1716 Wayne Street
Francis Butler, a postal clerk for the Atlantic Coastline Railway and a skilled carpenter, completed this residence in 1914. It was a replacement for his family's original home, which was destroyed by fire earlier that year. Erected for $5,000 with plans purchased from the Sears Roebuck Company, this property is representative of houses owned by many financially successful, middle-class African Americans that moved into parts of Arsenal Hill during the first few decades of the 20th century. Butler and his family lived in the home until the mid-1940s.
During the 1910s, the Seaboard Airline Railroad established what many Arsenal Hill residents referred to as "the Cut." A large trench that allowed trains to access Seaboard Park, this right-of-way became one of the neighborhood's most visible features that endure today.
