My Life in Houston

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Houston, the largest city in Texas and the seat of Harris county. Houston is situated on Buffalo Bayou about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of the Gulf of Mexico at Galveston, Tex. The two cities are connected by the Houston Ship Channel and the freeway that passes the Manned Spacecraft Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at Clear Lake, 22 miles (35 km) southeast of Houston. The city is the fourth largest in the United States and one of the fastest growing in the nation. Its 2000 census population was 1,953,631; that of the metropolitan area, 4,669,571. The port of Houston is the largest in the United States in international tonnage and second largest in total tonnage, after New Orleans. Houston was founded in 1836 and named after Gen. Sam Houston, hero of the Texas war for independence from Mexico (1835–1836). With the discovery of oil in the vicinity early in the 20th century, the city began to grow rapidly. The terrain surrounding Houston includes many small streams and bayous. The climate is subtropical, with winds prevailing from the south and southeast most of the year. The mean annual temperature is about 70° F (20° C); the mean annual rainfall, about 46 inches (1,150 mm). The average annual relative humidity is around 75%. Destructive windstorms are not frequent, although thundersqualls and tropical storms cross the area occasionally. Houston is a relatively young city with young families, the average age approximating 31 years. The population is about 49% white, 25% black, and 5% Asian. Roughly 37% of the population, regardless of race, are of Latino heritage. Within the city are many residential areas, shopping centers, parks, and recreational facilities. Striking contrasts, near the downtown area primarily, are provided between structures that have stood since the turn of the 20th century and modern commercial buildings that are replacing them step by step. Urban Patterns. Houston is the largest American city without zoning ordinances, which voters rejected in 1948, 1962, and 1993 in favor of existing deed restrictions. These restrictions vary from section to section. The absence of zoning makes the city's direction of growth somewhat unpredictable. According to Marvin Hurley, former president of the Houston Chamber of Commerce: "Houston has benefited from excellent planning. . . . Houston can get along very well without zoning if it maintains high standards of area planning and enlists a high level of area cooperation." There are more than a dozen incorporated cities in the 556-square-mile (1,440-sq-km) Houston area. High-rise apartment buildings are being constructed in increasing numbers. The city's cost of living is below the national average. Its cost of housing is considerably below the average. The Economy. The Houston area offers an abundance of such natural resources as oil, gas, sulfur, timber, and salt and has the nation's largest concentration of petroleum, gas, chemical, and metals industries. It has also been called the fastest-growing wholesale-distribution center and the most diversified center of manufacturing in the South and Southwest. Industry. Houston is a great industrial, commercial, and financial hub. It is also one of the world's major oil centers. The diversification of industry has contributed greatly to Houston's economic strength. Much of the city's growth has occurred in the chemical and refinery groups, but growth has also been reflected in classifications that include steel, pipe rolling, industrial gases, oil and gas field equipment, synthetic rubber, sulfur mining, bottling and canning, and cement. Although the greatest diversification has been in manufacturing, progress has been made in recent years in the fields of finance, insurance, world trade, headquarters operations, conventions and tourism, education, medical services, distribution, and sports and cultural activities. Petroleum refining in Houston and the southeast Texas Gulf Coast area amounts to an operating capacity of more than 2.3 million barrels of crude oil per day. This is nearly 80% of the Texas total and more than 20% of the national operating capacity. Twelve major oil firms have their general or marketing headquarters in Houston. Thirty oil refineries in the Houston Gulf Coast area constitute more than 30% of the nation's refinery capacity, making the complex the biggest in the world. Most of these are part of the industrial complex that line the Houston Ship Channel and that is popularly referred to as "The Golden Strip." The strip also includes chemical plants, shipyards, grain elevators, paper plants, and cement factories, among many other industries. A major part of the nation's petrochemical manufacturing plants are near Houston, and more than 290 organic and 80 inorganic products are manufactured, including about half of the nation's synthetic rubber. Two-thirds of the nation's ethylene is also produced at Houston. More than 100 chemical plants, refineries, salt domes, and gasoline processing plants are linked by a continuously expanding network of more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of product pipelines—popularly called "The Spaghetti Bowl"—which provide for the convenient and cheap transfer of feedstocks, fuel, and chemical products. Trade and Banking. Houston leads the South in retail sales volume and the Southwest as an industrial marketing center. The city recorded retail sales totaling around $21.7 billion annually in the mid-1990s. Bank deposits in Houston then exceeded $29 billion. Labor Force. The total labor force of Houston in 2000 was 931,236. Some 85,000 wage earners were employed in manufacturing, and 75,000 in construction. Professional, scientific, management, and administrative services accounted for almost 117,000. Agriculture. More than 2,400 farms and ranches occupy more than 304,000 acres (123,000 ha) of land in Harris county. According to the 2002 Census of Agriculture the county has the largest number of farms operated by women (427) in the state. The market value of production was almost $53 million in 2002, of which $35 million was in crops. The most valuable crops by far are nursery and greenhouse products. Rice, grain, and sorghum have declined in importance, as has cattle raising, in which the county once ranked second in the state. Port of Houston. Rightly dubbed "the town that built a port that built a city," Houston laid out its port in such a way as to separate the center of the business district from the industrial district by a 5-mile (8-km) buffer zone. When the ship channel was dredged, the turning basin—which is 400 yards (360 meters) wide—was placed where trucks and railroad cars would have little interference from automobile traffic. The upper reaches of the Houston Ship Channel, which links the port with the sea lanes of the world, are 300 feet (90 meters) wide and 36 feet (11 meters) deep, although most of the man-made canal is wider and deeper. In 2005 the Port of Houston Authority was scheduled to complete an expansion of the ship channel, deepening it to 45 feet (13.7 meters) and widening it to 530 feet (161.5 meters). In 2004, 6,529 ships visited the port. Almost 90 steamship firms provide services from Houston, and the port is home to a $15-billion petrochemical complex, the largest in the nation and second largest worldwide. The Harris County–Houston Ship Navigation District reported: ". . . It is the port and the ship channel which changed Houston from a moderately prosperous center of timber and cotton to one of the great trading centers of the nation and the heart of the . . . evergrowing petrochemical industry." The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway connects Houston with navigable waterways in the mid-continent area of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, as well as with the waterway in the southern gulf area. Houston's port is ranked first in the United States in foreign waterborne commerce, second in total tonnage, and sixth in tonnage in the world. Petroleum and petroleum products constitute by far the leading commodities in both export and import categories. The value of the goods moved in foreign trade in 2003 was $65.9 billion. Transportation. Houston is an international gateway to Latin America and Europe. The Houston Intercontinental Airport, 17 miles (27 km) north of the downtown district, was opened in 1969, replacing the William P. Hobby Airport, 10 miles (16 km) to the southeast. The Hobby Airport was converted to business and general aviation operations. The intercontinental airport, occupying some 8,000 acres (3,200 ha), is designed to serve jumbo and supersonic jet aircraft. As the southwest distribution center for the East, Midwest, and Pacific coast, Houston is served by major railway systems and common-carrier truck lines. It has about 300 miles (480 km) of freeways. The system consists of a highway loop around Houston, with freeways radiating from the heart of the city like the spokes of a wheel. The city's major public transit service operates a fleet of air-conditioned buses. Houston also has a network of farm-to-market roads and state highways, linking it to towns and cities throughout the Gulf Coast area. Unusually wide major streets that crisscross the downtown area also make traffic movement easier during the peak rush periods. Space Center. NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center, which was renamed the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in 1973 after the former president's death, occupies a large tract near Clear Lake, southeast of Houston. Construction was started in April 1962. The functions of the center are to select and train astronauts, manage and design their spacecraft, plan and direct their missions, and evaluate the results of space voyages. The center's mission control center exercises full control of the astronauts' mission and spacecraft from launch and recovery. The Lunar Receiving Laboratory of the space center studies and analyzes material brought back from the moon and serves as a quarantine station for moon voyagers. In 1968 the National Academy of Science, in cooperation with Rice University, began operation of the Lunar Scientific Institute under a NASA grant. The institute, adjacent to the spacecraft center, is owned by Rice. The University of Houston also has its Clear Lake Center near NASA headquarters. The spacecraft activities have contributed to the city's growth as a center of research. More than half of the space center's employees are engineers, scientists, and medical personnel. Some 1,200 space-oriented firms are situated or represented in Houston. The presence of the space center and continuing growth along the ship channel caused the development of a number of new small communities such as Clear Lake City and Nassau Bay. Within five years after the inception of the center the Clear Creek independent school district quadrupled its enrollment. Medicine and Science. Houston has become a major medical and technological center because of the Texas Medical Center within the city limits and the Manned Spacecraft Center. Organized in 1945, the medical center represents a capital investment of some $155 million. It consists of 22 institutions and is constantly growing. The center's Baylor College of Medicine is one of the largest research institutions in the nation. The center is also the home of St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital and Methodist Hospital. St. Luke's shares many facilities with Texas Children's Hospital, which specializes in pediatrics. During 1968–1969 the world's greatest number of heart transplants took place at St. Luke's and Methodist hospitals, and on April 4, 1969, a team headed by Dr. Denton A. Cooley performed the first transplant of an artificial heart at St. Luke's. Other facilities in the center include Ben Taub General Hospital, the county charity hospital, which opened there in 1963; Hermann Hospital, the first hospital in the center; Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children; Texas Institute for Rehabilitation and Research, which provides care for the severely disabled; Texas Woman's University College of Nursing; University of Texas Dental Branch, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston, and M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute; Houston Speech and Hearing Center; and the Institute of Religion, which offers graduate education in pastoral care and counseling. The center handles some 3,000 students a year and has available more than 3,300 hospital beds. In all, the city has 56 hospitals with a capacity of nearly 10,000 beds, in addition to numerous clinics and convalescent homes. Thirty-six of these hospitals are members of the Houston Area Hospital Association, offering a general patient care and emergency facilities. The largest hospital is the Veterans Administration Hospital, with more than 1,300 beds. Oceanographic Projects. In 1965 the American Society for Oceanography, devoted to developing support for oceanographic projects, was founded in Houston. It has a membership of several thousand. The Gulf Universities Research Corporation works with the University of Houston and Rice University to conduct research in the Gulf of Mexico and train graduate-level students in oceanography. More than 200 Houston firms participate in development activities in the Gulf and in expanding offshore and oceanographic markets throughout the world. The projects, besides offshore oil exploration, include the desalinization of salt water, medicine related to deep-sea activity, marine biological studies, bromine- and magnesium-mining from seawater, and the design and manufacturing of underwater instruments. Education. Seven senior colleges lie within the Houston city limits, of which two are supported by state funds. The state-supported University of Houston, with an enrollment of nearly 25,000, is the largest. It began as a community junior college in 1927 and became a 4-year institution in 1934. It operates a physical plant on a 300-acre (120-ha) campus. Rice University was founded in 1891 and conducted its first classes in 1912. Its campus also occupies 300 acres. Admission standards at Rice are among the highest in the nation. Texas Southern University was established by the state legislature in 1947. The University of St. Thomas was founded by the Basilian Fathers in 1947. The city's newest college, the Houston Baptist College, was created in 1960 by the Baptist General Convention of Texas and opened in September 1963. Dominican College, formerly the Sacred Heart Dominican College, is a 4-year liberal arts college for women. It also houses the St. Joseph's School of Nursing, conducted by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. The South Texas College of Law is an evening college. Of six junior colleges in the Houston area, only South Texas Junior College is within the city limits of Houston. It was founded by the Young Men's Christian Association in 1948 but dissociated itself from the organization some 20 years later. Houston also has four theological schools and a number of business, technical, and trade institutions. The Houston independent school district, with an enrollment of about 250,000, has more than 170 elementary schools and about 60 high schools. The district, the largest in Texas, was formally organized in 1923. Racial desegregation began on a limited basis during the 1960 fall term. The district is administered by an elected board and is independent of the city government. More than 29,000 students are enrolled in private and parochial schools—Kinkaid School and St. John's School are outstanding examples. Cultural Life. The Museum of Fine Arts, with a collection valued at more than $11 million, features a permanent display of Frederic Remington's paintings of the old West, along with artifacts of ancient Egypt. American artworks and furnishings from the 17th, 18th, and early 19th century are on view by appointment at the museum's Bayou Bend, the former home of Ima Hogg, daughter of the late Texas governor James S. Hogg. The Contemporary Arts Museum presents exclusively avant-garde art and interesting films. Archaeological, geological, and other scientific exhibits are on view at the Houston Museum of Natural Science in Hermann Park. The Burke Baker Planetarium is part of this museum. The San Jacinto Museum of History is at the base of the San Jacinto Monument at San Jacinto Battleground, 3 miles (5 km) east of Pasadena on the ship channel. Houston's Civic Center was opened in the late 1960s, although the first land for the project was bought in 1927. In the center the Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, a gift to the city from Houston Endowment, Inc., in memory of the late secretary of commerce, is the permanent home of the Houston Symphony Orchestra and the Houston Grand Opera Association. The Houston Symphony Society was founded in 1913. The symphony presents subscription concerts in Jones Hall and free summer concerts in Miller Memorial Theatre, an outdoor air-conditioned theater in Hermann Park, as well as concerts on tour. Performers of international rank are featured in productions by the grand opera association, the Houston Foundation for Ballet, which formed a company in 1969, and the Houston Society for the Performing Arts. Other facilities in the center in downtown Houston include the Albert Thomas Convention and Exhibit Center and National Space Hall of Fame, completed in 1967, and the older Sam Houston Coliseum and Music Hall. Other resident ensembles include the Houston All-City (school) Symphony, the Houston Youth Symphony, the Gilbert & Sullivan Society, the Music Guild Quartet, the Lyric Art String Quartet, the Virtuoso Quartet, and the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. Productions are offered by the University of St. Thomas Singers and the Houston Harpsichord Society, among others, and concerts are sponsored by the Tuesday Musical Club and the Houston Friends of Music. The Alley Theatre, one of the country's foremost repertory theaters, opened its 21st season in 1968 in its new $3 million home adjacent to the Civic Center. The unique facility houses two separate theaters. Other local amateur and professional drama organizations include the Houston Music Theatre, the Houston Theatre Center-Playhouse, the Country Playhouse, Theatre Suburbia, the Channing Players, the Wesley Players, the Holiday Dinner Theatre, and the Town & Country Dinner Theatre. The public library system consists of a central library downtown and about 15 branch libraries. There are also several mobile library trucks and reading centers. Communications. Houston's two daily newspapers are the Houston Post (morning and Sunday) and the Houston Chronicle (afternoon and Sunday). The News Citizen (Pasadena) and Baytown Sun (Baytown) also publish daily in the area. Network television stations are located in Houston, and the University of Houston operates the nation's oldest educational television station. Two ultra high frequency channels and AM and FM radio stations also broadcast in Houston. Religious Life. Houston is a city of more than 1,200 churches that reveal a rich blend of conventional and modern architecture. Some 2,000 pastors, priests, and rabbis serve nearly 40 denominations, and nearly every major religion is represented. Church membership continues to grow, though not in pace with the rapid growth of the population. The Union Baptist Association of Houston, affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, has the largest membership and 200 churches in the greater Houston area. The Roman Catholic diocese of Galveston-Houston includes about 125 parishes and the United Methodist Church, about 130 churches. Places of Interest. The Harris County Domed Stadium, or "Astrodome," and its adjacent Astrohall, located in Houston's southwest, and the downtown convention center helped make Houston a major convention city. The air-conditioned plastic-domed stadium was the home of the Astros baseball team of the National League from 1965 to 1999, when it was replaced by Minute Maid Park. The new Reliant Stadium, adjacent to the Astrodome, became the home of the Texans of the American Conference of the National Football League in 2002. The Rockets of the National Basketball Association and the Comets of the Women's National Basketball Assocation play in the Toyota Center. The annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo also makes its home at the stadium, with the rodeo held under the dome and the show in the Astrohall. Astroworld, a 56-acre (22-ha) family amusement park with rides and a number of other attractions, is adjacent to the Astrodome. In downtown Houston is Old Market Square, an area of old buildings that have been renovated to provide a wide assortment of nightclubs, restaurants, and shops a short walk from Allen's Landing Park on Buffalo Bayou. Local art exhibits are frequent in this area. The Houston Baseball Museum and Classic Showcase, which offers a wax museum and a collection of restored vintage cars, are based at Houston. The annual Azalea Trail offers spring tours through selected homes in the River Oaks residential area, which is noted for its splendid homes and gardens. The Harris County Heritage and Conservation Society has restored in the city's Sam Houston Park several structures dating from the days of the Republic of Texas to the Civil War. The 42-acre (17-ha) Houston Zoological Gardens in Hermann Park offers free displays of more than 21,000 mammals, birds, and reptiles. In 1966 a house for tropical birds was built with a simulated rain forest through which the public may stroll and view the rarest birds in their natural habitat. There is also a children's zoo where the youngsters may play with a variety of baby animals. Another youth attraction is the Aline McAshan Botanical Garden for Children in Memorial Park. Popular boat rides down Buffalo Bayou have their start at Allen's Landing Park. The park, at Buffalo and White Oak bayous, commemorates the port site used from Houston's founding in 1836 until the turning basin was opened nearly 80 years later. Cruises of the port of Houston may also be booked. Annual attractions also include the Champions Invitational Golf Tournament, the River Oaks Invitational Tennis Tournament, and the Pin Oak Charity Horse Show. Memorial Park is the largest of the city's 200 municipal parks and playgrounds, followed by Hermann Park. The park system covers 5,121 acres (2,050 ha), providing municipal golf courses, swimming pools, softball and baseball fields, tennis courts, and recreation centers. Golfing and tennis are year-round activities because of mild winter temperatures. Swimming, boating, and water sports are popular in the area during the spring, summer, and autumn, and deep-sea, bay, and freshwater lake fishing is good the year round. Ducks, geese, quail, deer, doves, squirrels, and turkeys are plentiful in the region and during specific autumn and winter periods there are open hunting seasons. Numerous bridle paths are available in parks and elsewhere. Government. Houston has a mayor-council government. The mayor, five district councilmen, and three councilmen-at-large, along with the city controller, are elected by a citywide vote and serve 2-year terms that run concurrently. Harris county is administered by a county judge and four county commissioners who serve 4-year terms. Each commissioner represents and is voted on by his own precinct. The Harris County–Houston Navigation District is governed by a board of navigation and canal commissioners, referred to as the Port Commission. Two of the commission's five members are picked by the Harris county commissioners court, two are selected by the mayor of Houston and the city council, and the chairman is picked jointly by the city and county. History. Four months after the defeat of Gen. Santa Anna's Mexican forces at San Jacinto on April 21, 1836, John K. and Augustus C. Allen, two brothers from New York, purchased 6,642 acres (2,700 ha) of land near the juncture of Buffalo and White Oak bayous from Elizabeth Parrott, the widow of John Austin, at a cost of $9,428. They named the new settlement after Gen. Sam Houston, the hero of San Jacinto. In November 1836 the Republic of Texas selected Houston as its temporary capital. The population of Houston was 1,500 by the end of 1836. Most of the new residents were professional people in their late 20s and early 30s. The town had a theater before it was a year old but no churches for three years. The capital was moved to Austin in 1839. The first steamship, the Laura, journeyed up Buffalo Bayou in 1837. Business continued to improve and on Jan. 28, 1840, the Houston Chamber of Commerce was incorporated. It is the oldest chamber in continuous operation west of the Mississippi River. City ordinance designated a port area in 1841 and authorized a port manager. In January 1842 the congress of the Texas Republic granted the right to make Buffalo Bayou navigable, and improvement of this channel to the Gulf has been proceeding ever since. The 1850 census put Houston's area at 9 square miles (23 sq km), and its population at 2,396. In 1847 the first railroad in the state, the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos & Colorado, was created. Cotton became the mainstay of the economy during 1850–1860. The city survived a major fire in 1859, and by 1860 trade was thriving. During its early growth the city survived two yellow fever epidemics. The first, at the end of 1839, killed a tenth of the population; the second killed 492 in the summer of 1867. In 1873 the city's first out-of-state railroad was established with the Houston & Texas Central Railroad meeting the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Line at Denton, Texas. The first passenger train from Houston to New Orleans made its run on Aug. 30, 1880, and the first through-freight arrived from San Francisco on Jan. 15, 1882. On March 3, 1899, the U. S. Congress approved a ship channel from Houston to Galveston Bay. The need for a protected inland port was demonstrated by the hurricane of September 1900, which killed 6,000 in Galveston, and by the discovery of oil in the Spindletop field, 75 miles (120 km) northeast of Houston, in 1901. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt approved a bill appropriating $1 million for the port of Houston. In 1910, Houston was 73d in size in the United States, with a population of 78,000. The city that year had an area of 15.84 square miles (25 km) and bank deposits totaling $29,178,678. By June 1914 the ship channel had been dredged to a depth of 25 feet (7 meters) from the turning basin to the Gulf of Mexico. On Nov. 10, 1914, the port was opened to international commerce as President Woodrow Wilson pushed a button in the White House, remotely firing a mortar at the port. The first oceangoing ship, the Satilla, arrived at Houston in 1915. The port ranked 11th in the nation in tonnage by 1926. In 1928 the city played host to the National Convention of the Democratic party. The intracoastal waterway tied Houston into the Mississippi River navigational system in 1934. County-wide flood control steps were taken the next year after heavy rains inundated the downtown area, producing the worst flood in the city's history. Houston's boom continued after World War II. The years 1945–1950 saw the start of a population movement to the suburbs. Efforts were made during the 1950s to broaden the base of the economy—there had been too much emphasis on mass-production plants employing relatively few workers. The freeway to Galveston was opened during 1950–1955. The San Jacinto Dam and Reservoir were finished during the mid-1950s, but efforts are still being made to keep the area's water supply in step with its growth. In 1959 the city and the Trinity River Authority signed an agreement to build dams at Livingston and Wallisville to develop the lower Trinity River as a major source of water for Houston. The city suffered from the declining oil prices of the 1980s but also benefited from the consolidation in Houston of many oil-related activities from Dallas, Louisiana, and elsewhere. Company finances were strengthened by higher oil prices in the 1990s, although employment remained weak as much of the new oil exploration was located offshore or overseas. The city suffered again in the early 2000s from the collapse of the mammoth Houston-based Enron Corporation, an energy-trading firm that underwent the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history. In 2005 Houston became a refuge for survivors of Hurricane Katrina, which had devastated New Orleans and many other sites along the Gulf Coast. The Astrodome and numerous other facilities were opened to tens of thousands of people who had been stranded in the Louisiana Superdome for days with limited power and provisions. Some companies, including banking and oil-exploration firms, relocated to Houston from New Orleans at that time. One month after Katrina, Houston itself was evacuated in anticipation of Hurricane Rita, but the city suffered relatively little damage.