A Brief History of Houston, Texas

Houston is the fourth largest city in the United States and the largest city in Texas and is also credited as a global city. It is a vibrant metropolis with a broad based economy and an enormous range of cultural activities and recreational opportunities.

Two brothers who had made their fortune in real estate in New York founded Houston in 1836 on the banks of the Buffalo Bayou; Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen purchased approximately 6,500 acres with the intention of creating their own city and named the new settlement after General Sam Houston who had fought and won the decisive battle of San Jacinto close the site.

In 1837, Houston was incorporated and the infrastructure of a city started to form with the creation of a Chamber of Commerce and election of a mayor. Shipping was the first business to be promoted however, by 1860 Houston had also become a railroad hub which transformed the city into a commercial center for the export of cotton to Europe. After the Civil War, efforts were undertaken to expand the seaborne activities and especially by works to create a deep water port in sync with the nearby port of Galveston.

Galveston was hit by a terrible hurricane in 1900 which sped the works to create a deep water port out of Houston and growth was further stimulated by the discovery of oil in 1901 at the Spindletop oil field. 1902 saw President Roosevelt approving $1 million allocation for the Houston Ship Channel and this combination of private and government backed initiatives turned Houston into a major growth center with the population doubling between 1900 and 1910 to 78,800.

Finally in 1914, President Wilson opened Port of Houston as a deepwater port and by 1930, Houston was the most heavily populated city in America.

World War 2 saw a decline in the shipping sector as the ports on the East coast dominated trans-Atlantic shipping however, enormous growth in the petrochemical sector more than made up for this. Enormous new military bases were also constructed including Ellington Field which was reconstructed in order to train bombardiers and navigators while medical facilities were also greatly expanded and research took off. The end of the ware saw a reversion to deep water port activity as the bases were wound down and moth-balled and the physical area was doubled by the addition of surrounding land and the metropolis started its sprawling growth.

Post-war saw the establishment of the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center (now known as the Lyndon B Johnson Space Center) and with this the aerospace industry came to town. The city is also home to the Astrodome which was the world's first indoor domed sporting arena. In the seventies, population again boomed as the oil industry boomed but by the 1980's the boom abruptly ended with the aerospace industry also suffered as a consequence of the Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986.

Today, Houston has fully recovered and now has one of the broadest economies of any city in the United States. Only New York is home to more Fortune 500 companies while the city is now the largest international port of the United States. The wealth created has led to Houston also becoming home to a wide range of cultural institutions which now has over 7 million visitors each year while Houston is one of a very few cities offering year round resident companies for all the major performing arts.