the National Register ___ determined eligible for the National Register ___ determined not eligible for the National Register. ___ removed from the National Register ___ other, explain: ______

______Signature of the Keeper Date of Action United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places REGISTRATION FORM NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft

5. Classification

Ownership of Property

X Private Public - Local Public - State Public - Federal

Category of Property

X building(s) district site structure object

Number of Resources within Property

Contributing Noncontributing 1 0 buildings 0 0 sites 0 0 structures 0 0 objects 1 0 total

Number of contributing resources previously listed in the National Register: 0

6. Function or Use

Historic Functions: DOMESTIC: Single Dwelling

Current Functions: DOMESTIC: Single Dwelling

7. Description

Architectural Classification: OTHER: Central Hall

Principal Exterior Materials: WOOD

Narrative Description (see continuation sheets 7-6 through 7-9)

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft

8. Statement of Significance

Applicable National Register Criteria

A Property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history. X B Property is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past. C Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction. D Property has yielded, or is likely to yield information important in prehistory or history.

Criteria Considerations: NA

Areas of Significance: ENTERTAINMENT/RECREATION; ETHNIC HERITAGE: Black

Period of Significance: 1912-1970

Significant Dates: 1912; 1924

Significant Person (only if criterion b is marked): Willie Wells (Willie James Wells)

Cultural Affiliation (only if criterion d is marked): NA

Architect/Builder: W. B. Loveless

Narrative Statement of Significance (see continuation sheets 8-10 through 8-25)

9. Major Bibliographic References

Bibliography (see continuation sheet 9-26 through 9-27)

Previous documentation on file (NPS): _ preliminary determination of individual listing (36 CFR 67) has been requested. _ previously listed in the National Register _ previously determined eligible by the National Register _ designated a National Historic Landmark _ recorded by Historic American Buildings Survey # _ recorded by Historic American Engineering Record #

Primary location of additional data: x State historic preservation office (Texas Historical Commission, Austin) _ Other state agency _ Federal agency _ Local government _ University _ Other -- Specify Repository:

Historic Resources Survey Number (if assigned): NA

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft

10. Geographical Data

Acreage of Property: less than 1 acre

Coordinates

Latitude/Longitude Coordinates

Datum if other than WGS84: NA

1. Latitude: 30.247179° Longitude: -97.752842°

Verbal Boundary Description: The boundary is the legal parcel (Property ID #302089) as recorded by Travis CAD: 881 SQFT OF LOT 9 BLK 28 & ALL OF LOT 10 BLK 28 SWISHER ADDN and shown on Map 2, accessed July 2, 2020.

Boundary Justification: The boundary includes all property historically association with the building.

11. Form Prepared By

Name/title: Terri Myers, Historian; Kristen Brown, Architectural Historian Organization: Preservation Central, Inc. Street & number: 823 Harris Avenue City or Town: Austin State: Texas Zip Code: 78705 Email: [email protected] Telephone: (512) 478-0898 Date: March 16, 2017

Additional Documentation

Maps (see continuation sheets MAP-28 through MAP-29)

Additional items (see continuation sheets FIGURE-30 through FIGURE-39)

Photographs (see continuation sheets PHOTO-40 through PHOTO-45)

Paperwork Reduction Act Statement: This information is being collected for applications to the National Register of Historic Places to nominate properties for listing or determine eligibility for listing, to list properties, and to amend existing listings. Response to this request is required to obtain a benefit in accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended (16 U.S.C.460 et seq.).

Estimated Burden Statement: Public reporting burden for this form is estimated to average 100 hours per response including time for reviewing instructions, gathering and maintaining data, and completing and reviewing the form. Direct comments regarding this burden estimate or any aspect of this form to the Office of Planning and Performance Management. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, 1849 C. Street, NW, Washington, DC.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Photographs

Name of Property: Willie Wells House City, County, State: Austin, Travis County, Texas Photographer: Terri Myers Date Photographed: as September 8, 2019.

Photo 1 Primary (West) and North Façades Photo 7 Camera facing southeast View: Front Yard across street to Church Photographed: September 8, 2019 Camera facing west Photographed: September 8, 2019 Photo 2 Primary (West) Façade and Porch Photo 8 Camera facing east/northeast Interior: View from Living Room to Kitchen Photographed: September 8, 2019 Camera facing east to rear wall Photographed: September 8, 2019 Photo 3 North Façade Photo 9 Camera facing south Interior: View from Kitchen/Dining to Living Room Photographed: September 8, 2019 Camera facing southwest to front wall Photographed: September 8, 2019 Photo 4 North Façade (1929 Addition; 1910 House Photo 10 Camera facing southwest Interior: Front (West) Bedroom Photographed: September 8, 2019 Photographed: September 8, 2019

Photo 5 Photo 11 South Façade (1910 House; 1929 Addition) Interior: Rear (East) Bedroom Camera facing northwest Photographed: September 8, 2019 Photographed: September 8, 2019 Photo 12 Photo 6 Interior: Bathroom Rear (East) Façade Photographed: September 8, 2019 Camera facing west Photographed: September 8, 2019

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Description

The Willie Wells House at 1705 Newton Street is a small, one-story frame building in South Austin’s Bouldin Creek neighborhood. The house is side-gabled, with a partial-width front porch and a shed-roofed rear addition. When constructed in 1910, the house consisted of just two rooms on either side of a small central entry hall, removed c. 1929 when an addition was added to the rear of the house. The house has board and batten siding, plain wood porch posts, an original wood front door, and 4/4 wood sash windows that are replicas of the original windows replaced by 6/6 aluminum windows in the 1990s. Though the cornice returns are its main stylistic elements, the house conveys its historic vernacular form and design in its simple, side-gabled roof, central entrance, symmetrical facades, and board- and-batten siding. The house on a narrow, rectangular lot in a mostly residential neighborhood characterized by early 20th-century frame dwellings and churches associated with South Austin’s African American Brackenridge community. Renovations to the house since 2018 include the removal of non-historic or non-original features and replacement with elements that more accurately reflect its appearance during the period of significance, 1912-1970. The work was based on physical investigations by a preservation architect, comparison with similar houses of the same vintage in the same and neighboring blocks, and photographic evidence from an earlier survey completed in the 1980s. Whenever possible, wood elements were repaired rather than replaced; the house retains an estimated 80% to 90 % of its original board and batten siding, interior shiplap walls and ceiling, and long-leaf pine floors. A non-historic rear addition was removed; a new full-façade wood deck replaced it with no removal or destruction to the original board and batten rear wall. Specific work is detailed in the following paragraphs in this section.

Location and Setting

Newton Street is in south-central Austin, two blocks west of South Congress Avenue, a busy commercial thoroughfare that connects the city’s’ north and south sides. Newton Street begins at the southeast edge of the Texas School for the Deaf and travels south for ten blocks with one interruption. The street is almost entirely residential in nature, except for two historic churches in the 1700 block with the Willie Wells House. (Photos 14, 15) The larger, surrounding neighborhood is also primarily residential and contains several other small dwellings associated with the African American enclave that grew up around the Brackenridge “Colored” School on W. Elizabeth Street, from the first decade of the 20th century through the historic period, ending in 1970. (Photos 16, 17)

The Willie Wells House sits in the center of the 1700 block of Newton Street, on the street's east side. The east side of the block was developed between about 1908 and 1915. Next door to the south is 1707 Newton (Photo 13), a small frame house almost identical to the Willie Wells House. South of the neighboring houses, at the south end of the block, is the 1915 St. Annie African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. Next door to the north lies a recently-constructed, contemporary house at 1703 Newton Street, and at the northern end of the block is a historic hipped-roof house of similar vintage to the Wells house and its neighbor at 1707 Newton Street. The west side of the block contains the 1920 Goodwill Baptist Church, another historically black church, a small side-gabled house, and a new, modern house at the block's southern end.

On the east side of the block, the lots sit slightly above street grade, with the city right-of-way beginning at the curb and extending about ten feet to the top of a small rise. The buildings have a setback of approximately 25 feet from the top of the rise to their front porches. The historic-age houses, including the Willie Wells House, have concrete steps from the edge of their lots to the top of the rise and brick walkways from those steps to their front porches. Front yards of historic houses have patchy grass and small trees, while the modern houses have yards with concrete patios, gravel, and shrubs. A gravel alley runs along the rear (eastern) edge of the lots on Newton Street's east side, where the Wells House is located. A new concrete sidewalk and retaining wall runs along the front of the Willie Wells House.

The Willie Wells House lot measures 54 feet across and approximately 140 feet deep, and slopes down slightly towards the rear. At the sidewalk, new concrete steps lead to the brick walkway, which extends 25 feet from the top of the stairs

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft to the porch. The brick walkway was rebuilt in 2019 using bricks that were salvaged from the damaged original walkway (Photo 2). The Willie Wells House is situated about one-third of the way back on the lot. The front yard contains grasses, a pecan tree, a young Live Oak tree, and a low non-historic brick planter on the house’s northwest corner at the foundation level (Photo 7). A new concrete driveway begins at the street and proceeds a short distance along the lot's north edge. Because the lot is above street level, the flat driveway appears “sunken,” with steps and low concrete retaining walls. A simple non-historic gravel and flagstone walkway connects the driveway to the front porch and the rear yard gate on the house's north side. The back yard is graveled and contains two mature deciduous trees and a Live Oak. Wooden fences along the east and south sides of the yard, and a wooden gate at the northwest corner of the yard leads to the front of the house and the driveway. The north edge of the rear yard is open to the adjacent lot and house, which is also owned by the owners of the Willie Wells House.

Architectural Description

The Willie Wells House is a small frame residence with a shed-roofed rear addition. The original 1910 house volume is side-gabled, with a footprint measuring 34 feet wide by 15 feet deep (Photos 1, 2). A non-historic, shed-roofed front porch measuring about 10 feet wide and 7 feet deep is attached to the front, west-facing elevation center. Behind the original volume is a shed-roofed addition dating from the historic period and a non-historic rear porch. The historic-age addition, constructed in 1929, is about 30 feet wide and ten feet deep (Photos 4, 5). It is set back approximately six inches from the wall plane of the house’s north side elevation and about three feet from the wall plane of the south side elevation. In the 1960s, a second, smaller addition was added to the southern half of this volume. That addition was removed in 2019 when a 30-foot-wide full-façade porch was constructed across the rear of the 1929 addition (Photo 6).

The house is sided with wood board and batten siding. The battens are moulded with concave, coved edges. In 2019 the boards and battens were removed, numbered, repaired, and reinstalled in their original locations. Approximately 98% of the original siding material was retained and restored. Fascia boards and bargeboards on the 1910 house volume are plain, flat wood pieces several inches tall; the flat fascia trim on the addition is narrower. Window and door openings are trimmed with plain, square boards. The 1910 house volume has a new wood shingle roof, with shingles modeled after surviving wood shingles under the deteriorated asphalt roof that replaced the original wood-shingled roof. The rear addition’s shed roof is also clad in wood shingles. It extends to cover the new rear porch. The foundation is not visible from the exterior, but consists of concrete block piers and wood beams. At the front of the house the siding extends down to grade. Bricks were installed at grade just below the ends of the boards for moisture management. Non- historic brick foundation skirting is found at the side and rear elevations.

The front (west) elevation has a symmetrical façade in an ABA arrangement, centered on the new shed-roofed porch and single central entry door, which is flanked by two rectangular windows (Photos 1, 2). The front porch has a low- pitched metal shed roof supported by four 4x4 posts along the front edge. There are no railings. The porch has a brick floor that was added in 2019. The porch’s exposed rafter ceiling and metal roof are not visible from the street. Although the porch is not original, its simple shape is in keeping with other houses of the same vintage in the neighborhood. The house next door at 1707 Newton has a shed-roofed porch similar to the new one built for the Willie Wells House at 1705 Newton. The new porch was designed according to ghost-lines and other physical evidence found by preservation architect, John Volz, who performed architectural archeology to identify original walls, room arrangement, details, construction methods and other historic features of the house prior to its renovation. The new porch dimensions and roof form and pitch were based on Volz’s findings.

The front door is solid wood with a single glass pane in its upper section and four rectangular panels—three below the window and one above. The door and its doorknob and backplate appear to date to the 1930s. The deadbolt is modern. The entrance also has a historic-age wood screen door with metal butterfly hinges and an original metal handle. The two windows on the front elevation are located outside the porch. Each is a double-hung style window with non- historic 4/4 wood sash installed in 2019 to replace non-historic 6/6 windows added in the 1990s. The 4/4 configuration

Section 7, Page 7 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places REGISTRATION FORM NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018

Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft replicates the original windows as seen in photographs of the house taken in the 1980s, prior to their replacement. The window sash, dimensions and 4/4 light configuration are common for houses of the same era in the neighborhood, including the nearly-identical house next door at 1707 Newton.

On each of the two side elevations, the appearance of the original side-gabled house volume remains relatively unchanged (Photos 3, 4, 5). The board and batten siding continues uninterrupted into the gable ends. Each side has a single window opening with replacement 4/4 wood sash centered beneath the gable. Both gable ends have decorative cornice returns made from the simple flat boards of the fascia trim and bargeboards. The rear addition’s side elevations also contain one window opening each. The 4/4 windows on the addition’s side elevations replaced a non-historic 1/1 window and a non-historic set of paired 1/6 windows. As on the original volume, the historic windows in the addition were 4/4 light sash as depicted in 1980s photographs of the side elevations.

The house’s rear elevation consists of the rear façade of the historic addition and a non-historic rear porch (Photo 6). The rear addition has a single entry door and three windows. The rear door is a salvaged door of the same period that was installed in 2019 to replace a non-historic door. North of the door is a small square window opening with a fixed four-light sash that is original to the 1929 addition. To the south of the door are two 4/4 windows where the former 1960s addition was removed. It is not known whether the 1929 addition had two windows in this location before that addition was constructed; however, based on the configuration of the interior rooms, it is likely. The house’s rear elevation has a non-historic porch that spans the length of the rear addition. Due to the sloping lot, the porch’s floor level is situated approximately two and a half feet above grade and is accessed by a wide set of non-historic wood stairs. The rear porch has a wood deck, plain 4x4 posts, and plain horizontal boards that function as porch railings. At the south side of the house, the rear elevation of the 1910 house volume has a small four-light window in the space where that volume extends three feet beyond the 1929 addition. There was not a window in the location historically.

The original interior floor plan of the 1910 house volume had a central hall with a room to either side. That arrangement was altered and the central hall was removed in the historic period, likely when the 1929 addition was built. The front door now opens directly into a large living room on the north side of the original house volume. In 2019, the interior was altered further by opening up the wall that previously divided the living room from the kitchen. Today the living room and kitchen present as one large space, with doors in the south end of the volume that lead to two bedrooms (Photos 8, 9). Interior alterations also include the removal of window trim, the remodeling of the bathroom with modern file and fixtures (Photo 12), and the removal of ceiling cladding to expose the original ceiling boards. Both of the bedrooms remain in their original locations—one in the 1910 house volume (Photo 10), and the other at the south end of the 1929 addition (Photo 11). At the rear of the kitchen is the single door that leads onto the rear porch. The house’s historic long leaf pine floors and five-panel doors with historic hardware remain intact throughout the interior. All interior walls are historic exposed shiplap. The rehabilitation architect and builder estimate that 85% of the original interior walls remain extant.

Integrity

The Willie Wells House retains its historic and architectural integrity to a good degree from the period of significance (1912-1970) as the childhood home and property most closely associated with Negro League legend, Willie Wells. Integrity of design, materials, and workmanship has been reduced somewhat due to the replacement of the front porch, the addition of a rear porch, alterations to the interior configuration and loss of original windows. However, the house’s massing, form, fenestration pattern, exterior siding materials, roof pitch and form, cornice returns, paneled and glazed doors, and interior flooring and wall materials remain remarkably intact to the period of significance associated with Willie Wells and his family during their lifetimes.

The house retains integrity of design to a good degree; it remains a simple, one-story, side-gabled frame house with its original decorative cornice returns. The house retains its historic materials and workmanship in the original 1910 side-

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft gabled dwelling and 1929 rear addition to a good degree; approximately 80% to 90% of the original board and batten siding, shiplap walls and ceiling, and long-leaf pine floors remain intact. The house remains on its original site and therefore maintains integrity of location. Although integrity of setting has been slightly altered by the construction of a sidewalk and a modern house next door to the north, the house retains integrity of setting in its small, sparsely landscaped front yard and in the surrounding streetscape. It still stands on a narrow street lined with mature, deciduous trees and similar houses of the same vintage. In this setting, the house is in-keeping with the design, size, scale, massing, materials and setback of the other historic dwellings and churches in the same block. Thus, the house possesses sufficient integrity of setting to convey a good sense of the African American community at the time it was built and occupied by the Wells family. Finally, integrity of association and feeling remain high. The one-story house clearly represents the type of simple, frame dwellings built for and occupied by African American families of modest but stable means in segregated communities in Austin and throughout Central Texas in the early 20th century.

Though renovations to the house since 2018 include a new porch roof and windows, their replacements are historically appropriate and based on physical and photographic evidence found in the course of professional field investigations and archival research. The new 4/4 wood sash windows are modeled on the original windows as seen in photographs of the house taken for an architectural survey in the early 1980s. They replaced non-historic 6/6 aluminum windows installed after Wells’ death. And, though it replaced a historic-age hipped-roof porch, the new shed-roofed porch is based on physical evidence uncovered in field investigations undertaken by an experienced preservation architect. The new porch closely resembles the original porch that Wells would have known as a child and likely most of his career in baseball.

This small house played a significant role in the life and career of Baseball Hall-of-Fame , Willie Wells. It was while living in this house that he learned to play baseball and develop his skills to such a high level that he was drafted as a teenager to play professional baseball in the Negro Major Leagues. Throughout his famed career, Wells regularly returned home to visit his mother, brothers and friends, and daughter, Stella. By 1929, Wells was a standout player with the St. Louis Stars; his success may have paid for the addition built behind the original house that year. The addition included a kitchen, which likely replaced a cookstove in a back yard shed, and a second bedroom where Wells may have stayed during his frequent trips back home. After three decades as a professional ballplayer, Wells retired to his childhood home where he lived the rest of his life. In a 2019 interview, Well’s daughter Stella Wells recalled his words at coming home, “I’m home now. I can do what I want.” The house is the only known cultural resource associated individually with Willie Wells and the only place he ever called “home” during his nomadic years in the Negro Baseball Leagues.

Despite recent renovations, the house retains considerable historic and architectural integrity; it now looks very much as it did when Willie Wells grew up there as a child and as it was enlarged during his career. It is highly recognizable to the period of significance which is based on Well’s life and his family’s occupation of the house from 1912 to 1970.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Statement of Significance

The modest side-gabled frame house at 1705 Newton Street is significant as the only historic property individually associated with legend and Austin hometown hero, Willie Wells (1906-1989). Wells was raised with four brothers in his mother’s South Austin home from the age of about five to eighteen, when the St. Louis Stars recruited him to play in the Negro Major Leagues. Though it was not his primary residence during his active career, and he did not return to live there permanently until 1973, the house is the property most closely-associated with Wells throughout his entire life, including his years in professional baseball. Wells soared to stardom after joining the St. Louis Stars in 1924, at the start of his remarkable 30-year career as a professional ballplayer. His enormous skill as a shortstop made him one of the sport’s greatest players and ultimately led to his posthumous induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, one of only eighteen Negro League players to receive the honor. Wells’ career reflects the nomadic, often transitory lifestyle of baseball players of his era. This was especially true of players in the segregated Negro Leagues who were required to travel more and play more games, at lower salaries, than their white counterparts in professional baseball. Between 1924 and 1954, when he retired from the game, Wells played for 27 different teams in 27 different cities across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Cuba and Puerto Rico. His peripatetic lifestyle and grueling schedule left him little opportunity to settle in one place for any length of time, which is likely the reason substantive research has found no other property owned by Wells or more closely-associated with him than his childhood home. The house is directly related to Wells’ career and fame; it was while living in this house that Wells learned to play the game and hone his skills to such an exceptional degree that he was recruited while still a teenager to play professional ball. Furthermore, substantial documentation shows that he returned to the house frequently throughout his career. Finally, Wells retired to the house where he lived the rest of his life. Though Wells may be directly associated with the few surviving Negro League ball parks and stadiums from the era of segregated leagues, those associations are shared by hundreds of other players. In his case, the baseball legend’s childhood home is the most appropriate property to nominate for its association with Willie Wells as a singular player. The house retains sufficient historic and architectural integrity from the period of significance, 1912 to 1970, which represents the years Willie Wells associated with the house through the current 50-year threshold. The Willie Wells House is nominated to the National Register under Criterion B, in the area of Ethnic Heritage: Black, and in the area of Entertainment/Recreation, at the local level of significance.

Negro League Baseball in the United States and Austin, Texas

Segregated baseball leagues derived from “Jim Crow” laws that institutionalized the concept of “separate but equal” treatment regarding African-American accommodations, transportation, education, and entertainment in the wake of failed post-Civil War Reconstruction efforts at integration in the 1870s. Lacking intervention or enforcement of existing laws by the federal government, Jim Crow codes became the accepted norm leading to the establishment of separate black communities, businesses, and institutions, including professional Negro baseball teams and leagues.

Early in the history of the game, however, a few blacks played on professional teams with whites as late as 1895,1 but many whites objected to “race mixing” of any kind and refused to play on teams with black players. By the turn of the 20th century, professional baseball was entirely segregated, not just in the South, but throughout the country.2 Negro leagues were organized along lines similar to white leagues: the American Negro League and the National Negro League were the two professional-level leagues; and numerous local and regional semi-pro, or Minor League, affiliates.

1 In 1887 there were seven black professional baseball players in the International League. But 1887 appears to have been the high point of integrated professional baseball. , National Historic Landmark nomination, prepared by Paula S. Reed, Architectural Historian and Edith Wallace, Historian, August 2012. file:///C:/Users/Terri%20Myers/Documents/TM%20work/Willie%20Wells%20House/Hinchliffe,%20Paterson%20NJ%20NHL.pdf

2 Ibid.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft As in white leagues, the Minor Leagues were “farm” teams for training and recruiting the best players to the professional Major League teams.

Organized African American baseball in Texas began at the turn of the 20th century. For six decades, minor, semi- professional, professional baseball teams, clubs, and leagues “appeared, thrived, fell on hard times, and disappeared” with players or sponsors also changing regularly. According to historian Robert C. Fink, Texas’ semi-professional teams were the backbone on which the professional leagues were later founded, despite getting less publicity and financial backing. The all-Black teams traveled continuously. No player made a singular living in Texas minor leagues, but many played in their spare time with the hopes of being scouted to the major leagues. They played exhibition games against each other, but also against white semi-pro teams and sometimes professional minor and major league teams. Interracial play assured greater attendance and financial stability by widening the audience to include white fans. This practice, known as “barnstorming,” also brought professional baseball to rural locations, where people otherwise would never see their baseball heroes.3

Minor league teams often named themselves after the local all-white team, adding “Black,” to establish fan recognition, and shared a stadium (playing on different days) as there were few baseball fields dedicated to Black teams. Originally formed in the 1910s, the Austin Black Senators (named after the Austin [White] Senators) joined the Texas Negro League in the 1920s. This team attracted a multi-racial fan base from the region who watched the Austin Black Senators compete against other Texas teams, including the Houston Buffaloes and the San Antonio Black Aces.4 It was while playing with the Austin Black Senators and other Texas minor league teams that teenager Willie Wells caught the eye of scouts recruiting for the Negro Major Leagues. Other local teams included Black Pioneers and those for Huston and Tillotson Colleges.

Many baseball scholars agree the hey-day of Negro League baseball was in the 1920s and 1930s with powerhouse teams like the St. Louis Stars, the , and the Black . The popularity of Texas’ segregated teams grew in the 1920s, and the state became garnered a national reputation as a significant home to Black baseball.5 Two professional leagues formed as a result of its popularity. In 1920, Andrew “Rube” Foster, a native of Calvert (100 miles northeast of Austin), founded the Negro National League, the first Black professional league in the United States. The Texas-Oklahoma-Louisiana League briefly operated between 1929-1931. The sport’s popularity was evident in Austin. The city’s aspiring young baseball players, like Willie Wells, and fans had several venues to watch a game in the early 20th century. East Austin’s Culberson (Ranger) Park, the Driving Park (a racetrack), Riverside Park, Dobbs Field, Lake Austin Park, and the original Downs Field. A 1988 article described the long detour Wells took from South Austin to Dobbs Fields in West Austin near Lake Austin Dam. Once there, “he’d beg, plead cajole—anything it took—to persuade the ballplayers to help him get inside the rickety ballpark. ‘Let me carry your bat. Let me carry your glove. Anything,’ [Wells’ recalled] ‘You couldn’t get in the trees (to watch the game). All the limbs would be full by the time I got there.’”6 In the stands (or on tree limbs), Wells and others watched many Texas-born semiprofessional players—like George “Dibo” Johnson, Raleigh “Biz” Mackey, “Tank” Stewart, and Louis “Big Bertha” Santop—who would go on to become some of the greatest players of the era. National emergencies and integration challenged the survival of semi- and professional baseball. During the Great Depression and World War II, many players (particularly those in the minor leagues) left the sport for the duration of these events. As early as the 1930s, talk began about integrating baseball, a conversation that ultimately ended with the signing of to the Brooklyn Dodgers in October of 1945. In breaking the “color line,” Robinson

3 The majority of Negro professional baseball games were played “on the road,” few teams owned their own ball field or even called any one stadium “home,” largely due to the high cost of ownership and lease agreements. 4 Ibid.; Rob Fink, Playing in Shadows: Texas and Negro League Baseball, (Texas Tech University Press, 2010). 5 Fink, 226. 6 Kirk Bohls, “The Best the Game Has Forgotten,” Austin American Statesman, June 19, 1988.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft opened the door to other Negro League players who quickly signed up for better job security, less travel, and higher salaries. Integration, however, also marked the end of Negro League baseball. Robinson’s success with the Dodgers influenced other teams to sign black players, a trend that siphoned off some of the best talent from the Negro Leagues. As Negro League stars left for better pay and playing conditions, fans followed. Ticket sales and attendance dropped for segregated games and by 1948, most professional U.S. Negro League baseball teams disbanded.7

1705 Newton Street

African Americans in South Austin

The Willie Wells House at 1705 Newton Street was part of a small-scale development effort to build and sell modest frame houses to black families in South Austin just after the turn of the 20th century. The area that later became known as the Brackenridge Community, was land out of the former cotton plantations of James E. Bouldin and James Gibson Swisher who settled south of the Colorado River in the 1840s and 1850s. Both families owned enslaved people, some of whom remained in the area after Emancipation living in small clusters or freedmen settlements (Mears 71-72).8

By the 1890s, the Black population had grown large enough to warrant a public school, and in 1895, the Austin Board of School Trustees rented a building to serve children in the community. Forty-seven students attended classes in 1896, but the school closed the following year due to low enrollment. Students who wanted to continue their education had to cross the river to attend school in Clarksville, a freedmen community in West Austin (Mears 72). About 1895, Robert Stanley, a stonemason and builder, established his homestead where he built a stone house and blacksmith works at 1809-1811 Newton Street, in Swisher’s Addition. Other Black families settled nearby.9 Some may have been descendants of the enslaved individuals once owned by the Swisher and Bouldin families, as a few sources suggest. These Austinities found work as domestics, grounds keepersm, and tradesmen at the nearby Texas School for the Deaf.

In 1901, the Board of Trustees relented and rented a building on W. Elizabeth Street, a few blocks north of Stanley’s homestead, for the “South Austin Colored School.” However, the school board found the building to be a “source of much expense” and had decided to close it again, when J. T. Brackenridge, a well-known advocate for black schools, presented a deed to the house and lot to the board with the condition that it could only be used as a school for Black children. The school district accepted the gift and in 1905, 61 students attended the school, this time with A. Jackson, Jr. acting as both principal and teacher.10

The institution of a permanent “Colored” school on W. Elizabeth Street attracted even more Black families to the area. Investors and small scale developers had begun buying up property in the Bouldin and Swisher additions as early as 1901 when the school was newly established on its site. One was R. M. Armstrong who bought 31 lots in Swisher’s Addition for a total of only $700 that year (Travis County Deed Records: Vol. 172: 207). Typically, they erected small two- and three-room side-gabled or hipped-roof frame houses on narrow residential lots and sold or rented them to families who wanted to have access to the only black school in South Austin at that time.

7 Hinchliffe Stadium, National Register Nomination, August 2012. 8 Some sources claim that Bouldin either gave or sold part of his plantation to his former slaves after Emancipation. In fact, a number of African Americans with variations on the Bouldin surname (Bouldin, Boldin, Bolton) lived throughout the area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Austin City Directories, various dates). 9 The house is both a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark and a City of Austin Historic Landmark and lies in the block just south of the Willie Wells House. 10 It is not clear whether the house was enlarged or torn down and a new building erected on the site, but early Sanborn maps, city directories and historic photographs establish the “Brackenridge Colored School” as a large, L-shaped frame building on the site at 319 W. Elizabeth Street. Austin City Directory, 1905; The Austin Statesman, September 2, 1905: 3.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft As the community grew around the school, several major Black congregations built churches in the neighborhood, further cementing its African American cultural identity. As late as 1905, no Black churches were listed for South Austin in the city directory, though congregations had likely formed by that time. By 1915, however, three churches had sprung up in the neighborhood. Galilee Church met on S. First Street, in the Bouldin Addition and Goodwill Baptist Church was listed at 416 W. Johanna Street. St. Annie African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) was erected that year on the former Loveless home site at the corner of W. Annie and Newton Streets.11 Friendly Will Baptist later appeared on W. Johanna and a new Goodwill Baptist Church was built on the west side of Newton. The area around the school became known as “Brackenridge”, after the school and its benefactor.12

Newton Street Development

In 1906, Armstrong sold lots 8, 9 and 10 in Block 28 of Swisher’s Addition to William B. Loveless for a total of $200.13 Loveless was a local white businessman who had moved to South Austin in 1895 and was one of its earliest merchants, building “the old rock store” at 1800 S. First Street, in 1898.14 He bought other lots in the area and built small frame houses on them, either selling or renting them to African Americans. By about 1910, a distinct African American community had formed in the 1700 and 1800 blocks of Newton Street and intersecting blocks of Mary, Annie, and Milton Streets, all of which were within easy walking distance of Brackenridge School.

In 1909, Loveless built two side-gabled frame houses at 1707 and 1709 Newton Street (Travis County Deed Records, various dates). David Wright and Raymond Bonner, lived at 1707 and 1709 Newton, respectively (Austin City Directory, 1909). The following year, he built a third house at 1705 Newton. It was nearly identical to the house he built next door, at 1707 Newton. Both were side-gabled frame houses with symmetrical facades, attached front porches, and board and batten siding. In 1912, Loveless sold the lot “together with all improvements” (the house) to Cisco White Wells, a single mother raising five sons on her own (Travis County Deed Records 251:520). 15

The original house consisted of just two rooms separated by a small central entry hall. Like most of the houses sold to African Americans in the Brackenridge neighborhood, it had board-and-batten siding, a partial-width front porch, and wood double-hung sash windows. The house had no kitchen, bathroom, or indoor plumbing of any kind. A freestanding cook shed and privy were likely located in the back yard (Boyd personal communication 2017). Cisco Wells moved into the house with her five sons; the youngest was Willie James Wells who would go on to be a baseball legend.

The Wells Family

According to Travis County Marriage Records, Cisco White and Lonnie Wells married in 1897. Lonnie Wells worked as a Pullman porter on the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad which passed through the small town of Granger, in northeastern Williamson County, before going on to Austin. The 1900 census shows that Cisco Wells was boarding

11 Like several other white families in the area, Loveless moved from the area when it became a predominantly black neighborhood. It is noteworthy that he contributed greatly to the demographic change.. 12 The school served the black community until integration in the 1960s when it was demolished. Few records of the building or its programs are on file at the Austin History Center or other archival collections. 13 Travis County Deed Records Vol. 212: 398, November 27, 1906. 14 William Benjamin Loveless, born in Hornsby Bend in 1864. He moved to South Austin in 1895 and started a business there in 1898. He was considered to be one of the first merchants and builders in South Austin (obit Aus Statesman October 30, 1946: 5). 15 Though not explicitly stated in deed records, it seems likely that Loveless bought the unimproved lots and had houses built on them. In 1906, he bought three lots in the 1700 block of Newton for a total of $200 (Within a few years, he sold them for $600 apiece, an increase likely attributable to the presence of a house. According to former Austin Preservation Officer Betty Baker, Willie Wells told her that his mother, Cisco Wells, built the house (Bob Luke interview March 12, 2005, page 148) but it is more probable that Loveless actually had the house built and she was the first owner, or that she commissioned it from Loveless.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft with a family in Granger that year (U. S. Bureau of the Census: Williamson County, 1900). While Lonnie Wells was not identified in the census record, he may have been working away from home on the railroad at the time it was taken. The record does show that Cisco had a one-year old son named Lonnie Wells Jr. The couple had four more boys in quick succession; Willie, the youngest, was born on August 10, 1905 according to the 1920 census (January 9, 1920), but he may actually have been born in 1906 as reported in other accounts.16

Little is known about the family’s early years together. Cisco and Lonnie Wells may have moved to Austin by the time Willie was born, as most accounts say that Willie was born in the city. Other sources give Arkansas or Oklahoma as his birthplace, but there is little firm evidence to support those claims.17 What is known is that by 1912, when Cisco Wells bought the house on Newton Street, Lonnie Sr. was not living with the family. According to her granddaughter, Stella Wells, Lonnie had died by then. The deed record clearly states that Cisco Wells purchased the house solely “from her own estate” (Travis County Deed Records: Vol. 251: 519). Cisco took various domestic jobs—laundress, cook, and maid—and on what must have been a meager income even then, she managed to pay Loveless $100 down and $100 a year for five years. (Travis County Deed Records: Vol. 251: 519) By the time she moved into the house, she was the single mother of five boys ranging in age from about seven to thirteen years old.18 The younger children attended elementary school only a few blocks away on W. Elizabeth Street.19

By 1920, Cisco Wells had remarried, to a man named Robert Crisp who worked as a fireman at Consumer Fuel and Ice Company in South Austin. Only three boys—Ira, Joseph, and Willie (15 years old)– still lived at home. Nathaniel apparently boarded elsewhere in South Austin. The 1920 census record shows that the younger boys, Joseph and Willie, were both attending school, almost certainly at Anderson High School. Joseph also worked as a laborer, as did their older brother, Ira; all three were listed as Robert Crisp’s stepsons.

Numerous accounts, including Willie Wells’ own recollections, attest to the high value Cisco Wells placed on education. Like other African American families, she was likely drawn to the community for its proximity to Brackenridge School. In fact, she urged Willie to continue his education beyond high school. He enrolled in classes at Austin’s Samuel Huston College before signing with his first professional team. His mother reportedly had hopes that he would become a pianist or a doctor. He later told interviewers that the only time he went against his mother’s wishes was when he left college to play ball.

Formative Years

Despite his mother’s ambitions to the contrary, baseball dominated Willie’s life from an early age. He learned the game from friends and family in the Brackenridge community. In a 1973 interview, Wells recalled his daily routine as a child: he would rush home from school, quickly finish his chores, and head out to play ball in the street with his friends until dark. His daughter, Stella Wells, recalled her grandmother saying, “Well, he went to sleep with a ball. Everywhere he went he had a ball in his hand. She would say, ‘get out of this house with that ball and he’d get out and play in the school yard or in the street until night – or dinner time.’”20 By the age of ten, he already knew that he wanted to play shortstop [when he grew up] because he “just liked the position” (Kirk Bohls, “Wells’ First Love Still Is Baseball,” Austin American–Statesman, May 12, 1973).

16 Different records show his birth year variously as 1905, 1906, and 1907. Wells himself sometimes gave contradictory years for his birthdate. 17 Since Cisco Wells was a Texas native, living just north of Austin in 1900, and had a sister who lived in the city in 1905, it is likely that Willie was born in Austin as most sources indicate. 18 Lonnie Wells, Jr. born in 1898 or 1899, would have been about thirteen, Nathaniel about twelve, Ira about eleven, Joe about nine, and Willie about seven. 19 Lonnie Wells, Jr., disappears from the public record after the 1900 census. 20 Stella Wells, Interview with Terri Myers and Sarah Marshall at her home in Austin, May 9, 2018.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft

When the Austin Black Senators played home games, young Wells would catch the trolley out to Lake Austin Dam (Tom Miller Dam) to watch them play at Dobbs Field. He used the nickel his mother gave him for the church's collection plate across the street to pay his fare. Once there, he saw black teams from Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, and Galveston. Sometimes he would get in free by offering to carry some of the players’ equipment. Some who couldn’t pay the ticket prices would climb up in the trees to watch the game, but generally, all the limbs were full by the time he got there (Luke 46). One of his favorite players was Raleigh “Biz” Mackey, the star catcher for the San Antonio Black Aces. Mackey often let Wells carry his glove or shag balls and then sit on the bench with the other players. Later, the two were teammates with the Newark Eagles (Luke 46).

As a teenager, Wells had to take the Congress Avenue streetcar across the river and then walk a mile or two to Anderson High School in East Austin. It was quite a trek, but it was the city’s only Black high school. He played sandlot ball wherever he could and was a star player on the Anderson High team. Still in his mid-teens, Wells’ talent was so exceptional that the teenager was asked to play semi-pro ball for his hometown heroes, the Austin Black Senators. At eighteen, while still living at home, Wells played ball with another Texas Colored League team, the San Antonio Black Aces, during their 1923 season and even went a few games with the Houston Buffaloes (Luke 47). By then, he was attracting the attention of Major League scouts.

Recruitment

While playing with a local all-star team in 1924, Wells impressed scouts from both the and the St. Louis Giants.21 The teams vied for the young man’s favor, offering him salaried contracts to play out the season (Luke 47). To that point, Wells had been making little more than pocket change delivering newspapers and shucking corn, so the offers sounded significant to the teenager. First, however, he had to get permission from his mother. Each team promised Mrs. Wells that they would look after her son, keep him out of trouble, send his paycheck home, and return him at the end of the summer so that he could attend college in the fall. With those conditions, Mrs. Wells gave her consent. Wells ultimately signed with the St. Louis Giants that summer because St. Louis was closer to Austin than Chicago, only an overnight trip from home. Still, he recalled that he cried when he boarded the train to leave home for the first time (Luke 48).

Wells went on the road, enduring the hazing that attached to being a rookie. Older hands at the game would throw balls at the youngsters and sit on the bench, filing their spikes when they passed by, saying, “This is for you.” If he was intimidated, his game didn’t show it. It was with St. Louis that summer that he began to develop the intense, aggressive style that earned him the nickname given to him by Negro-league umpire Billy Donaldson “Devil Wells, the sensational boy wonder at short.” (Luke 48).

When the Giants finished their southern tour, they returned to St. Louis, where the St. Louis Stars manager saw the rookie player in action and was so impressed that he made him an offer to “jump ship” and join the Stars. When he approached his Giants teammates, they encouraged him to take the offer and play with the Stars, a Major League team in the Negro Leagues. Wells later remembered that teammates Dick Wallace, Dan Kennard, and Sam Bennett told him, “Go to it, kid, and good luck. We are past our prime and may break up any time. Your future is before you. Accept the offer” (Luke 49). Wells followed their advice, joining the St. Louis Stars in July and playing out the summer season of 1924. It was the decision that launched his professional career in baseball.

Wells fulfilled his promise to his mother and returned to Austin, where he enrolled for classes at Samuel Huston College in the fall of 1924.22 However, his college career was short-lived as his former teammates with the Giants

21 This was a “reorganized” St. Louis Giants, a group of players who teamed up when the original Giants club disbanded. 22 The school later joined with another African American college in Austin and today the combined schools are known as Huston-

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft asked him to join them for the winter season in California. They needed a replacement for shortstop, Bill “Bo” Riggins, who had broken his leg and offered the teenager the grand sum of $400 a month to do what he loved best – play ball. Though he knew his mother would be disappointed, he also knew that his salary could help her make ends meet.23 In a 1979 interview, he recalled his decision, “My mother wanted me to finish college, but I looked at her taking in wash and working so hard and saw that I had a chance to help her” (Rogosin 1979 in Luke 49). This time he didn’t ask permission; he boarded a train out of Austin heading for California.

Wells’ Ties to Home and Family

Though he undoubtedly loved the game, Wells loved his mother more, which may have factored into his decision to leave home and go on the road to help her financially. In the era of segregated leagues, though their salaries were not close to being on par with white Major League players, black players in the equivalent Negro National League earned more than four times the average yearly salary of other Black men and twice as much as the annual average for white men.24 From his first summer with the St. Louis Giants, Wells sent a good part of his mother's salary home. He also helped his brothers, daughter and friends over his long career. No matter where the game took him, Wells never forgot his family and friends back in Austin. His daughter, Stella Wells recalled, “Daddy always sent money home, but he was gone all the time” (Luke 41). Much later, writing to his brother, Wells slyly reminded him that he had, indeed, contributed to their welfare, despite being forever on the road; he promised to send him his many newspaper clippings so “you enjoy the things your Bro did for our family” (Willie Wells to a brother, Sept. 26, 1972).

Though he may have seen it as a duty, the homesick teenager truly missed his close-knit family. First and foremost, he missed his mother; by all accounts, and hundreds of letters between them, the two were exceptionally close. His letters were full of endearments; they often began “My Darling Mother,” and promising that he was living clean and going to church. Most of all, he told her how much he missed her. In one letter, he wrote, “they sang your song in church, and I could not help but cry.” He opened his heart to her in his letters. In one, he told her how nice it had been just to hear her voice, “It made me feel so good because I love you very much.” (Luke 42). He also remained close to his brothers and extended family of aunts, uncles, and cousins, many of whom lived a block or two from his house on Newton Street.25 In a letter to his mother dated October 30, 1941, he asked her to tell him “how everybody is and all the news. Tell all my Aunts I said hello and I think of them all the time. Tell Mr. Robert [his stepfather, Robert Crisp], and Uncle Johnny [White] I said hello.” After a trip to Austin, he wrote, “I sure did enjoy seeing all the family. Just been away three days and miss you . . . The old saying is, ‘there is no place like home’” (Luke 44).

Wells also missed his daughter, Stella. Willie was only seventeen and her mother, Clara Miller, only fifteen when Stella Lee Wells was born in 1922. Little is known about the couple, but Wells took an active role in his daughter’s life from her education and religious training to her friends, especially boys. In a 2018 interview, Stella Wells said, “Yes, he was tough on me, and he was really tough on those boys!: While she acknowledged that he was strict, they loved each other.26 He mainly wanted her to get a good education to make her way in life and not depend on anyone else. While Wells was playing with the Chicago American Giants in the 1930s, he enrolled Stella in nursing school at the University of Chicago. She was the only African American in the program, but took it in stride and graduated as a

Tillotson University. 23 He recalled that $400 in 1924, was like $4,000 today (in 1979). 24 https://yogiberramuseum.org/when-baseball-led-america/lesson2-life-in-the-north/ 25 Several sources including Wells’ daughter Stella, claim that Cisco Wells’ father, grandfather bought a block or an acre – depending on the source - of land in South Austin and gave each of his sons and daughters lots to build their own homes on their lots. He may have made some kind of arrangement with the Loveless for lots as John White and George White each owned houses near Cisco White Wells on Newton Street and her sister, Aurelia White Williams lived nearby on Johanna Street (U.S. Census, Travis County, Texas, 1920). 26 Stella Wells interview, May 9, 2018.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Registered Nurse in 1940. As an R.N., she could find good work wherever she went; her work took her to Chicago, New York City, and San Francisco before she retired and moved back to Austin.27

Wells’ Career in the Negro Major Leagues (see table, Figure 7)

The First Season

In the winter of 1924-25, Wells played in nine games with the St. Louis Giants during the California Winter League. Though he proved to be a good fielder, he couldn’t hit a curveball, and every pitcher in the league knew it and took advantage of his weakness. It was a failing that could have ended his budding baseball career. outfielder Hurley “Bugger” McNair took an interest in the boy and determined to teach him how to hit a curveball. He reportedly tied Wells’ ankle to a stake at home base so he couldn’t run away and relentlessly pitched one curveball after another to the rookie for the rest of the winter season.

Wells was an ardent student, and by the time he reported to St. Louis for the 1925 spring season, he flummoxed opposing pitchers who expected him to be an “easy out” at the mercy of their curveballs. His newfound skill and consistent hitting ability took him from eighth place to third in the batting order. He rose to the honor, ultimately hitting .379 for the Stars and finishing with the second highest batting average in the league season. Wells’ performance heralded his meteoric rise to become one of the leading hitters in Negro League history (Luke 51).

At the same time, Wells worked hard to improve his fielding skills. He reportedly injured his throwing arm while playing basketball.28 Though his weak arm was occasionally blamed for some losses by the Stars, Wells’ natural talents won out and he more often dazzled onlookers with his prowess on the field. A 1925 newspaper caption asserted, “Wells is fast nailing down the title of the ‘Best Shortstop in the League’ . . . His fielding of almost impossible chances and quick get away with the pill keeps the fans screaming” (Luke 52). In just two seasons with the majors, Wells was on his way to becoming one of the league’s shining stars, both at bat and on the field.

Rise to Fame

Wells rose to fame with the St. Louis Stars with whom he played from 1924 through the 1931 season. With the Stars that he developed his skills at bat, compiling an average of .378 in 1926, the year he set the single-season record in the Negro Leagues with 27 home runs in 88 games. His consistent hitting continued to amaze veterans and fans alike with an average of .346 in 1927 and back-to-back League batting titles in 1929 and 1930, when he averaged .368 and .404, respectively. It was mainly due to Wells’ consistent play at bat and in the field that the St. Louis Stars clinched Negro League championships in 1928, 1930, and 1931 (http://www.theforgottenleagues.com/willie_wellshfp.htm).

These were the years that made Wells name in the Negro leagues. Baseball historian, Bob Luke, recalled an all-star championship in October, 1929, in which the “peerless shortstop” almost single-handedly led his American Giants, featuring fellow baseball greats and , to victory over a white team headed by future Hall of Famers, , Heine Manush, and : “In the eighth inning of the first game, Wells tripled off the right-field fence and scored the winning run moments later with a steal of home. In Game Two, Wells smashed two triples and again stole home as the Giants prevailed. In the bottom of the ninth in game four, with the score tied, Wells came through once more, knocking in Jelly Gardner—the winning run—with a single. The Giants beat the All-Stars four games to one. Among players on both teams with fifteen or more at bats, Wells’s .409 average was second only to Heilmann’s .471. The following year, Wells batted

27 Ibid. 28 Though only 5’5”, Wells reportedly excelled at basketball, playing with his St. Louis Stars teammates at the YMCA when not on the baseball diamond (Luke 22).

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft .403 for the season and won the Fleet Walker Award that John Holway gave annually to the player he considered the best in each Negro league” (Luke 1)

Wells was a tireless player who was not content to stay out between regular seasons. He typically spent the off-season in the California Winter Leagues, playing with the St. Louis Giants (1924-25), the Cleveland Stars (1925-26), the Philadelphia Royal Giants (1926-27, 1927-28, 1930-31, and 1931-32), as well as in Cuba with the Cienfuegos (1928-29 and 1929-30). In the brief periods between regular and winter seasons, he usually went home to Austin, where he regaled his family and friends with his baseball stories.

The Chicago American Giants

Wells probably would have stayed with St. Louis, the team that brought him fame, except for the Great Depression. By 1931, the Depression had set in, and the Negro National League dissolved at the close of the season due to financial difficulties, leaving him and other players in the league free to negotiate with other teams. Along with other great Negro League players , , and Biz Mackey, Wells joined Tom Wilson’s for the California winter season of 1931-32. In the spring of 1932, he signed with the Detroit Wolves, which consolidated with the in the newly formed East-West League. Citing the combined teams' hectic travel schedule as detrimental to his health, Wells left to play out the rest of the season with the Kansas City Monarchs. He stayed with the Monarchs for a stellar thirty-day postseason in Mexico against the Mexico City Aztecs (Luke 75).

Wells was far too talented to remain a “vagabond” player for long, and in 1933 he signed with the Chicago American Giants. Wells rewarded the Giants by leading the team to consecutive pennant wins in two different leagues; they took the title in the Negro Southern League in 1932 and repeated the feat in the newly-formed Negro National League in 1933. In the latter contest, Wells hit .300, landing himself a spot in the starting lineup for the West squad in the first East-West All-Star Classic, an honor he would receive another seven times in his career (willie_wells_hfp.htm).

In the fall of 1934, sportswriter Dan Daniel gushed over Wells’ performance with the Giants in a piece for the New York World-Telegram, “Wee Willie Wells (Wells stood 5’ 8” and weighed 160 pounds at the time) . . . is hitting .520, fielding 1,000 and stealing bases almost as regularly as when the American Giants’ management has financial difficulties” (willie_wells). The reference to finances may have been lost on some readers, but it was prophetic. According to baseball historian James Riley, Wells told him that he left the Giants because money-strapped club owner Robert Cole had asked him to convince the other players to finish the season without pay to keep the team afloat. Cole promised his star player that his own salary would be protected. Wells refused, and at a team meeting where Cole launched his scheme, he told his fellow players, “I appreciate it that you fellows look to me as your leader, but you had better find another team to join because I’m not going to be here.” True to his word, Wells quit the team (Luke 28-29).

The Newark Eagles

Wells had little to lose. In 1935, he was still considered hot property and was quickly picked up by the Newark Eagles, where he remained for the rest of the decade. Wells joined with the Eagles, and together, they commanded the left side of the infield. During his tenure with the Eagles, Wells “invented” the , for which he has been duly credited. The target of many an intentional hit, one of which knocked him unconscious, Wells took to wearing a construction helmet to protect his head. Though he took a drubbing for it, the hard hat didn’t put him off his game; he batted .357, .386, .396, and .346 with the Eagles in the four seasons leading up to World War II.

Like many baseball players in the Negro Leagues, Wells enjoyed playing in Latin American countries where he was highly regarded for his talent and less identified by his race. He spent seven seasons playing winter ball in Cuba, where he recorded a lifetime average of .320. His early years on the island were golden – he led his Cienfuegos team to win the championship in 1929-30 – but his consistent fielding and hitting returned him to the winter spotlight in Cuba from

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft 1935 to 1940. In his penultimate year with the Almendares team (1938-39), he was voted his team’s Most Valuable Player, but his last year in Cuba (1939-40) may have been his best. He batted .328, leading his team to the championship and winning a spot on the All-Star team where he was voted the league’s Most Valuable Player.

After the 1939-40 winter season in Cuba, Wells decided against returning to the U.S. for the regular season. He had come to appreciate the degree to which he was respected and admired as an athlete in Latin America regardless of his race. In 1940, he moved to Mexico, where he played the regular season and continued to earn accolades. It was there that his early nickname “Devil Wells” was translated as El Diablo, a moniker that stayed with him the rest of his career. He batted .347 that first year and led his Vera Cruz team to the pennant in 1940. The following year he maintained his average batting at.345. In the winter of 1940-41, he played his only season in Puerto Rico, batting .378 with the Aguadilla team.

Wells may have been homesick by 1942, and he offered to return to the Newark Eagles as a player-manager for a reduced salary of $315. Abe Manley, co-owner of the Eagles, eagerly accepted the deal, and Wells came back to the States where he earned young players' respect under his tutelage. He may have underestimated his value as a still-potent player, however. He had a tremendous season in which he batted .361 and was chosen to Cum Posey’s annual All- American dream team. That year he was also identified as one of the top five Negro League players considered eligible to play in the Major Leagues if the color barrier was ever broken (willie_wells).

It was an argument with Ella Manley, the only woman ever inducted into the Hall of Fame and co-owner of the Newark Eagles, that sent Wells back to Mexico in 1943. He played three seasons in Mexico before returning to the Eagles in 1945. Though he batted a respectable .320 in 1945 and .297 in 1946, Wells was past his prime. Nevertheless, he was still considered the best shortstop in the Negro Leagues, so it was a surprise to most when he was passed over for a position on an all-star team slated to tour Venezuela in the winter season 1945-46. Instead, a rookie with the Kansas City Monarchs named Jackie Robinson was picked to take his place to highlight his talents as a rising star (willie_wells).

Later Years in the Game

In the early postwar years, the aging shortstop bounced from the Eagles to the New York Black Yankees (1945-1946) and then to the Baltimore Elite Giants (also in 1946), the (1947), and finally to the (1948-1949) where he nearly ended his playing career in the United States. Still, he managed to amaze fans and opponents alike with his extraordinary focus and skill, even in his waning years. Jim “Zipper” Zapp, an outfielder with the Baltimore Elite Giants, recalled playing against Wells at the in 1945, when the veteran shortstop was with the New York Black Yankees, “He put on the greatest fielding display by a shortstop I’d ever seen” (Luke 54). Though his best years may have been behind him, Wells still batted an impressive .328 in 1948 at forty-three (willie_wells).

Considered a living legend by many in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Wells best contributions to the sport may have been his ability to mentor younger players, including Jackie Robinson, , and Don. Robinson reportedly learned “the art of the pivot” from the veteran shortstop when they both played in Montreal (willie_wells). As a manager, he put the same kind of energy and focus that had made him a great player in his teaching. Dubbed the “Shakespeare of Baseball,” he spread his philosophy that the game required more than physical skill or inherent talent; it took concentration and study. When asked about his so-called “weak” arm29, Wells replied:

29 Wells injured his arm while playing basketball early in his career but he overcame his weakness through hard work and strategic play.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft What most people don’t know is that baseball is such an intelligent game. You’ve got to be smarter than the other fellow…If a guy couldn’t pull a fastball, I’d be in the hole behind second base on him. I’d watch everything a pitcher throws. You don’t play behind every pitcher the same. If you saw me dive for a ball, you knew I’d misjudged my batter or pitcher. The weak arm don’t mean nothing. It’s here, in the head.30

After leaving the Memphis Red Sox in 1949, Wells moved on to Canada, where he again worked as a player-manager with the Winnipeg Buffaloes (1950-1951) and the Brandon Greys (1952-1953). He could still dazzle the field. Negro League promoter Hank Rigney recalled seeing Wells in action, saying:

Willie could make any big-league shortstop look bad today. At the age of 44, while player- manager for the Winnipeg Buffaloes in a game against the Minot Mallards, [he] caught a blooper in left field and quite possibly saved the bacon for the Buggs. The aging competitor…raced on into short left field to rob Triplett of a base bingle [i.e., single], gathering in the ball at the last moment with that unmistakable hunk of leather that Willie calls a glove.31

Wells returned to the U.S. in 1954 to manage the ; it was his final year in the Negro Leagues. He retired at the age of forty-nine, having logged three decades playing the game he loved with a passion. Wells’ last official role in the game came nearly twenty years later when he managed the Austin Indians, a Little League team in his hometown.

Retirement to Relative Obscurity

Wells left the limelight and retired to a rented apartment in New York City, where he worked in a delicatessen for thirteen years.32 In 1973, he returned home to Austin to care for his ailing mother in the house where he was raised. Cisco Wells passed away in 1974 at the age of 94. Services were held at St. Annie AME Church in the Brackenridge Community. The family matriarch had outlived both husbands and two sons but was survived by her sister, Aurelia Williams, sons Joe and Willie, all of Austin, and son Nathaniel. She lived in San Mateo, California. At the time of her death, she had five grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren, and four great-great-grandchildren (Austin American- Statesman, June 26, 1974: 12). She left the family home to her youngest son, Willie, who lived there until his own death in 1989.33

Willie Wells spent his last years in Austin where he watched baseball on television or played dominos at Marshall’s Barber Shop in East Austin, where he and his friends went over the details of his glory days as a star in the Negro Leagues. He granted the occasional front-porch interview to reporters who happened to find him. Most commented on his unexplained absence from the Hall of Fame, which had begun accepting Negro League players starting with the great Satchel Paige in 1971. Austin sportswriter Kirk Bohls publicized that omission in a newspaper article entitled, “The best the game has forgotten: Crafty shortstop is content in Austin, but he remains absent at Cooperstown” (Austin American Statesman, XX date). Wells himself thought he was good enough for the Hall of Fame and hoped that he would eventually receive the call. Although he was frequently considered, the prize eluded him.

For the most part, however, Wells lived in relative obscurity and near-poverty in his South Austin home. Never paid the equivalent of his white counterparts in baseball, he had no savings and got by on his modest Social Security benefits

30 Luke, 53. 31 Luke, 55. 32 The deli stood at the intersection of Nassau and Liberty Streets for many years but by 2006, it had been replaced by a Starbucks (Luke 2007: xiii). 33 Affidavit of Death and Heirship RE: Cisco Wells Site of Texas Travis County. Doc # 9:054395, June 27, 1991.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft and visits from Meals on Wheels. In his final years, he had diabetes, heart disease, and glaucoma, the latter disease forcing him to sit within a few inches of his old black and white television to watch his beloved game (Luke 3). As his health began to fail, his daughter Stella urged him to move in with her, but he declined, saying, “There’s no place like home, and that’s where I want to live” (Luke 42). He remained at home until he succumbed to congestive heart failure on January 22, 1989, at 84.34

In his front page, Austin American-Statesman article, “Heart failure claimed famed shortstop Willie Wells,” reporter Kirk Bohls quoted Monte Irvin’s earlier assessment of the player as “the greatest living shortstop not in the Hall of Fame”. The comment was not lost on Wells’ peers, fans, and followers who renewed their efforts to have Wells memorialized on the walls of Cooperstown (Austin American-Statesman, January 24, 1989: 1A)

The Baseball Hall of Fame

Controversy in Admitting Negro League Players

As early as 1979, both state congressman J. J. Pickle and Austin Mayor Carol McClellan took up Wells’ cause, making calls and writing letters to the Baseball Hall of Fame Committee. Their voices, however, went unheard as the Hall was enmeshed in a 35-year controversy over admitting Negro League players to that elite company at all.

The controversy was rooted in the fact that many who excelled in the Negro Leagues were too old to put in ten years with the Major Leagues by the time the sport was integrated and that was a requirement for induction into the Hall of Fame. Jackie Robinson had only played one year in the Negro Leagues when he was signed to play with Brooklyn Dodgers, which shattered the color barrier against blacks in the major leagues.35 The Negro Leagues continued to exist, but their days were numbered as Major League teams began siphoning off the most talented young black players to play in their clubs. Though integration was a triumph for African Americans and civil rights in general, the Negro Leagues and their remarkable players were largely forgotten, relegated to the back pages of history.

It took two decades after the color barrier was broken for baseball to consider adding black players to the Hall of Fame seriously. At his 1966 induction into the Hall of Fame, gave a national voice to the issue when he addressed the crowd, saying:

Baseball gives every American boy a chance to excel. Not just to be as good as anybody else, but to be better. This is the nature of man and the name of the game. I hope someday Satchel Paige and will be voted into the Hall of Fame as symbols of the great Negro players who are not here only because they weren’t given the chance.36

34 Again, his exact age is unknown. Over his career, Wells himself gave several different birth dates. Hall of Fame literature lists his birth date as August 10, 1908, but that is much later than other versions that show 1905 or 1906. If he were born in 1908, Wells would have only been sixteen when he signed with the St. Louis Stars in 1924, and he always said that he “was coming in to 18” at that time, making his birth year 1905 or 1906. In this nomination, his age is based on the 1920 census which shows that he was 15 in January, 1920, making his birth year 1905. Other accounts, including Wells himself, tend to confirm the census record. 35 Even the most stalwart opponents of baseball integration began to drop their objections when they saw black players in action, many for the first time. Some feared conflict between white and black fans if the games were integrated. Walter Briggs, owner of the Detroit Tigers, adamantly refused to integrate his team citing his belief that whites and blacks could not play together without fights breaking out in the stands and on the field. His attitude reportedly changed when he saw black players perform in an all-star game on July 10, 1951. According to Tigers team manager John J. McHale who was sitting next to him, Briggs growled, “We gotta get some players like that”. Briggs sent McHale on a scouting mission the very next day to find players “like that”. Though Briggs did not live to see it – he died the following year – the Tigers signed their first black players soon afterward, in 1953 (Luke 103). 36 Luke, 104.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft The press seized on the comment and, the question was put to the baseball community for consideration.

It took more time for the notoriously conservative baseball organization to tackle the issue. The civil rights movement and climate of racial unrest in the late 1960s may have helped push the question of admitting Negro League players in the Hall of Fame to the forefront. , who became Baseball Commissioner in 1968, called a meeting to discuss the issue. Still, National League president and former commissioner and Hall of Fame president Paul Kerr stood firm against waiving the requirement of playing ten years with the majors (Luke 107). By then, two black players, Jackie Robinson (1962) and (1969) had been elected to the Hall. Although most were happy to add African Americans who played the requisite ten years in the majors, they were opposed to making allowances for Negro Leaguers. They argued that waiving the requirement would “water down” the standards and somehow diminish the prestige of the Hall of Fame.

Kuhn wouldn’t let the question drop, however. In a 2006 interview, he said: “I understood the argument. I just didn’t think it was fair because they had no chance to play in the majors. Negro-league baseball was legitimate baseball, with great players. We needed to find a way to identify those who belong in the Hall of Fame. That was a totally overwhelming argument as far as I was concerned.”37 He persevered, appointing a committee led by Monte Irvin and including players in the Negro Leagues, team owners and managers, and a former president of the national Collegiate Athletic Association. The committee’s charge was to identify thirty Negro league players who qualified for the Hall of Fame according to the following rules:

1. Selection would be based on playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contribution to the teams they played on and to baseball in general. 2. Only one would be selected yearly at an annual election to be held the first week in February. 3. The player must have performed before 1947 and have played in the Negro leagues for at least ten years. 4. Those selected must receive 75% of the committee’s votes.

The committee then selected Satchel Paige to be the first Negro League inducted into the Hall of Fame, an honor he received in 1971. Josh Gibson and were inducted in 1972. They were followed by Monte Irvin (1973), Cool Papa Bell (1974), Judy Johnson (1975), (1976), and Martin Dihigo and Pop Lloyd (1977). The committee disbanded in 1977, and many in the baseball elite felt that they had done their duty regarding the admission of Negro League players (Luke 116; 118).

Controversy continued to attach to the issue, however. Some in baseball circles pushed for a separate hall to honor Negro Leagues players. Many black players, including Jackie Robinson, felt the honor was too long in coming and merely a token gesture. Black sportswriters were particularly scornful of the idea that the baseball community had done due diligence by inducting the nine players. A.S. (Doc) Young wrote, At best, this thing was no more than a left- handed compliment . . . to Negro league baseball. At worst, it is an insult to the ten times more great negro League players than it honors.”38 (Luke 120). , former co-owner of the Newark Eagles, feared that no other Negro League players would be inducted with the committee's disbanding. Furious, she asked, “Why in hell did the Hall of Fame set that committee up if they were going to do the lousy job they did?”39

37 Luke, 111. 38 Luke, 120. 39 Luke, 121. Manley was the first woman inducted into the Hall of Fame for her significant role as owner-manager of the Newark Eagles for whom Wells played during the 1930s and 1940s.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft No other Negro Leaguers were added to the list from 1978 to 1995, but the issue continued to be debated. Finally, the Hall of Fame sponsored an in-depth study of African American baseball from 1860 to 1960 to examine the performance of professional ballplayers who had not played in the majors. A committee comprised of experts on the Negro leagues was appointed to use the study results to nominate and elect all deserving players from the Negro leagues to the Hall of Fame. After that, no others from the segregated leagues would be inducted. It was in this context that Willie Wells was finally elected to the Hall of Fame.

Elusive Fame

Once the door opened to Negro Leagues players, Willie Wells was optimistic that he would be one of those chosen to the Hall of Fame. When asked if he thought he deserved the honor, he replied: “It’s not what you think of yourself, it’s what others think of you. The sportswriters think so, but it’s hard for me to say.”40 (Luke 135). However, when the special committee disbanded after 1978, his chances dimmed, and his daughter Stella recalled that he still thought he would get in but not before he died. It was a prophetic pronouncement.

Still, he had many supporters, among them Congressman Jake Pickle, who wrote in the Congressional Record every year from 1980 to 1989, his opinion that the selection committee should reopen to consider other Negro Leaguers for the Hall of Fame with Wells at the top of the list. Danny Roy Young, the unofficial “Mayor of South Austin” and owner of the Texicalli Grill, also lobbied for Wells’ induction. Young called the campaign an effort to “do our best to right a wrong.”41 Advocates came from beyond Texas, as well. Author James Riley, who wrote about Wells, Ray Dandridge, and in his 1987 book, Dandy, Day, and the Devil, told the former shortstop that he hoped the book would inspire the Hall to finally recognize his contributions to the sport (Luke 136).

When the Hall of Fame did reopen the case for Negro Leaguers, its faced several challenges. Few of the members were old enough to have seen many of the black players on the field. They couldn’t depend solely on statistics that were not always available for players in the Negro Leagues. Instead, they read letters of recommendation and listened to hours of testimony from those who had seen or played with the great Negro Leaguers.

Accolades poured in from those who had played with Wells or had seen him in person; they remembered the shortstop known in his heyday as “the Devil Wells” with something close to reverence. Hall of Famer Monte Irvin, who knew Wells when they both played for the Newark Eagles, ranked him among the greatest players in baseball history. Irvin drew from personal experience, having played with baseball greats including Josh Gibson, Joe DiMaggio, Satchel Paige, , , Ted Williams, , Leon Day, , and Jackie Robinson. Irvin asserted that, “Willie Wells belongs in that group.”42

The devil finally got his due. Early in 1997, the Veterans Committee met to review nominations for that year. Members of the committee included some of the greatest names in modern baseball history: , Monte Irvin, , , and Ted Williams, who had led the charge to admit players from the Negro Leagues to the Hall of Fame. On March 5, 1997, when the announcement was made, a neighbor phoned Stella Wells to tell her to turn on the television. The scrawl at the bottom of the screen read, “Austin native Willie Wells headed for Cooperstown”. She broke down and cried, partly for the honor and partly because her father hadn’t lived to receive it (Luke 138).

Stella Wells represented her father at his induction ceremony in Cooperstown. Former teammate Monte Irvin said he was honored to have served on the Veterans Committee that voted to elect Willie Wells to the National Baseball Hall of

40 Luke, 135. 41 Ibid. 42 Luke, 2007, X.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Fame that year (Luke, 2007: x). Irvin went on to describe “Wells [as a player who] really could do it all. He was one of the slickest fielding ever to come along. He had speed on the bases. He hit with power and consistency. He was among the most durable players I’ve ever known. He was still winning games with home runs as a player- manager in Canada at the age of forty-seven” (Luke 200: x). Wells was the fourteenth player in the Negro Leagues to be so honored. Only four more players would join those ranks before the door to Negro leaguers permanently closed in 2001.

Willie Wells’ plaque which now hangs in Cooperstown (“The Place Where Legends Live”) reads:

Willie James Wells Negro Leagues 1924-1948. Combined superior batting skills, slick fielding and speed on the bases to become an eight-time All-Star in the Negro Leagues. A power-hitting shortstop with great hands, ranks among the all-time Negro League leaders in doubles, triples, home runs and stolen bases. Played on three pennant-winning teams with the St. Louis Stars, one with the Chicago American Giants and one with the Newark Eagles. Overall he played for many Negro League clubs with stints in the Canadian, Mexican and Cuban leagues. Player-manager in the Negro Leagues as well.

Honors Beyond the Hall of Fame

Texans continued to pay tribute to Wells after his induction into the Hall of Fame. In 2004, Wells’ body was reinterred in the Texas State Cemetery, alongside Texas “war heroes, founders of the Republic of Texas, jurists, elected state officials, and writers” (Texas State Cemetery brochure). At the time, former congresswoman Barbara Jordan was the only other African American buried in the Texas State Cemetery (Luke 5). The City of Austin named one of its major thoroughfares, Congress Avenue, Willie Wells Boulevard, for the day. At the reinternment ceremony, Governor Rick Perry said, “For folks who love baseball, this is a powerful moment. The lives of Wells and other black players who weren’t allowed to play with whites underscore the importance of perseverance” (Bob Luke, 146). Willie Wells was also inducted in the Mexico Professional Baseball Hall of Fame and the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame.

Criterion B: Wells’ Association with 1705 Newton Street

The Willie Wells House at 1705 Newton Street is significant as the childhood home and only property associated individually with legendary Negro League shortstop, Willie Wells. It was here that he learned to play and excel at the game to such an exceptional degree that he was recruited as a teenager to play professional in the Negro Major Leagues, ultimately leading to his induction as one of only eighteen Negro League players into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997. Though he left Austin against his mother’s wishes for the travel, low pay, and camaraderie of Negro League baseball, he regularly returned home where he spent time with his mother, daughter, brothers, and extended family.

The house was his touchstone in a career that kept him always on the road, staying in the few hotels that allowed blacks, but more often sleeping on buses, in cars, in stadiums, or on gymnasium floors. Because Negro League players were paid much less than their white counterparts, Wells resorted to barnstorming across the country between games and playing off-season in California, Mexico, Cuba, and Puerto Rico to make ends meet and send home money to his mother. He was also subject to transfer between teams, which prevented him from putting down roots in any one place – except Austin, where he had family and friends, and his room in the only place he could truly call “home,” his mother’s house on Newton Street. To this house, Wells returned after retiring from a New York deli where he worked after retiring from baseball. According to his daughter, who wanted her father to stay with her, Wells refused and demanded to return to Newton Street, saying, “There’s no place like home, and that’s where I want to live.” Stella Wells confirmed his sentiments in a 2018 interview, recalling, “Daddy said, ‘I want to go home – home to South Austin,’ and he walked around and looked around and said, ‘This is my home all right! Now I’m home, I can do what I

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft want’” (Stella Wells interview, May 9, 2018). The house is the only property associated with Willie Wells and the only place he ever called “home” during his long, nomadic career in the Negro Baseball Leagues.

Willie Wells’ childhood home was not his primary residence during his active career, and his return to live there permanently in 1973 was twenty years after he retired from professional baseball. However, the house is where he spent his formative years during the period when he learned how to play baseball, achieving a level of skill that allowed Wells to enter professional baseball as a career. Furthermore, it is the only known property individually associated with Wells during any part of his life.

Wells’ extraordinary career reflected the transitory lifestyle that characterized most baseballers of the era. Between 1923 and 1954, Wells played for more than 30 teams in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The nature of Wells’ work (which is the basis of his significance) kept ball players on the road much (if not all) of the year. The job involved frequent transfers between teams that would likely precluded many of them, especially in the Negro leagues, from settling down for significant periods of time. Low salaries may have also prevented home ownership.

Research for the nomination included a search for other properties potentially associated with Wells. With the help of the National Park Service and several State Historic Preservation Offices across the United States, the author found a few extant baseball fields—like Hinchliffe Field in Patterson, NJ (NHL 2013) and in Birmingham, AL—where Wells played. Baseball fields and stadiums, however, share the same Criterion B association with multiple players.43 A residence, therefore, seemed an appropriate property to nominate for its association with a specific player, but additional research failed to identify such any other residential properties with Wells. His childhood home, a place he returned to frequently in his lifetime, is an appropriate property to nominate for its association with a singular player. Willie Wells is nationally recognized as the best shortstop of his generation. Although he did not live to see it, Wells was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997. His plaque in Cooperstown calls him a “power-hitting shortstop” [who] “ranks among the all-time Negro League leaders in doubles, triples, home runs, and stolen bases.” Recent rehabilitation work to his childhood home in Austin retained much of the modest home’s historic character, and it retains integrity to communicate its association with Willie Wells. It well-represents the baseball legend’s early training and his continued ties to his family and South Austin community. It is therefore nominated to the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion B in the areas of Ethnic Heritage: Black and Recreation for its association with Willie Wells, a significant and nationally-recognized sports figure whose achievements ultimately transcended the color barrier in baseball. The period of significance is 1912-1970, which represents the years the house was associated with Willie Wells through the 50-year threshold.

43 Only four SHPOs responded to the Texas SHPO’s request for information on July 2, 2020.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Bibliography

Austin History Center vertical files various, including “Willie Wells” and “Baseball”.

BaseballLibrary.com. “Willie Wells” http://www.pubdim.net/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/W/Wells_Willie.stm accessed October 27, 2016.

“Brackenridge Gave Negro School a Home” in Austin Statesman. Austin: September 2, 1905: 3. Online in ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Austin Statesman (1902-1915) http://www.austinlibrary.com2400/hnpaustinamericanstatesman/doc accessed March 15, 2017.

Bohls, Kirk. “The best the game has forgotten” in Austin American-Statesman. Austin, Texas:

Bohls, Kirk. “Heart failure claims famed shortstop Wells” in Austin American-Statesman. Austin, Texas: January 24, 1989; A-1, A-6.

Chamy, Michael. “A Short History of Professional Baseball in Austin,” The Austin Chronicle, July 4, 2003, online https://www.austinchronicle.com/sports/2003-07-04/166642/ accessed July 5, 2020.

City of Austin Historic Preservation Office. Austin Historic Landmark files: “Willie Wells House” contains research materials, zoning documents, deed references, newspaper articles on Willie Wells.

Enders, Eric. “Willie Wells: Devil Gets His Due.” Austin, Texas: EricEnders.com published in The Daily Texan (February 9, 1998) accessed online at http://www.ericenders.com/wellstexan.htm October 27, 2016.

Luke, Bob with foreword by Monte Irvin. Willie Wells: “El Diablo” of the Negro Leagues. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 2007.

Myers, Terri “Historic Overview” in McGraw Marburger & Associates. South Congress Avenue Preservation Plan. Austin, Texas: Published by the City of Austin, May 30, 2003.

Mears, Michelle M. And Grace Will Lead Me Home: African American Freedmen Communities of Austin, Texas, 1965- 1928. Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech University Press, 2009.

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. “1997 Hall of Fame Weekend: Willie Wells” Annual Program: Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. Cooperstown, New York: Sunday, August 3, 1997.

National Baseball Hall of Fame Plaque Home Page. “Willie Wells’ Hall of Fame Plaque” http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/plaques/wells_willie.htm accessed October 27, 2016.

Negro League Baseball. “Willie Wells: The Devil From Texas” published October 4, 1999 in negroleaguebaseball.com http://www.negroleaguebaseball.com/1999/October/willie_well.html Accessed October 27, 2016.

Sanborn-Peris Map Co., Ltd. Insurance Maps of Austin, Texas. (1921) Sheets 58-60, 62-64.

Sanborn Map Co. Insurance Maps of Austin, Texas. (1935) Sheets 221-224, 226-232.

Sanborn Map Co. Insurance Maps of Austin, Texas. (1935 map revised 1961) Seets 221-224, 230-232.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft

“South Austin Merchant Dies” in Austin American Statesman, October 30, 1946: 5 online at ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Austin Statesman (1921-1973) http://www.austinlibrary.com:2400/hnpaustinamericanstatesman/doc.

Travis County Deed Records, various. Travis County Clerk’s Office, Austin, Texas.

Travis County Marriage Records: Volume 9: 604. “Cisco White and Lonnie Wells” license issued November 24, 1897.

Wells, Stella Lee. Interview with Sarah Marshall and Terri Myers at her home 5004 Lott St., Austin, Texas. May 9, 2018.

“Willie Wells” http://www.theforgottenleagues.com/willie_wells_hfp.htm accessed October 27, 2016. Excerpted from “The Biographical Encyclopedia of The Negro Baseball Leagues” by James A. Riley.

“Willie Wells” Wikipedia, https://wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Willie_Wells&oldid=762936324 accessed March 14, 2017.

Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center. https://yogiberramuseum.org/when-baseball-led-america/lesson2-life-in-the-north/, accessed June 20, 2020.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Maps Map 1: Location Map

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Map 2: The boundary is the legal parcel (Property ID #302089) as recorded by Travis CAD: 881 SQFT OF LOT 9 BLK 28 & ALL OF LOT 10 BLK 28 SWISHER ADDN and shown on Map 2, accessed July 2, 2020.

Map 3: Austin, Willie Wells House 30.247179° -97.752842°

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Figures

Figure 1: The oldest known photo of the Wells House is from a 1984 Texas Historical Commission.

Figure 2: Front and Rear Elevations before recent rehabilitation (courtesy of John Volz, VOH Architects, Austin, Texas), c. 2010.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Figure 3: Side (North and South) Elevations before recent rehabilitation, c. 2010. Courtesy of John Volz, VOH Architects, Austin, Texas.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Figure 4: Current Floor Plan

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Figure 5: Brackenridge Community, South Austin, 1919. Source: Penick, 1919 in Michelle Mears, 2009

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft

Figure 6: Wells House, 1705 Newton Street, 1921 Sanborn Fire Insurance Co., Map 62.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Figure 7: Willie Wells’ Professional Career, 1923-195444

Year Negro-League Team Other Teams 1923 Austin Black Senators San Antonio Black Aces Houston Buffaloes 1924 St. Louis Stars St. Louis Giants (barnstorming team) St. Louis Giants (CWL)45, 1924-25 1925 St. Louis Stars Cleveland Stars (CWL), 1925-26 1926 St. Louis Stars Philadelphia Royal Giants (CWL), 1926-27 1927 St. Louis Stars Philadelphia Royal Giants (CWL), 1927-28 1928 St. Louis Stars Cienfuegos, Cuba, 1928-29 1929 St. Louis Stars Cienfuegos, Cuba, 1929-30 1930 St. Louis Stars Philadelphia Royal Giants (CWL), 1930-31 1931 St. Louis Stars Philadelphia Royal Giants (CWL), 1931-32 1932 Detroit Wolves Homestead Grays Kansas City Monarchs 1933 Chicago American Giants Wilson’s Royal Giants (CWL), 1933-34 1934 Chicago American Giants Nashville Elite Giants (CWL), 1934-35 1935 Chicago American Giants Santa Clara, Cuba, 1935-36 1936 Newark Eagles Almendares, Cuba 1937 Newark Eagles Mexico 1938 Newark Eagles Mexico 1939 Newark Eagles Mexico 1940 Mexico 1941 Mexico, Puerto Rico 1942 Newark Eagles 1943 Tampico, Mexico 1944 Veracruz Blues (Mexico) Kansas City Royals (CWL), 1944-45 1945 Newark Eagles Mexico New York Black Yankees 1946 New York Black Yankees Veracruz Blues (Mexico) Baltimore Elite Giants 1947 Indianapolis Clowns 1948 Memphis Red Sox 1949 Memphis Red Sox Elmwood Giants (Canada) 1950 Winnipeg Buffaloes (Canada) 1951 Winnipeg Buffaloes (Canada) 1952 Brandon Greys (Canada) 1953 Brandon Greys (Canada) 1954 Birmingham Black Barons

44 Table compiled by Bob Luke for his book, Willie Wells “El Diablo of the Negro Leagues” (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007). 45 CWL = California Winter League

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Figure 8: Willie Wells during his early baseball years in Austin, Texas, c. 1922. (courtesy Stella Wells).

Figure 9: Austin Black Senators, c. 1923, Wells (18) pictured bottom left.

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Figure 10: Willie Wells early in his career with the St. Louis Stars, 1926. Wells smiling in back row.

Figure 11: Wells, Newark Eages in 1942. Source: Mark Langall, “Willie Wells, Too Early for History.”

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Figure 12: Newspaper advertisement, June 6, 1942. Willie Wells of the Newark Eagles - BL-142-2008-2 (Larry Hogan/National Baseball Hall of Fame Library).

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Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Figure 13: Willie Wells, c. 1975. Source: Austin History Center.

Figure 14: Willie James Wells Plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame (1997)

Section FIGURE, Page 39 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places REGISTRATION FORM NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018

Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Photographs

Name of Property: Willie Wells House City, County, State: Austin, Travis County, Texas Photographer: Terri Myers Date Photographed: as September 8, 2019.

Photo 1: Primary (West) and North Façades. Camera facing southeast.

Photo :2 Primary (West) Façade and Porch. Camera facing east/northeast.

Section PHOTO, Page 40 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places REGISTRATION FORM NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018

Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Photo 3: North Façade. Camera facing south.

Photo 4: North Façade (1929 addition on left; 1910 house on right). Camera facing southwest.

Section PHOTO, Page 41 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places REGISTRATION FORM NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018

Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Photo 5: South Façade (original 1910 wing on left; 1929 addition on right). Camera facing northwest.

Photo 6: Rear (East) Façade. Camera facing west.

Section PHOTO, Page 42 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places REGISTRATION FORM NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018

Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Photo 7: View: Front Yard across Newton St. to Church. Camera facing northwest.

Photo 8: Interior: View from Living Room to Kitchen (in 1929 addition). Camera facing east to rear wall.

Section PHOTO, Page 43 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places REGISTRATION FORM NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018

Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Photo 9: View from Kitchen/Dining to Living Room (in original 1910 house). Camera facing southwest to front wall.

Photo 10: Front (West) Bedroom (in original 1910 house).View into hall.

Section PHOTO, Page 44 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places REGISTRATION FORM NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018

Willie Wells House, Austin,SBR Travis County, Texas Draft Photo 11: Rear (East) Bedroom in 1929 addition.

Photo12: Bathroom.View from hall between bedrooms.

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