reprinted from Waco Heritage & History, Vol. 15, No. 4, Summer, 1985
Sanger-Heights Neighborhood is a 117-block residential and commercial area in near-North Waco. Its boundaries are formed by Fifteenth and Twenty-sixth streets on the east and west, Waco Drive on the south, and Lasker and Seneca avenues on the north. This area takes in all or parts of about a dozen “additions” to the city, of which the largest are West End and Provident Heights.
Research is still under way to determine the earliest structures in the neighborhood, but some residents claim to live in homes that are more than one hundred years old. Certainly, considerable construction had taken place in some portions of the area before the turn of the century, and by the mid-1920’s, most blocks were largely or completely built up.
Once known as the “Sanger Silk Stocking” district because of its stately homes which housed prominent Waco families, the area began to show its age after the end of World War II. As new construction spread farther from the inner city, many longtime residents of the area opted to sell their older homes and move to more modern ones in the suburbs.
Purchasers of these vacated houses in Sanger-Heights, whether they intended them for personal occupancy or as rental property, often were not able or willing to maintain them as well as their former owners had done. During the 1960’s persons displaced by Waco’s extensive urban renewal projects in other portions of the city also found affordable housing in this section of town.
While the sturdy fabric of the neighborhood—its many elegant, unusual, and attractively varied homes—continued to endure, residents who had remained behind could only stand by and watch as that fabric became progressively more worn and shabby.
During the later 1970s and early 1980s, however, a sea of change began to occur. Younger persons—perhaps some of those who had grown up in the more modern houses preferred by their parents— began to recognize the possibilities offered by the older homes which an earlier generation had left behind. These well-built but somewhat dilapidated residences could repay investments in their improvement through dividends of larger rooms, higher ceilings, and crafted appointments.
Gradually, residents began to notice that isolated houses in the area were being repainted, remodeled, and generally upgraded by new owners. Before long, it was possible to see that what once had been might once again be: a gracious, comfortable, and conveniently situated residential area, just over a crow’s-flight mile from the heart of downtown.
Major improvements of this kind were sporadic, however, and the magnitude of the work yet to be done was discouraging: too few houses had been improved, and too many had not. In addition, some of the factors that affected the quality of life in the neighborhood were too great for individuals to tackle alone. Among these were street repairs, general enforcement of code requirements on run-down buildings, an increasing frequency of disastrous fires caused by illicit occupation of vacant buildings by vagrants, and assorted problems of security. Those were issues that could most effectively be addressed by a body of residents, speaking en bloc to the city about their needs.
The first impetus toward a formal association came from the City of Waco itself. The city’s Comprehensive Plan, revised in 1982, had recommended that efforts be made to upgrade certain inner-city residential and commercial neighborhoods. It specifically cited the region of Twenty-fifth Street, north of Waco Drive, as one which might respond well to such attention.
Acting up that recommendation, city officials formulated a Twenty-fifth Street Revitalization Plan, and called meetings of area residents and business persons to gauge support for it. Both homeowners and merchants, asked if they were interested in pursuing a plan to improve conditions in the area, responded enthusiastically.
To initiate the program, the city sponsored a cleanup drive to remove accumulated litter from yards, streets, and alleys, and sent inspectors to insure that houses and outbuildings were in compliance with code standards. Further developments, the city fathers said, must spring from within the neighborhood itself.
One of the individuals who most clearly recognized the implications of the city’s action was Virginia Evans. Though not herself a resident of the Twenty-fifth Street area, Mrs. Evans had closely monitored her daughter’s involvement in the Highland Restoration Association of Shreveport, Loouisiana. There, she had seen how the united efforts of a neighborhood could spark its return from incipient dereliction to a promise of its former prosperity.
Borrowing some slides and some ideas from her daughter, Mrs. Evans addressed a meeting of persons interested in undertaking a similar experiment in near-North Waco. Afterward, members of her audience had an opportunity to sign sheets of paper to express their intention to form an organization and to indicate the projects on which they would like to work. Almost everyone present did so.
Still, the matter languished for several weeks. At last, City Councilwoman Dr. LaNelle McNamara, who had chaired Mrs. Evan’s meeting and in whose district Sanger-Heights lies, decided to assist its progress. From the lists of signatures, she gathered a handful of people in the living room of her home. She told them that if they really wanted to form a neighborhood association, there would never be a more likely moment to begin. It was time, she said, to fish or cut bait. She presented her guests with the forms of a model constitution and statement of bylaws, and then she left the room.
When she returned an hour or so later, the Sanger-Heights Neighborhood Association had been born. It had been christened after two prominent landmarks, the Sanger Avenue and Provident Heights elementary schools. Further, the model documents had been adapted to the organization’s purposes, a slate of officers had been nominated, and a statement of goals had been drawn up. Presented to a called meeting of neighborhood residents on 14 June 1984, all of these were adopted, and about thirty households joined on the spot. By the end of the associations’s first year, that number would grow to more than 150.
The newborn organization proved to be a precocious infant. Spurred by the associations’d dedicated and energetic president, Dr. Maurice Hitchcock, officers and members banded together to come to grips with some of their most troublesome problems. Committees on arson prevention, absentee landlord awareness, municipal relations, street improvements, and historical research were formed and set to work. A neighborhood-wide Neighborhood Watch program, encompassing the entire 117 blocks, is now in the process of implementation, and a group made up of business persons has been formed to explore means of revitalizing the area’s commercial potential.
Meanwhile, as neighbor worked with neighbor, Sanger-Heights began to take on some of the characteristics of a real community. Residents quickly came to know each other, and developments in one portion of the neighborhood could be seen to have direct impact upon households located several blocks away.
As confidence in the area’s future began to return, investments in sprucing-up became apparent even to the most casual passers-by. Before long, residents of other parts of town had also heard about Sanger-Heights, and what was taking place there.
Two projects in particular attracted attention. The first was a renewed campaign to clear the entire area of rubbish and litter. During the last half of March 1985, members repeatedly filled enormous dumpsters, provided by the city, with truckloads of clutter which they had gathered from the neighborhood’s curbs, vacant lots, and alleys. This two-week project garnered newspaper and television coverage, and earned awards from the Greater Waco Beautification Association and the Clean Community System.
The neighborhood’s second major success was the winning of a $55,000 Community Block Grant from the city council, to be used for improvements to Seley Park at Eighteenth Street and Bosque Boulevard. Work on the park—which is currently a rather drab and cheerless place—has been scheduled for this summer and will provide a walking/jogging track, exercise stations, a basketball court, an enclosed playground for small children, barbeque pits, landscaping, and benches for just sitting and talking.
In a matching effort, the Sanger-Heights Neighborhood Association has pledged to raise funds for a large gazebo or pavilion in the park, which will be used for community events. An association-sponsored yard sale in May earned that project’s first revenue, and the Waco community at large is hereby placed on notice: later this year, an appeal for tax-deductible cash contributions toward the gazebo’s construction will be directed toward former residents of the neighborhood who remember it fondly and want to assist in its renascence.
Despite all these improvements, no one seriously supposes that Sanger-Heights will ever again sport silk stockings. But for those who follow its progress, there is pleasure in the knowledge that the neighborhood has at least (at last!) begun the process of pulling up its socks.