PROFESSIONAL TOUR GUIDE ASSOCIATION OF HOUSTON

PROFESSIONAL TOUR GUIDE ASSOCIATION OF HOUSTON

HOUSTON HISTORY

Austin’s Colony

·       On August 24, 1823, the colonists who settled under the terms of Stephen F. Austin’s first contract with the Mexican government became known as “The Old Three Hundred,” because the contract was for the introduction of 300 families.

·       In 1824, on one of the original 300 land grants, John Richardson Harris founded what became the Town of Harrisburg at the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and Brays Bayou.  Harrisburg was annexed by the City of Houston in 1926.  Harris County is named after John R. Harris.

Texas Revolution & Republic of Texas

·       On, March 2, 1836, delegates signed the Texas Declaration of Independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos, where David G. Burnet was chosen provisional president and Sam Houston, Army commander.  March 2, 1836, was also Sam Houston’s 43rd birthday.

·       On March 6, 1836, the Alamo in San Antonio fell to Mexican troops. 

·       General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna burned down the Town of Harrisburg on his way east to the Battle of San Jacinto. 

·       In early 1836, at today’s New Kentucky Park in northwest Harris County, General Sam Houston made his historic decision to head south to Harrisburg to make a stand against General Santa Anna instead of continuing his northeasterly retreat toward Louisiana.  This decision ultimately led to the Battle of San Jacinto and independence for Texas. 

·       The Battle of San Jacinto took place on the afternoon of April 21, 1836.  It lasted 18 minutes.  The Mexican troops under General Santa Anna’s command were defeated by the Texian troops under the command of General Sam Houston; however, General Santa Anna escaped capture until the following day.

City of Houston

·       On August 26, 1836, New Yorkers Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen bought 6,642 acres near the headwaters of Buffalo Bayou and at the juncture with White Oak Bayou from John Austin’s widow for about $5,000. 

·       The new Town of Houston was founded on August 30, 1836, when the Allen Brothers published an ad in the Telegraph & Texas Register announcing that lots in the new town were available for purchase.  The ad also was published in U.S. and European newspapers. 

·       The Town of Houston was named for Sam Houston, the hero of San Jacinto. 

·       The Allen Brothers founded Houston in 1836 on the south side of the confluence of White Oak and Buffalo bayous.  The site, known as Allens Landing, is near the intersection of Main and Commerce streets downtown. 

·       In 1837, ten percent of the population of Houston died from yellow fever.  A year later, on August 18, 1838, one of Houston’s founders, John Kirby Allen, died of yellow fever at the age of 28.  He is buried, with his parents, in Founders Memorial Cemetery on West Dallas near Freedmen’s Town. 

·       Brothers Thomas and Gail Borden, the founder of Borden’s Milk, created the first map of Houston for the Allen Brothers. 

·       On November 30, 1836, the first Texas Congress chose Houston as the official provisional capital of the Republic of Texas. 

·       The Capitol of the Republic of Texas was located at the corner of Main Street and Texas Avenue.  It was two stories, with a gallery on the second level, painted peach-blossom and designed to resemble George Washington’s home, Mt. Vernon.  In 1881, the building and land were sold by Mrs. Augustus (Charlotte Marie Baldwin) Allen to Colonel Abraham Groesbeck, who tore down what had become known as the Capitol Hotel and built a new, five-story Victorian Renaissance building, which was also called the Capitol Hotel. 

·       In 1886, shortly after Colonel Groesbeck became bankrupt and died, William Marsh Rice purchased the Capitol Hotel and renamed it the Rice Hotel.  After Rice’s murder in 1900, the Rice Hotel was managed by the Trustees of the Rice Institute. 

·       On May 13, 1913, the current 18-story building, also known as the Rice Hotel, was opened to the public by its developer, Jesse Jones. 

·       Purchased by the City of Houston and resold to private developers in 1996, the Rice Hotel is now the Post Rice Lofts, a 312-room apartment building.  The old hotel’s lobby and Crystal Ballroom have been recreated to look as they did when the Rice opened on May 13, 1913.

Port of Houston

·       On January 22, 1837, the 85-foot steamboat Laura, the first to visit Houston, could not find the city.  It went three miles beyond the stakes marking Houston at the foot of what is now Main Street, and had to back up.  It took three days for the Laura to make the trip from Harrisburg to Houston because of the frequent stops needed to cut down overhanging branches or blow up logjams. 

·       On June 10, 1841, a city council ordinance established the Port of Houston, giving it control over all wharves, landings, slips, and roads on the banks of Buffalo and White Oak bayous, as well as the right to collect wharfage fees and invest the funds in Bayou improvements.

·       The word “bayou” derives from the native Choctaw word “bayuk,” which means “creek.”  A bayou is a small, slow-moving stream of water. 

·       In 1914, the Port moved six miles east of downtown when the Houston Ship Channel opened to deep-water navigation. 

·       The Houston Ship Channel is 50 miles long. 

·       Today, the Port of Houston is a 25-mile-long complex of diversified public and private facilities located at the top of Galveston Bay.  For current statistics about the Port, log onto www.portofhouston.com.

State of Texas

·       On December 3, 1844, U.S. President John Tyler, in his annual message to the U.S. Congress, suggested that Congress annex Texas by a joint resolution instead of trying to adopt a treaty.  A Joint Resolution required only a simple majority vote; a treaty required a two-thirds majority.  On January 25, 1845, by a vote of 120 to 98, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to annex the Republic of Texas in a Joint Resolution.  On February 27, 1845, the U.S. Senate passed the Joint Resolution on the annexation of the Republic of Texas by a vote of 27 to 25.  The resolution was amended to provide for negotiating a new treaty, which could be presented as a Joint Resolution.  The House passed the amended Resolution on February 28.  On March 1, 1845, Texas was annexed to the United States as President Tyler signed the Joint Resolution, the first use of this procedure to acquire a territory or accept a treaty.  Texas kept control over its public lands but had to pay its own debts. 

·       On December 29, 1845, Texas became the 28^th state of the United States.  Sam Houston and Thomas J. Rusk were the first two U.S. Senators from Texas. 

·       In 1859, Sam Houston was elected governor of the State of Texas, even though he ran on a platform opposing secession. 

·       Texas A & M University is the State of Texas’s oldest public institution of higher learning.  It was established on November 1, 1866.   In its formative years, it taught classical studies, languages, literature, and applied math, not agriculture. 

·       Texas has four kinds of poisonous snakes: rattlesnake, copperhead, cottonmouth, and coral snake.

The Civil War

·       On March 2, 1861, exactly 25 years after independence had been declared at Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas seceded from the United States.  It became one of the eleven states in the new Confederate States of America.  More than 60,000 Texas men served in the military.  One-quarter of these men either died or were wounded during the Civil War. 

·       Following Texas’ secession in 1861, Sam Houston resigned from the governorship.  He died at his home in Huntsville on August 11, 1863, following a long illness. 

·       Houston was never invaded by Union forces.  On September 8, 1863, at the Battle of Sabine Pass, six-foot-tall Confederate Lt. Richard “Dick” Dowling (1838-1867), with two small gunboats and a garrison for 47 men, disabled and captured two enemy craft and took 350 Union prisoners, turning back the Yankee invasion.  The only Confederate medals struck were awarded to Dowling and his men. 

·       Dowling had previously owned a saloon called the Bank of Bacchus in the Long Row (today, the west side of the 300 block of Main Street in downtown Houston).  He died of yellow fever on September 23, 1867, at the age of 29, and is buried in St. Vincent’s Cemetery at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church on Navigation in the Second Ward.  His statue was originally placed in Market Square, but now stands in Hermann Park. 

·       St. Vincent’s is Houston’s oldest Catholic cemetery.  It dates back to 1852. 

·       Houstonian Benjamin Terry formed a unit known as Terry’s Texas Rangers/8^th Texas Cavalry.  He is buried in Glenwood Cemetery, located at 2525 Washington Avenue near downtown.

·       On June 19, 1865, General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston and proclaimed the authority of the United States over all Texas.  He also announced that slaves had been free since 1863.  Today, African-Americans in Texas -- and in other states -- celebrate “Juneteenth” as their Emancipation Day.  Emancipation Park, located at the intersection of Dowling and Elgin in Houston’s Third Ward, opened in 1872, after three freed slaves, John Henry (Jack) Yates, Elias Dibble, and Richard Allen, raised $800 to acquire the land.  It was the site of the city’s first Juneteenth celebration and was donated to the City of Houston in 1916.  When Houston segregated its parks in 1922, Emancipation Park was the only facility open to African-Americans.  A new organization, the Friends of Emancipation Park, was recently formed to raise funds to restore and improve the park. 

·       On March 30, 1870, Texas was readmitted to the United States.

Downtown Houston

·       In 1847, Nathaniel Kelly Kellum built a house on the banks of Buffalo Bayou with bricks made from bayou clay.  Now known as the Kellum-Noble House, it is the oldest residence in Houston still located on its original site.  That location is now part of Houston’s oldest city park -- Sam Houston Park, founded in 1899.  Restoration of the Kellum-Noble House spearheaded the foundation of the Heritage Society in 1954.  Today, the Heritage Society maintains eight house museums, an 1891 church, and the Texas History Museum in Sam Houston Park.  The Heritage Society has created a cell-phone tour of its structures. 

·       In 1884, the three-story Cotton Exchange Building, designed by Eugene Heiner, was erected on corner of Travis and Franklin.  Houston was a major center of the cotton trade.  A fourth story was added in 1907.  Today, the Old Cotton Exchange Building is on the National Register of Historic Places. 

·       The city’s first public electric elevator was built in the Kiam Building, 312 Main Street, in 1893.  The elevator was removed when the building was renovated in the late 1990s.  Today, it is the site of the Mia Bella Italian restaurant. 

·       The 32-story, 1927 Niels Esperson Building, designed by Chicago architect John Eberson, sports several Texas steer skulls over its Travis Street entrance.  Actually, the skulls are styled after bucrania, the Roman version of Texas steer skulls. 

·       Tranquillity Park is named after the Mare Tranquillitatus on the Moon.  The first word ever spoken from the Moon was “Houston,” when, on July 20, 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong said, “Houston, Tranquillity Base here.  The Eagle has landed.” 

·       American-born artist Claes Oldenburg’s 18-foot-tall, red, abstract steel sculpture Geometric Mouse, Scale X (1968) was the first piece of public art installed in downtown Houston.  It sits on the corner of Smith and McKinney streets in front of the 1927 Julia Ideson Building.  An anonymous donor gave the $85,000 sculpture to the city in 1975.  Not everybody liked it at first; City Councilman Frank Mann called it “The Rat.”  Today, children call it “Mickey.” 

·       At 75 stories, I. M. Pei’s JPMorgan Chase Tower is the tallest building in Houston and the tallest building in Texas.  There is a public sky lobby on the 60^th floor and a large, colorful Joan Miro sculpture, Personage with Birds, on the Capitol Street plaza.  The building was developed by Gerald Hines. 

·       Texas Avenue features sixty distinctive light poles stretching eastward from Bagby Street in the Theater District to Minute Maid Park.  Each pole contains colorful porcelain historical markers charting the City of Houston’s growth since 1836.  Researched by Betty Chapman, the porcelain markers on each pole are separated by a Lone Star.  A Texas banner flies from the top of the double lamps supplied by Reliant Energy.  The poles are part of a privately funded cooperative effort of the Houston Downtown Management District, Scenic Houston, and Trees for Houston. 

·       The City of Houston’s first four City Halls were located on what is now known as Market Square Park in the Downtown Historic District.  The Allen Brothers originally designated Market Square as the “Congress Reserve.” 

·       In 1939, the fifth (and current) City Hall, designed by architect Joseph Finger, opened at 901 Bagby Street.  On the National Register of Historic Places, City Hall is home to the Mayor’s Office, the City Controller’s Office, City Council Chambers, and the Greater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau (GHCVB). 

·       The GHCVB’s Visitor Center, which is open to the public Monday-Saturday from 9 a.m.-4 p.m., is located just off the rotunda on the first floor of City Hall. 

·       On the Smith Street side of City Hall is Hermann Square Park, donated by Houstonian George Hermann (1843-1914) in honor of his mother, Fannie Hermann. 

·       City Council members have their offices in the City Hall Annex, located across Bagby Street from City Hall. 

·       The official seal of the City of Houston contains a locomotive and a plow. 

·       Houston’s official flower is the blooming Magnolia.

General Information

·       The City of Houston is located 50 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico and is in the Central Time Zone.  It covers 634 square miles.  The ten-county MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area) is 10,062 square miles. 

·       The city’s more than 8,000 restaurants feature a wide variety of ethnic cuisines, and Houstonians are estimated to eat out an average of 4.6 times each week. 

·       The City of Houston’s sales tax rate is 8.25 percent.  The hotel/motel tax rate is 17 percent.

Cemeteries

·       Located along the Houston Ship Channel in the East End, Glendale Cemetery was originally part of the Town of Harrisburg, which was founded in 1824, twelve years before the Town of Houston.  When Harrisburg was annexed by the City of Houston, Glendale Cemetery became Houston’s oldest cemetery. 

·       Sam Houston Park in downtown Houston was once the site of the City’s first zoo, two cemeteries (Episcopal and Masonic), and Houston’s first hospital. 

·       Anson Jones, the last President of the Republic of Texas, is buried at Glenwood Cemetery.  Mrs. Howard Lee, known professionally as the actress Gene Tierney, is buried at Glenwood Cemetery.  Her brother-in-law was Glenn McCarthy, developer of the Shamrock Hotel.  He is buried in the same plot.  Glenwood Cemetery opened in 1871.

·       Founded in 1844, Beth Israel Cemetery (originally Hebrew Cemetery) is the oldest Jewish cemetery and the oldest Jewish institution in the State of Texas.  It is located at 1207 West Dallas Avenue, near Founders Memorial Cemetery.  Congregation Beth Israel, founded ten years later, is the oldest Jewish congregation in Texas. 

·       College Memorial Park Cemetery, located on West Dallas Avenue near South Shepherd, is named in honor of the Houston College for Negroes, which was located across West Dallas Avenue.

San Jacinto Battlefield

·       The battleship USS Texas, moored near the San Jacinto Monument at the San Jacinto Battlefield east of downtown, served in World War I, peacetime, and World War II.

Parks

·       Camp Logan, once a U.S. Army training facility, is now known as Memorial Park.  Five Houston police officers were killed during what became known as the Camp Logan riot in 1917. 

·       The Houston Arboretum is located within Memorial Park, just inside West Loop 610 at Woodway Drive. 

·       The Mercer Arboretum is located north and east of Bush Intercontinental Airport just west of Humble at the intersection of Cypress Creek and Aldine Westfield roads. 

·       Armand Bayou Nature Center, located near Clear Lake City, boasts the largest urban wildlife and wilderness preserve in the United States.

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Last modified: 01/27/10