After Texas was readmitted to the Union on April 16, 1870, Houston continued its growth. Houston was designated as an official port of entry on July 16, 1870. Its new charter drew up eight wards. Many freedmen opened businesses and worked for wages under contracts. The Freedmen's Bureau stopped abuse of the contracts in 1870. Many African Americans at the time were in unskilled labor. Many former slaves legalized their marriages after the American Civil War. White legislators insisted on segregated schools. White Democrats regained power in the state legislature in the late 1870s, often after violence and intimidation to suppress African-American voting. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Texas passed a new constitution and laws that effectively disenfranchised most African Americans by making voter registration and voting more complicated and subject to white administration. The Democratic-dominated legislature passed Jim Crow laws to establish and enforce legal segregation across the state. Houston was the site of the first Texas State Fair in 1870. The Mechanical and Blood Stock Association of Texas convened the first and second state fairs on a temporary site north of Buffalo Bayou. The organization later purchased a more lasting fairground area within the Obedience Smith Survey, in an area more recently known as "Midtown," south of the original Houston survey. They used this new site for the first time in 1872, where new streetcar service conveyed visitors between the fair and central Houston. The last fair State fair in Houston was held in 1878. Gilded Age Houston continued its rapid population growth which started in the 1860s. Houston, like many other cities, attracted many Americans seeking job opportunities. In 1870, Houston counted 9,382 residents and grew by rates of 77 percent, 67 percent, and 62 percent in the following three decades. The percentage of foreign-born Houstonians declined from 17 percent in 1870 to 11 percent in 1890, but the percentage of African-American residents held steady. Houston City Streetway Company (HCSC) began operating construction and operation of animal-powered streetcar lines in 1874. The first streetcar service began in 1868, but these early attempts to establish service in Houston were commercial failures. HCSC developed service in the business district, then centered on Congress Avenue and Main Street, though one the first four lines extended as fair south as the Fairgrounds. Another line offered service on Congress to the International & Great Northern Railroad depot. Suburban subdivisions