HOUSTON- Mayor Annise Parker & the Houston Parks & Recreation Department, in partnership with the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone No. 14/Fourth Ward Redevelopment Authority, announced plans for Bethel Park, a multi-million dollar project on the site of historic Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, 801 Andrews Street.
“Houstonians came together after the Great Storm of the 1900’s destroyed the original wooden church and we will once again to preserve the church site for the future,” said Mayor Parker. “The new park will be developed while memorializing the history and significance of this land to the Fourth Ward.”
Bethel Missionary Baptist Church was founded in the late 1800’s by Reverend John (Jack) H. Yates, an early leader of Houston’s African-American community. Located in Freedmen’s Town, a post Civil War Houston neighborhood founded by freed slaves, the Church has had three sanctuaries on the same site, with the earliest constructed in the 1890’s. The first structure was destroyed by the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900. The third and most recent structure was destroyed by fire in 2005. The Bethel Park Project will restore three walls and convert both the interior of the church & the remaining property into a passive use park for the neighborhood. The park will be managed by the Houston Parks & Recreation Department. Funding for the project is being provided by the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone No. 14/Fourth Ward Redevelopment Authority.