Vanished Houston Landmarks

By Mark Lardas

Although it is sometimes called a town without a history, Houston actually possesses the kind of sprawling past that includes a frontier port, a moon landing and a supermarket that contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union. In fact, there is so much history that much has been forgotten. Visit the landmarks of that neglected heritage, from the Cotton Exchange to Astroworld. Dropping in on legendary spots like Shamrock and Gilley's Club, Mark Lardas tells the stories of a Houston that has largely disappeared from the public eye.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Feb 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781439669136

Mark Lardas

Mark Lardas has always been fascinated by things related to the sea and sky. From building models of ships and aircraft as a teen, he then studied Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, but his interest in aviation led him to take a job on the then-new Space Shuttle program, where he worked for the next 30 years as a navigation engineer. Currently he develops commercial aircraft systems as a quality assurance manager. He has written numerous books on military, naval or maritime history.

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INTRODUCTION

Houston is often accused of being a city without a history—or at least a city that has forgotten its history. The first accusation is nonsense; Houston has a history—over 180 years of history. While much of Houston’s history is local, some of it has literally changed the world. As to the accusation that Houston has forgotten its history, that has more foundation. Houstonians have traditionally been unsentimental about their historic landmarks; if something has outlived its usefulness, Houstonians typically yank it out and replace it with something more remunerative. It is a Houston tradition, so who are traditionalists to cry foul on a tradition? For that matter, if Houstonians can profit from stretching history a bit—or even out of all recognition—they will also do that. It is a tradition as old as the city itself. Read about that in this book’s first chapter.

If New York City is the Big Apple, New Orleans the Big Easy and Chicago the City of Broad Shoulders, then Houston is the City of Big Ideas. From the founding of Houston, the growth of cotton and the refining of petroleum to advancements in the medical industry, the development of its inland port and its tenure as Space City, all of Houston’s big ideas were embraced and adopted by its citizens. With all of this innovation, is it surprising that Houston’s past vanishes and gets forgotten, including its landmarks?

This book presents the story behind fifteen of Houston’s past landmarks that are linked by modern obscurity. Some involve transportation, and others involve industry. Some of them are landmark buildings that were wiped away by progress, vanished places where people went for entertainment. Houston is filled with buildings that were once landmarks, places every Houstonian knew at one time but are now forgotten. Often, the events that occurred in these forgotten places are still remembered while the actual sites are shrouded in mysteries. The places mentioned in this book include the actual site of the first steamboat landing in Houston and the location of the Twin Sisters, two cannons that helped Texas gain its independence from Mexico. In other cases, while the locations of some of these places are known, their historic significance has been forgotten. These places include NASA’s first Houston headquarters building, the site of the nation’s first public television station, the location where the world’s first shipping container landed and the Houston grocery store that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. For a moment, consider Houston’s cotton industry. It dominated Houston’s economy for two generations, but today, it has all but disappeared. The Cotton Exchange, which was once the beating economic heart of Houston, has so thoroughly vanished that it is now largely remembered for just one of its buildings.

Some of the locations in this book were places that every Houstonian knew about or used back when they were famous. These locations include the Galveston–Houston Electric Railroad, the Jefferson Davis Charity Hospital and the Goodyear Blimp Base north of Houston. You could not miss them when they were around. Other locations in this book are places where Houstonians sought entertainment. Some of these places include Buff’s Stadium, Gilley’s Nightclub and AstroWorld, and they were famous attractions. Folks who did not visit these places regularly would pass them. Even after these locations closed, memories of them were cherished for years. Now, they have been gone for so long that they are largely forgotten. This book also includes the story of a rich man’s mansion that was only sort of famous because it was that rich man’s mansion. It would have been completely forgotten if it had just been that, but the West Mansion, James M. West’s spectacular summer home on Clear Lake, became famous when it served as the home of the Lunar and Planetary Institute. The mansion was such an incongruous location for a scientific research center.

All of these stories are weird, funny, sad and, I hope, captivating. They should bring light to some of the forgotten yet fascinating corners of the Greater Houston–Galveston Metropolitan Area. The tales wander from Galveston to Spring and from Pasadena to Houston’s west side.

If you enjoy the stories in the book and want more, do these two things:

Buy a copy of this book. Buy extra copies for yourself and your friends and relations—or even acquaintances. If enough copies sell, the publisher will want sequels. (They always do.)

If you know of a vanished Houston landmark that was neglected by this book, let me know. When I get fifteen suitable subjects, I will write More Vanished Houston Landmarks. I have a few right now. Remember the terra-cotta army replica that was overrun by the Grand Parkway? Did you know the first capitol building for the Republic of Texas stood where the Rice Hotel stands today? I have more.

A POINT BEFORE WE GET STARTED: A Texian was an individual that claimed allegiance to the Republic of Texas or Mexican Colonial Texas. A Texan is an individual that claimed allegiance to the State of Texas, whether the state belonged to the United States of America or to the Confederate States of America. Until Texas joined the Union in 1845, its inhabitants called themselves Texians. After that, they became Texans.

1.

THE PERIPATETIC ALLEN’S LANDING

One of the most cherished spots in Houston is Allen’s Landing. This park on the south bank of Buffalo Bayou, where it meets White Oak Bayou, marks the spot where the steamboat Laura made its first landing at the new city of Houston on January 27, 1837, opening the port for business. Even the Handbook of Texas gives Allen’s Landing the status of being the spot where Laura first docked. Today, the city of Houston possesses one of the largest seaports in the United States, which makes the Laura’s arrival a Plymouth Rock moment—one where the course of history changed for the better. On its webpage, the Buffalo Bayou Partnership proclaims Allen’s Landing as Houston’s founding place and as Houston’s most significant and historic site. Make no mistake, Allen’s Landing deserves the title of Houston’s original port, but was it really Houston’s Plymouth Rock, the site of Laura’s first landing? The answer is a definite maybe. Untangling truth from myth requires a trip to the past, to the story of Houston’s founding.

John and Augustus Allen were brothers and land speculators originally from New York. Augustus had briefly been a mathematics professor at the Polytechnic Institute at Chittenango, New York. By 1833, they were both in Louisiana considering the opportunities that were available to them in Texas. In 1836, shortly after the Texas War of Independence, the two were in Galveston, thinking about where to set up a city. Their plan was similar to the one used by Texas subdivision developers today: secure a title to a plot of land, divide it into lots after surveying a grid of streets, promote the development, sell the lots and get rich. Today’s developers have to pave streets, set up utilities, provide sidewalks and construct houses and commercial buildings, but back in 1836, things were simpler. There were no electric easements to worry about, water and sewer lines were all wells that were dug by the landowner and streets were often just graded dirt and cleared pathways. Back then, just as today, the three keys to a successful development were location, location and location. You could put up a town anywhere, but people would not come to that town to buy lots unless they had a good reason to.

Galveston Island originally attracted them because it was a natural seaport and was the best location for carrying cargo out of the newly born Republic of Texas. It was the only location on the Texas coast that offered an anchorage inside the coastal barrier islands with a deep-water channel leading to it. These features protect ships from the storms that are kicked up in the Gulf of Mexico. Before the railroad, most goods traveled by water; the only alternative was to transport goods in wagons drawn by animals. Setting up a city on Galveston Island would have set the brothers on a path to wealth. However, when they arrived, they discovered that others had already had the same idea and secured a title to 4,605 acres of land on the island that would become the City of Galveston. While John and Augustus did invest in the Galveston City Company, they wanted to be more than junior partners. They wanted their own city.

They still wanted to establish a town on a waterway. Goods had to get to Texas’s interior somehow, which meant they had to travel along Texas’s rivers. Only bulk goods, like hides and cotton, could be transported commercially by wagon for about thirty miles. Shipping much more than that in addition to the cost of the fodder that it took to feed the livestock pulling the wagons would literally eat the profits. Everyone in Texas’s interior wanted to cart their produce to the nearest river and load it onto barges or the new steamboats for shipment to a seaport. The main rivers that feed into Galveston Bay are the Trinity River, the San Jacinto River and Buffalo Bayou. In 1836, Texas’s most developed area was to the west and north of the present-day city of Houston. Most goods that were shipped from that area took the Brazos River to Velasco. The modern-day city is at the mouth of the Brazos, an open roadstead that offers no shelter from Gulf storms.

There was a river port on Buffalo Bayou that offered an obvious route to Galveston’s sheltered harbor, bypassing Velasco. The ideal spot for such a town was the head of navigation—the farthest point above the mouth of Buffalo Bayou that could be reached by steamboats. The problem was that the idea to place a town on this piece of land had been just as obvious as the notion that Galveston Island would make a great place for a seaport. Nearly a dozen other empresarios had tried their hand at starting a river port on Buffalo Bayou before the Allen brothers arrived. Not all of them got their projects launched, but by 1836, there were already eight ports on Buffalo Bayou, starting with Lynchburg, where Buffalo Bayou ended, and proceeding west to New Washington, Powhattan, Scottsburg, Louisville, San Jacinto, Hamilton and, finally, Harrisburg. However, with the exception of Lynchburg, New Washington and Harrisburg, these were all notional cities. Given the competition, the Allens needed an edge; they had to set up their city at the head of navigation. The problem with this plan was that Harrisburg was already at the head of navigation—the spot was taken. So, the Allens’ next move was to try to buy Harrisburg.

In 1837, when Francis Lubbock and friends borrowed