Montrose Wall to Depict Six Women Who Built Houston, From Founder to Fajitas

A towering new mural rising on the wall of a Montrose thrift shop is about to give Houstonians a crash course in the women who quietly built their city. The 61-by-20-foot artwork, titled Faces of Change: Her Story Is Houston's Story, is being painted onto The Women's Home's Cottage Shop on Westheimer Road, and a public unveiling is scheduled for October 3.

The mural celebrates six women selected by Houstonians themselves for their influence on the city, as reported by the Houston Chronicle. It's being painted by Houston artist Anat Ronen, whose body of work spans murals, street painting and canvas pieces that have appeared in public spaces, museums and exhibitions in Houston and beyond. The Women's Home, which provides treatment, support services and housing for women and families, commissioned Ronen for the project, and the artwork will stand as a permanent tribute to the six honorees once finished.

A Nomination Campaign That Put Houstonians in Charge

The project didn't start with a curator's list handed down from on high. The Women's Home launched a public nomination campaign in February 2026 inviting Houstonians to submit names of local female leaders across civic, cultural and philanthropic fields, according to reporting on the mural's host site. Nominations closed the following month, before organizers curated the final six honorees.

Holding the mural on the Cottage Shop's wall isn't incidental. The shop opened on Westheimer Road in 1971 as both a resale boutique and a vocational job-training site for women recovering from addiction and homelessness, an extension of The Women's Home itself, which was founded in 1957 as a residential treatment facility. The nonprofit continues to operate residential treatment and permanent supportive housing programs across Houston, connecting a mural about historic female influence to an organization still serving women in recovery today.

The Mother of Houston and the Woman Who Saved the Bayou

Leading the group is Charlotte Baldwin Allen, widely considered the mother of Houston. Allen, who was married to city co-founder Augustus Chapman Allen, used her inheritance to help finance the early land speculation along Buffalo Bayou that led to Houston's founding. Beyond that initial investment, she donated the land for the city's original City Hall at Market Square Park and personally bankrolled construction of the Republic of Texas's first Capitol building, according to the Harris County Historical Commission. Houston ISD named an elementary school after her in 1907, making it the city's first public school named for a woman, per Click2Houston. Allen died in 1895 at age 93 and is buried at Glenwood Cemetery in Houston.

Conservationist Terry Hershey earns her place for rallying Houstonians to protect Buffalo Bayou's natural character. She launched her advocacy in 1966 after discovering bulldozers clearing trees along the waterway, then partnered with then-U.S. Representative George H.W. Bush to help stop a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan to channelize and pave the bayou, according to the Houston Chronicle's obituary coverage. Terry Hershey Park is named in her honor. Hershey died in 2017 at age 94.

Art, Human Rights and a Family of Firsts in Public Service

Dominique de Menil, who with her husband John de Menil founded the Menil Collection and established the Menil Foundation, helped build Houston's international reputation in the arts and human rights. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1986 and co-founded the Carter-Menil Human Rights Foundation with former President Jimmy Carter that same year, an effort that presented an international human rights award to Nelson Mandela in Houston in 1991, according to Architect Magazine. The Menil Collection museum opened in Houston in 1987. De Menil died in 1997 at age 89.

Philanthropist and civic leader Ima Hogg, daughter of former Texas Governor Jim Hogg, helped establish the Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, the Houston Child Guidance Center, and helped restore the Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historical Site near West Columbia. During her tenure on the Houston ISD school board from 1943 to 1949, she successfully advocated for equal pay for teachers regardless of race or gender and established art and music education programs for Black public school students, per the Texas State Historical Association. Hogg died in 1975 at age 93.

Political Trailblazer and the Woman Behind Houston's Fajitas

Barbara Jordan became the first Black woman elected to the Texas Senate and, in 1972, the first Black woman elected to Congress from the South. While serving as President pro tempore of the Texas Senate, Jordan served as acting Governor of Texas on June 10, 1972, making her the first African American woman in U.S. history to hold that role, according to the U.S. National Park Service. At the 1976 Democratic National Convention, she delivered the opening keynote address, becoming the first African American and first woman to hold that role at a major U.S. political party's national convention. Jordan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and died in 1996 at age 59. Her legacy is already marked in bronze at POST Houston.

Rounding out the six is Ninfa Rodríguez Laurenzo, known to generations of Houstonians as Mama Ninfa, a prominent Latina entrepreneur who changed the city's culinary landscape. She opened a small, 10-table restaurant on Navigation Boulevard in 1973, mortgaging her home and borrowing from a friend in Mexico to get it off the ground, according to the Texas State Historical Association. She sold 250 tacos al carbón on opening day and went on to help popularize fajitas in Houston and beyond. Laurenzo died in 2001 at age 77, and her original restaurant's legacy is honored elsewhere with its own World Cup mural on Navigation.

Together, the six honorees trace a throughline from Houston's founding through its environmental, artistic, political and culinary evolution, all converging on one wall in Montrose. The public unveiling is set for October 3 at 811 Westheimer Road, giving Houstonians their first full look at the finished tribute.