Alief ( ) is a working-class suburbAlief, Texas, gears up for biggest year for multifamily completions on record in Southwest Harris County, Texas, United States. Most of Alief is within the city limits of Houston, while a portion of the community is in unincorporated Harris County.
First settled in 1894 as a rural farm community, Alief experienced rapid population growth in the 1970s and 1980s. The community became one of the most ethnically diverse areas in Houston.
History
Early settlement (1861–1917) In 1861, Reynolds Reynolds claimed of land"." Texas Historical Commission. 1990. Retrieved June 24, 2011.Hazlewood, Claudia. "." Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved June 25, 2011. near Brays Bayou. The land was sold to Jacamiah Seaman Daugherty in 1888 and in the following year, he allowed the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway to build on his land. Daugherty sold his land in 1893 to Francis Meston who planned to engineer a community. Daugherty stayed to oversee land sales in Meston's Houston office. In 1894, the community was surveyed and recognized by Harris County. Surveyors named the town Dairy, Texas. The first two town settlers, Dr. John S. Magee and his wife, Alief Ozelda Magee, moved from Ellis County to Dairy the same year.
Alief Ozelda Magee, acting as the town's first postmistress, applied to open the first post office in 1895."." KTRK-TV. October 22, 2006. Retrieved June 24, 2011. On August 16, 1895, the post office opened."." (enter "774" - first 3 numbers of Alief, TX zip code) United States Postal Service. Retrieved on September 23, 2011. The postal service referred to the office as "Alief" in her honor to help avoid confusion with mail intended for the similarly named town of Daisy, Texas. The site of the post office, which was operated from her home, was honored with a Texas State Historical Marker in 1990. The marker (number 10644) is located on the south side of 7th Street between F Street and G Street.
Meston deeded property to Dr. John S. Magee, Newton Gentry, and Hardy Price for use as a cemetery in 1900."." Texas Historical Commission. 1984. Retrieved June 24, 2011. Alief Ozelda Magee, who died in 1899, is buried in the cemetery. The cemetery is located at what is now the intersection of Bellaire Blvd. and Dairy Ashford. The Texas Historical Commission recognized Alief Cemetery with a historical marker (number 10589) in 1984.
The Flood of 1899 and the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 destroyed the Methodist Episcopal Church along with the town's cotton and corn crops, forcing 24 of the 30 families that resided in Alief to relocate. The town reverted to prairie and wolves openly roamed during daytime. Daugherty found a positive side to the flooding; he persuaded the remaining six families that rice was better suited to grow in Alief's flood plains than previous crops and spent his own money to help cultivate the first rice crops. Daugherty succeeded: his rice became an instant cash crop that persuaded many to return to Alief. In 1901, Alief's first immigrant families, a small group of Germans arrived. In 1904, the majority of those who had left in the wake of the 1900 hurricane returned. The rapid growth period created a commercial district along the railroad tracks, convincing the San Antonio & Aransas Pass Railway to construct a depot.
Due to its propensity for flooding, the citizens established the Harris County Flood Control District in Alief in 1909. The chairman of the Harris County Drainage District was Daugherty.Kleiner, Diana J. "." Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved June 26, 2011. Trustees S.B. (Shorter) Burleson and Will and Eddie Garmond for the Prairie Grove Missionary Baptist Church purchased land in 1910 which would later become the church's home."." Texas Historical Commission. 2006. Retrieved June 26, 2011. The historic African American church's congregation met in the home of S.B. (Shorter) Burleson before the construction of the sanctuary. Credit for the church's name is primarily attributed to Mamie Burleson. In 1911, the Dairy School District was established and a three-story school was built.Community-School Relations Department (of Alief Independent School District). "." Alief Independent School District. Created on November 11, 2008, and updated on October 6, 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2011.
The town was officially renamed "Alief, Texas" in 1917 and the Dairy School District became the Alief Independent School District (Alief ISD).
Development (1918–1969)
Automobiles arrived in Alief by 1920. The sanctuary for Prairie Grove Missionary Baptist Church was constructed between 1921 and 1922. The Cane Belt Canal, which "ran from the Brazos River, eight miles north of Richmond, through Alief and south to Alvin," according to the Westchase District, was completed in 1934."". Westchase District. 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2011 Daugherty promoted the canal, which was used for irrigation by rice farmers. The year after the canal was completed, Alief obtained electricity. Education in Alief was segregated. From 1927 to 1937, African American children used Prairie Grove Missionary Baptist Church's sanctuary as a schoolhouse. Previously, African American children attended school in a one-room schoolhouse. Alief ISD's three-story schoolhouse was condemned in 1939, and its students attended classes in a nearby building until a new school annex was added in 1940. Also in 1940, one of their 11 children, Melissa Outley, died at 19. She is the first to be buried at the Prairie Grove cemetery, which was adjacent to Prairie Grove Missionary Baptist Church. Parthenia Outley was married to David Outley, both of whom were born in 1886. Parthenia died in 1967, and David died in 1981.He was the first African American educator in Alief as he created the one room schoolhouse aforementioned.David E. Outley has a school named in his honor in Alief located at 12355 Richmond Ave., Houston, TX 77082.Martin, Betty L. "". Houston Chronicle. March 19, 2008. Retrieved July 1, 2011."History of the School." Outley Elementary School. Alief Independent School District, n.d. Web. 19 Jan 2012. <>. The church's sanctuary was demolished in the 1940s as attendance fell. Alief Community Church first opened its doors in 1941.Staff. "". Houston Chronicle. October 5, 1991. Retrieved July 6, 2011. Population fluctuated wildly, ranging from a low of 35 in the 1930s to 200 by 1942. Alief acquired telephone service in 1943."." Alief Super Neighbourhood Council. Retrieved on July 1, 2011. E.W.K. "Andy" Andrau opened Andrau Airpark in 1946.Cook, Lynn J. "" Houston Business Journal. Sunday December 27, 1998. Retrieved on June 29, 2011. In 1964, Alief ISD built its oldest remaining school, Alief Elementary School (later renamed for teacher Cynthia Youens). By the same year, oilman Robert E. "Bob" Smith owned 11,000 acres of land including what is now the Westchase area.
Growth, diversification, and annexation (1970–1989)
In 1970, Alief was still primarily pastureland and major thoroughfares, such as the Sam Houston Tollway, were still gravel roads. The 1970s were a prosperous time for Houston,Cobb, Kim. "". Houston Chronicle. July 17, 1988. Retrieved July 3, 2011. and Alief continued to grow as people came to the area in search of housing. Houston began expanding westward with the development of River Oaks and Memorial, and the trend continued to Alief.Sallee, Rad. "". Houston Chronicle. August 3, 1986. Retrieved July 3, 2011. Many of the new residents were low-income apartment dwellers. The community's population increased by a factor of four between 1970 and 1985. Between 1980 and 1985, approximately a third of the population growth experienced by Harris County occurred in the southwest quadrant of the county bounded by the Katy and South (288) freeways, with Alief accounting for half of that, or one-sixth of the overall growth of the county during that five-year time frame. The Alief Independent School District struggled to find room for all of the new students.
As the population of Alief increased in the 1980s,Rodriguez, Lori. "." Houston Chronicle. Sunday March 10, 1991. Section A, Page 1. the community began to diversify. In 1978, close to 80% of the people in the community were white.Markley, Melanie and Stephanie A. Sin. "". Houston Chronicle. July 8, 1991. Retrieved July 23, 2011. Less than 4% of the people in the community were African American. The shift was primarily for socio-economic reasons. Many low-income Spanish-speaking immigrants settled in traditionally low-income areas of Houston inside Loop 610. Many African-Americans who could afford to left traditional African-American neighborhoods to move to Alief and other parts of Southwest Houston during the 1980s. White people who could afford to move to newer suburbs further from Houston than Alief began to leave the community. In addition, many people of Asian ancestry settled in Alief, Sharpstown, and Westwood, creating one of the largest Asian-American concentrations in Houston. Southwest Houston's Asian population included mainly immigrants from China, the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Korea. In addition, Southwest Houston became home to many people from Taiwan, Bangladesh, Japan, Laos, and Indonesia.Sallee, Rad. "". Houston Chronicle. October 13, 1985. Retrieved July 3, 2011. By the late 1980s, white students accounted for less than half of the students enrolled in Alief ISD.