Mosquitoes, snakes, mudflats, tangled undergrowth, a wilderness with a somewhat nondescript bayou meandering along.

Main Street, Houston, Texas.

Hardly the sort of place anyone would expect to become an almost futuristic city of gleaming towers rising toward the sky, and well over a 3.88 million residents.  Not the likeliest-looking place to locate what would become, in the short span of little more than 171 years, officially the United States’ fourth largest city.

In 1836, the United States itself was far from being the international leader it would become: the State of Texas wasn’t even in existence.  The unlikely-looking spot, in fact, was a part of what had just become a brand new Republic and had won its independence from Mexico only four months earlier.

But this was where two New York real estate promoters—the Brothers J. K. and A. C. Allen—decided to start a new town.  They paid the large sum of $9,428 (only $1,000 of it in cash) for 6,642 acres of land situated at the head of navigation on the west bank of the Buffalo Bayou.

They named it Houston in honor of their hero and good friend, General Sam Houston, whose tattered band of Texans had defeated General Santa Anna’s army at San Jacinto on April 21 of the same year.  They also were rather certain this good friend would become the Republic’s first President—and they wanted the Capital in their new town.

They prophetically advertised that “The town of Houston is located at a point on the river which must ever command the trade of the largest and richest portion of Texas,” and they added that “when the rich lands of this country shall be settled, a trade will flow to it, making it, beyond all doubt, the great interior commercial emporium of Texas.”

Grandiose ideas these two brothers had. Their advertisements for this desolate wilderness made claims that today would bring down upon their heads the wrath of enforcers of “truth in advertising.”

But the immigrants came, they sought homesteads, they settled, and they started their village.  It was not easy, but such has been the lot of pioneers and adventurers.  They faced a struggle for survival despite the fact that by 1837 the community was experiencing boom  conditions.  Yet, lawlessness, epidemics and financial problems struck unmercifully.  At the close of 1839, some 10 percent of the population had died from recurring epidemics of yellow fever.  New Orleans suppliers had cut off the credit on which Houston’s merchants depended, and the Republic’s own currency dropped to 50 cents on the U.S. dollar, then 25 cents, then 10 cents.

The Allen Brothers had sought and won location of the Republic’s capital at Houston—but in January, 1839, President Mirabeau B. Lamar approved a bill moving it to Austin (then know as “Waterloo”).  The Archives and furnishings of the first Capitol were loaded into wagons and moved to the new site in October, 1839, and the building was for rent.

Community moral continued to disintegrate and the young municipal government was not strong enough to meet the issues.  In November, 1838, a bill had been introduced into the Congress of the Republic to charter a Houston Chamber of Commerce, but action on the proposal was delayed by several early Texas political crises—expulsion of the local district’s Senator from Congress; emergency adjournment of the Congress when a mob broke up the session with a demonstration following his almost unanimous re-election to the post.

It was 1840 before the Houston Chamber of Commerce came into actual being, with a meeting of seven men on the morning of April 4.  During this time, community conditions continued to worsen.  The new organization had its fight ahead to salvage a dying village—but the little group doubled its number, continued to grow, unified the community’s efforts and things began to improve again.

It has been estimated that, at the time, there were fewer than 100,000 people in all of the Republic of Texas, and less than 2,000 of them in Harris County.  As the City of Houston observes its 172nd anniversary this August, the last official U.S. Census of 2006 showed 3,886,207 persons living within the city and 3,935,855 persons living within Harris County…figures that would have boggled the minds of the Allen Brothers.

It was approaching the mid-1800s when Houston began to realize the stimulus of its position as a “port” to its suffering economy.  Stephen F. Austin’s inland colonist needed the benefits of the water-borne transportation which could make its way to Houston through Buffalo Bayou.

Back in January, 1837, the Laura became the first steamship ever to visit Houston.  From Clopper’s Bar (now Morgan’s Point), the little vessel proceeded to Harrisburg (a mere 15 miles by water) the Laura took three days to reach Houston, hampered by frequent stops to cut down overhanging trees or blow up log jams.

The early City Fathers dignified this uncertain waterway and officially established the “Port of Houston,” and in 1842 the Congress of the Republic  granted the city the right to remove obstructions from the Bayou.  It was 1844 when the large steamboat Constitution was brought to the Port of Houston—but it could not turn around in the narrow channel and had to be backed downstream to turn around at a wider point in the Bayou, earning that historic spot the name “Constitution Bend.”

Meanwhile, stagecoach services had followed the early waterway improvements and boosted commerce even more.

Although Houston was pulling itself together, the Republic of Texas was not without its problems, and Texans looked more favorably toward joining the United States.  However, there were several years of doubt and indecision before the step was taken,  and on December 29, 1845, Texas was accepted into the Union.

Less than 10 years after the formation of the Republic and the founding of Houston—on February 19, 1846—the Lone Star Flag was hauled down from above the Capitol at Austin, and the Stars and Stripes went up in its place, carrying a new 28th star for Texas.

In 1846, Houston also established itself as a community deeply interested in education.  President Lamar, in his first message to the Congress of the Republic in 1838, established a goal for public education in Texas, and eight years later persons from throughout the new state of Texas gathered in Houston (in what probably was the first state convention ever held here) to show their interest in education.  Their objective was to adopt uniform textbooks to be used in Texas schools.

Today there are 26 school districts in Harris County and the Houston Independent School District is the largest public school system in Texas and the seventh-largest in the United States.  There is an estimated enrollment of 700,000 K-12 public education students in these 26 school districts within the greater Houston-Harris County area.   More than 52,000 students are enrolled in the area’s 211 private and parochial schools.  There are 289,000 college students, which makes it one of the nation’s leading academic centers. Forty-one public colleges, universities, and institutes dot the Houston landscape in Harris County alone.

In 1844, the Houston Academy opened with 100 students.  Today, the Houston Independent School District has an enrollment of 205,000 students in nearly 300 schools and programs.  In 2002, HISD was named the nation’s top-performing urban school district by the California-based Broad Foundation, due in part to its success in narrowing the achievement gap between economic and ethnic groups.

Transportation of all kinds played prime roles in the growth of Houston.  The first railroad here—the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos & Colorado Railroad—was organized in 1847, but construction was not started for four years, and the first 20 miles of railroad in Texas (and the second railroad west of the Mississippi River) was inaugurated by the company in 1853.  Following it was the Galveston & Red River Railway Company, renamed the Houston & Texas Central Railway Company.  With rail service and the Port of Houston gaining in importance, industry came to the fledgling city with an iron foundry and a large warehouse for cotton, hides and other commodities.

By 1853, the port had become so important, that the Texas Legislature appointed $4,000 to improve the channel of Buffalo Bayou.

By 1856, Main Street was being resurfaced with shell; trains began to roll between Houston and Galveston over the Galveston, Houston & Red River Railroad.  The city of Houston built the Tap Railroad to Pierce Junction.  A city-owned dredge deepened Buffalo Bayou for steamboats, and prosperity seemed sure and permanent.

But despite the advent of  the railroad and the increasing the use of the port, ox-wagons and other more primitive means of transport continued to carry much of the cotton and other products of the country.  Years later, however, as more and more rail service came to Houston and the port continued to grow, the Houston Chamber of Commerce characterized Houston as the city “Where Seventeen Railways Meet the Sea.”

At the very beginning, the Allen Brothers unknowingly provided their new town with one of its greatest advantages for the future.  They hired Gail Borden (publisher, surveyor, and originator of condensed milk) and Thomas H. Borden to survey and map the site.  Gail Borden laid out the city’s streets 80 feet wide with the principal east-west thoroughfare (Texas Avenue) a full 100 feet.  Early settlers jeered, hooted and criticized such wide streets—but Borden’s plan provided ample width for Houston’s downtown traffic after the advent of the horseless carriage.  Today, with more than a million passenger cars and trucks registered in Harris County, those broad downtown streets, although crowded with traffic, continue to carry the load far more efficiently and faster than the narrow streets of many older U. S. cities.

The Port of Houston and the “river” called Buffalo Bayou—one of the Allen Brothers’ principal reasons for choosing the site in 1836—was a dream brought to reality through the efforts of early Houstonians who inherited the Allen Brothers’ entrepreneurship and developed their own determination that they could do anything they really set their minds to.

About the turn of the century, a group of concerned Houston leaders began to intensify their efforts to provide a deep-water port for ocean shipping.  A Houston delegation called upon the Congress of the U. S. (the federal government being responsible for ports), but their reception was far from warm.  Congressmen couldn’t see appropriating federal funds to dig a ditch so an inland Texas city could have a seaport.

Undaunted, and in a dramatic move born of desperation, Houston businessmen and bankers offered to contribute half the cost, if the Congress would appropriate the other half.  This novel and voluntary local participation shocked Congress into action, and approval of Houston’s proposition set a pattern which is still followed in requiring local participation in such projects.

The investment has been repaid many times over—in customs collections alone.  And the port, in 1973 tallied a record 86,218,835 tons of cargo handled and a net income of $4,854,662.  In 2006, more than 200 million tons of cargo moved through the Port of Houston.  A total of 7,550 vessel calls were recorded at the Port of Houston during the same year.

Ship channel-related businesses supported more than 785,000 jobs throughout Texas while generating nearly $118 billion of statewide economic impact.  Additionally, more than $3.7 billion in state and local tax revenues are generated by business activities related to the port.  It is projected that the Port of Houston will continue to be an important factor as north-south trade expands.

Houston’s early economy was based on agriculture and natural resources such as timber—and Harris County still remains an agricultural leader.  But 1901 marked the beginning of a new era with the discovery of oil at Spindletop.  The old wooden derricks began to dot prairies, and when World War I came along a few years later—plus the rising momentum of the motor industry in this country—Texas and Houston became strongly identified with the oil industry.

Houston still is strongly identified with the oil industry, not only because of the development of refineries and other petroleum-related plants which clustered here, and the transition in the 1940s to petro-chemical processing, but due to the concentration of headquarters operations of major oil companies here and this area’s deep involvement in offshore drilling and production.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the area’s economy began to change again, as business and industry started to diversify.  The metals industry gained in importance here.  Then came the Space Age and the location of the National Aeronautics & Space Administration’s Manned Spacecraft Center (now the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center) nearby.  Houston became a name know worldwide as it was designated the nerve-center of the nation’s exploration into space—control center for the Moon landings and the first word spoken from the Moon to Earth.

Development of the famed Texas Medical Center and the area’s other major medical and health-care facilities also increased this attraction of brilliant minds, skilled physicians and innovative researchers.  It also began to draw international patients to the Center as its renown spread.  Its tremendous growth pushed the Texas Medical Center to the top as Houston’s major employer, and at the start of 1974, the total number of employees in the Center reached 17, 000.  Today, the Texas Medical Center receives over five million annual patient visits including over ten thousand international patients.  In 2006, the center employed over 73,500 people, including 4,000 physicians and 11,000 registered nurses.

Adding to the Center’s reasons for fame—which have multiplied with accelerated rapidity during recent years—the first National Heart and Blood Vessel Research & Demonstration Center (founded at $13.3 million over a five-year period) was designated at Baylor College of Medicine in July, 1974.  Science and research grants to Houston-area institutions have mounted into many millions of dollars with this growth as a leading U. S. medical center benefiting Houston’s colleges and universities, its scientific community as a whole.  Many millions more are spent by industry on research and development.

Houston, also has lost its stigma as a city without culture.  In fact, despite its rowdy early years, the fledgling town soon began to bring noted artists to its primitive stages.  Today, it has the noted Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Grand Opera, the nationally-known Alley Theatre, the Houston Ballet, plus ten museums, galleries, art collections and hundreds of other theaters, arts-oriented groups and patrons of the visual and performing arts.

Since the turn of the century, Houston’s population has doubled every 20 years.  Much of this has been immigration—the people who come to Houston because it’s the city in the news, the place where the action is, an area where the unemployment rate keeps well below the national average and there is almost always a job available.

Physically, the city has spread from the Allen Brothers’ original 6,642 acres to a total of a little over 601.7 square miles, of which, 579.4 square miles of it is land and 22.3 square miles of it is water and Harris County contains better than 1,778 square miles, of which, 1,729 square miles of it is land and 49 square miles of it is water.  From the wide but muddy streets laid out by the Bordens, downtown Houston’s wide (but paved) streets have become canyons between towering office buildings, stores and hotels.  And the city is still building—it’s not finished yet.

Houston is a young city—compared to most others its size.  It’s a young city in the median age of its population—still in the 30s.  But Houston does have its history, its traditions, its heritage—and Houstonians are proud of this and do not forget their city’s glorious past.

Happy 175th birthday Houston, Texas!

San Jacinto Day Ceremony

San Jacinto Day is the celebration of the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836.

It was the final battle of the Texas Revolution where Texas won its independence from Mexico. It is an official holiday in the State of Texas. On this field on April 21, 1836 the Army of Texas commanded by General Sam Houston, and accompanied by the Secretary of War, Thomas J. Rusk, attacked the larger invading army of Mexicans under General Santa Anna. The battle line from left to right was formed by Sidney Sherman’s regiment, Edward Burleson’s regiment, the artillery commanded by George W. Hockley, Henry Millard’s infantry and the cavalry under Mirabeau B. Lamar. Sam Houston led the infantry charge.

With the battle cry, “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!” the Texans charged. The enemy taken by surprise, rallied for a few minutes then fled in disorder. The Texans had asked no quarter and gave none. The slaughter was appalling, victory complete, and Texas free! On the following day General Antonio Lopez De Santa Anna, self-styled “Napoleon of the West,” received from a generous foe the mercy he had denied Travis at the Alamo and Fannin at Goliad.

The State of Texas erected a fitting monument to her heroes in the construction of the historic San Jacinto Battleground and Monument, which is located about twenty miles southeast of Houston. In the year 1836, Texas gained her independence in a decisive victory over the Mexican forces led by General Santa Anna.

As part of the San Jacinto Battlefield, the monument was designated a National Historic Landmark on December 19, 1960, and therefore automatically listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was designated an Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1992.

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Over the its many years of service The Lancaster has hoasted business guests from all over the world but few may know that the hotel was originally named the Auditorium Hotel and was built in 1926  just across the street from the City Auditorium, which is now the current site of Jones Hall.

In 1982, the hotel was remodeled and reopened as The Lancaster, Houston’s first boutique hotel. The hotel was one of the few luxury hotels available in downtown Houston. When it opened it boasted that each room had its own bath, ceiling fan, and circulating ice water. The combination of a new luxury hotel next to the City Auditorium raised the profile of the surrounding blocks.

The Auditorium Hotel Groundbreaking Ceremony

It was originally designed by architect Joseph Finger and built by Houston investor and real estate developer, Michele DeGeorge. DeGeorge, an Italian immigrant, is pictured to the right of then Mayor of Houston, Oscar F. Holcombe. To his left are Dupree Fountain, the Hotel’s Manager (1926-31) and Joseph Finger, architect of the DeGeorge Hotel, 1913 and the Auditorium Hotel in 1926.

Austrian-born and prominent local architect Joseph Finger designed the Italian-Renaissance hotel’s upper floors to match the City Auditorium, which was located on Texas Ave. Oscar Holcombe was Houston’s longest-serving mayor and Dupree Fountain was the hotel’s first manager.

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Imperial Sugar

Imperial Sugar Company holds the number one position in refined sugar in the United States, with a market share of about 33 percent. The company refines raw cane sugar at four facilities in Texas, Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana, and processes beet sugar at 11 processing plants in California, Wyoming, Montana, and Michigan. Its line of sugar products includes several well-known regional brands: Imperial Sugar (Southwest), Dixie Crystals (Southeast), Pioneer Sugar (Great Lakes region), Holly Sugar (intermountain West), and Spreckels Sugar (California). The company also sells sugar under private labels and markets the Wholesome Foods brand, the national leader in organic sweeteners. In addition to its sugar operations, Imperial Sugar derives about one-quarter of its revenues from its foodservice business, which sells a variety of nonsugar products–from drink mixes to plastic cutlery–restaurants, healthcare institutions, schools, and other entities. Imperial Sugar traces its history back to 1843, when a sugar refinery was erected on a small sugar plantation in Sugar Land, Texas. The fledgling sugar enterprise grew as the nation grew, adopted the name Imperial Sugar Company during the early 20th century, then merged in 1988 with Holly Sugar Company–a beet sugar producer with roots stretching back to 1905–form Imperial Holly Corporation. Following the acquisitions of Spreckels Sugar Company in 1996, Savannah Foods & Industries, Inc. in 1997, and Wholesome Foods L.L.C. and Diamond Crystal Specialty Foods, Inc. in 1998, the company changed its name back to Imperial Sugar Company in 1999.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Another year has rolled around since last the American people observed that beautiful and time honored custom which is peculiar to them as a Nation of offering to the Great Ruler of all Nations the formal expression of their gratitude for His continued favors.

Last year the country had just emerged victoriously from war in behalf of civilization and humanity. Our losses had been comparatively slight, the chains of despotism had been stricken from the limbs of millions of human beings and American prestige had grown greatly in all quarters of the earth. Thanksgiving day, 1898, was, therefore, an occasion on which, particularly, the American repbulic could acknowledge its obligations anew and with heartfelt gratitude to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe.

Today we still have the watchful care and the material bounties of a Divine Providence to be thankful for. Prosperity in our worldly affairs has continued to follow us as a people. No great calamity has overtaken us within the year which closes today; we have been free from famine, from virulent pestilence, or widespread visitations of disaster. The uniform progress and the good fortune which have been ours in the past we have continued to enjoy for the twelve months just gone. As a Nation, therefore, especially favored by Providence, we still have occassions to offer up grateful hearts and hopeful prayers to Him who holds in the hollow of His hand the destinies of Nations as of individuals.

But have we done our duty as a people, fully and unselfishly and in accord with justice, while enjoying these continued evidences of Divine favor? There are hundreds of thousands of us who question our National conduct during the past year. Have we not abused our power, given us for wise ends? Have we not violated that basic tenet of Christian faith that we should do unto others only as we would that they should do unto us? As surely as there is a God of Nations, retributive justice will sooner or later overtake and chastise us as a people if we forget the high purposes of our destiny or turn from the paths of honor, probity and humanity!

Get ready for Thanksgivin’- jest set your table fine,
An’ put the finest crock’ry out an’ make the silver shine.
No matter how the country goes-jest carve the turkey’s neck,
An’ while the carvin’s goin’ on be thankful you’re on deck.
Get ready for Thanksgivin’-jest fall into your place.
An’ if the preacher ain’t along be sure an’ say the grace,
No matter how the country goes-jest care the turkey straight,
An’ with a smile O’ thankfulness pitch in an’ pass your plate.
Atlantic Constitution

Thanksgiving Day is peculiarly the time when these great questions should engage the reflections of the American people, and let us trust they will be seriously considered again today throughout the length and breadth of our land.

But there is a beauty in our Thanksgiving custom that stands apart from the contemplation of matters of National interest. It is found in the social features of the day. It is a time of sweet reunions, when the wanderers from the old home gather again around the family hearth and rekindle the affections and memories of other days. It is a time when the heart pulsates only with emotions of gratitude and joy, when men feel that after all life has something to live for with bright hope and to remember with grateful pleasure! It is a day, too, in which to remember the poor, those into whose unfortunate or unhappy lives there rarely comes the occasion for thanksgiving!

The Post trusts that each recurring observance of this day may find the American people, both as a Nation and as individuals, with yet greater cause to return to thanks to the Giver of all good gifts for His manifold favors and continued protection.

A New England writer has described “the well-fed Thanksgiving Day that grew bright and round and lay upon the year’s horizon like a joyful pumpkin upon the rides of a Yankee cornfield.” Although a clergyman and descended from a family of divines, Thanksgiving evidently presented itself to his mind as a material rather than a religious festival, and it is certain that the mass of the people take this view. To be sure, the churches unlock their doors, it is a gastronomic rather than a religious festival.

Imagine all the churches whisked for the day out of sight, like Aladdin’s palace. There would hardly be an aching void in the popular heart, it would still be Thanksgiving. But suppose all the turkeys in the land wiped out thus summarily, does any one doubt that they would be missed? Thanksgiving would be nothing without the turkey. It is essentially an eating day. The doctor’s face grows round at the prospect of many fees to follow, and the thoughtful druggist lays in a fresh supply of pepsin.

The exact origin and purpose of this day is hard to decide upon. The Hebrews, Greeks and Romans observed similar festivals. The feast of the tabernacles occupied seven days after “ingathering of the harvest.” The people and stalks of corn and decorated them with flowers. Processions with floral banners were formed, bugies blown, psalms of thanksgiving chanted, and the young joined in dances. These festivities lasted seven days, when the booths were torn down and the people returned to their homes.

The Greeks have a nine days thanksgiving feast. The festivities were the same in general character as the feast of the tabernacles. The Roman feast was similar.

The English harvest home, the oldest holiday in England, was brought over by the Saxons, and was of the same general character as the preceding festivals.The great social and religious Thanksgiving festival in New England, from which it has spread to most of the States of the American Republic, is a joint legacy of the Pilgrims and Puritans. Some authorities claim it to be a prepetuation of the English harvest home, hers the feast of the tabernacles. If it has any kinship to anything in the past it is probably the former; but if this be so, it is strange that the early historian omits entirely any reference to such a purpose.

For two centuries Thanksgiving day continued to be a peculiarity of New England, but it has now become National and its annual return finds a hearty welcome from the lake shores to the gulf, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

President Lincoln was the first to issue a National proclamation, which he did recommending special thanksgiving for the victories of 1862-63. Since that time such a proclamation has been issued annually by the president, also by the governors of the States and the mayors of the principal cities. 

Houston's Station 3 Fire Company, cira 1889

In 1836, Protection Fire Company No. 1 was organized. That was perhaps the first organization of the kind in Texas. They had no engine or anything with which to fight fire, except buckets, and their method was a primitive one of forming a line and passing the buckets from hand to hand. As crude as this method was, much good was accomplished, because executed by an organized force rather than an excited mob.

Protection Company No. 1 preserved its organization and identity, until the old volunteer department was absorbed by the city and became the present day department. In the early fifties this company bought its first engine. It was an old-fashioned hand engine, but at that day was looked upon as a grand affair. It was a vast improvement on buckets, at any rate, and did a great deal of good work.

Houston was growing rapidly at that time and the demand for better fire protection was becoming more apparent each day. The whole city being constructed of wood, and the houses, in the business part of the town, being jumbled close together, the fire risk became very great. The imperative need of better protection was accentuated in 1858-59 by the occurrence of two great fires, one sweeping away the block bounded by Main, Franklin, Travis and Congress Streets and the other, the block bounded by Main, Congress, Travis and Preston Streets. In addition to these there was another big fire that destroyed a number of buildings on both sides of Main Street between Texas Avenue and Capitol Avenue.

In 1860, the warehouse of T. W. Whitmarsh, containing 2,100 bales of cotton, was burned. When the first of these great fires occurred, a number of young men met and formed Houston Hook and Ladder Company No. 1. This company was organized April 17, 1858. Its first officers were: Foreman, Frank Fabj; 1st assistant, E. L. Bremond; 2nd assistant, O. J. Conklin; president, Henry Sampson; vice-president, Fred A. Rice; secretary, Wm. M. Thompson; treasurer, S. H. Skiff. The charter members were: J. C. Baldwin, C. A. Darling, Frank H. Bailey, I. C. Stafford, Ed. Riodan, R. W. Bowling, Pete Schwander, Paul Schwander, George A. Peck, W. S. Owens, Charles Nordhausen, John S. Hirshfield, J. L. Talman, R. B. Wilson, J. D. McNulty and John W. Clark. The company entered at once into active service and accomplished great good through their well-directed and intelligent efforts.

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Houston Police Department

In early days, when a man’s reputation for personal courage, honesty of purpose and a bulldog determination to do his duty was established, he was recognized as fit material out of which to make a peace officer. It was the man’s personality, rather than his ability as a businessman, or his ability as an executive officer that counted. The only executive ability demanded of him was that he be “quick on the draw” and expert in the use of his pistol. The early peace officer had no regular deputies nor had he a “force.” He was the whole thing himself, and on occasions when he needed assistance, he could, and did call on any citizen or citizens to help him. In a newly settled place like Houston in the early days, there were a number of rough and desperate characters. Against such men as these, a weakling or a man who did not have a reputation for coolness and for a bravery vastly superior to their own, would have been worse than useless and would have really added to the criminal record by offering himself up as a sacrifice to the outlaws.

In the very early days police affairs were in the hands of the sheriff, and this condition prevailed for sometime after Houston had become a chartered city. In 1840 or 1841, Captain Newt. Smith, one of the heroes of San Jacinto, was elected city marshal and served as such until 1844, when Captain Billy Williams was elected to succeed him. In the late forties Captain R. C. Boyce was elected city marshal and held office for a number of years. The city marshal’s office was no sinecure. From 1840 to 1860, Houston was at times, particularly about election times and on days of public gatherings, what one might call in the vernacular a little “wild and woolly.” On such occasions both the sheriff and marshal had their hands full. There were numerous desperate characters here, whiskey was cheap and plentiful and the wonder is that there were so few tragedies. It is a remarkable fact that none of the three men who served as marshal during that troublesome period ever had to kill a man. It was not because they were not perfectly prepared and willing to do so should occasion arise, and it was possibly a knowledge of that fact, on the part of the desperadoes, that caused them not to offer resistance when the officers went after them. At the close of the war, Mr. I. C. Lord was city marshal and his administration was far more strenuous than any that preceded it. This was due to the generally disrupted condition of society; to the fact that the town was full of returned Confederate soldiers, Federal soldiers, newly freed Negroes and worthless white men, known as “scalawags” and “carpet-baggers,” who did all in their power to stir up strife between the white people and the Negroes. Killings were of frequent occurrence, and the police figured in the large majority of them.

As bits of police history are always interesting the following are given here as characteristic. They are taken from an old book at police headquarters, called the “Time Book,” dated 1882. A record on the first page reveals the fact that the police force in 1882, consisted of a chief, a deputy chief and six patrolmen, the latter divided into a night and a day relief. Charles Wichman was chief, or city marshal, and W. W. Glass was deputy chief. W. H. Smith and F. W. McCutchin were the day force, while B. F. Archer, Jack White, James Daily and Nat Davis were the night force. All of these old officers are dead.

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On this day, Sept. 5, 1836, Sam Houston, the victor of San Jacinto, was elected president of the newly founded Republic of Texas. Candidates for the office had included Henry Smi…. to read the rest of this post please join the HoustonHistory.com Community!

Situated at the head of navigation on the west bank of Buffalo Bayou, is now for the first time brought to public notice; because, until now, the proprietors were not ready to offer it to the Public with the advantages of Capital and improvements.

The town of Houston is located at a point on the river which must ever command the trade of the largest and richest portions of Texas. By reference to the map, it will be seen that the trade of  San Jacinto, Spring Creek, New Kentucky, and the Brazos, above and below Fort Bend, must necessarily come to this place, and will at this time warrent the employment of at least $1,000,000 of capital; and when the rich lands of this country shall be settled a trade will flow to it, making it beyond all doubt the greatest commercial emporium of Texas.

 The town of Houston is distant 15 miles from the Brazos River, 30 miles a little north of east from San Felipe, 60 miles from Washington, 3o miles southwest from New Kentucky and 15 miles by water and 8 miles by land from Harrisburg.

Tidewater runs to this place and the lowest depth of water is about six feet. Vessels from New York and New Orleans can sail without obstacle to this place, and steamboats of the largest class can run down to Galveston in eight or ten hours in  all seasons of the year.

It is but a few hours sail down the bay, where one can make excursions of pleasure and enjoy the luxuries of fish, fowl, oysters and sea-bathing.

Galveston harbor, being the only one in which vessels drawing a large draft of water can navigate, must necessarily render the island the great naval and commercial depot in the country.

The town of Houston must be the place where arms ammunition and provisions for the government will be stored, because, being in the very heart of the country, it combines security and means of easy distribution and a national armory will no doubt very soon be at this point.

There is no place in Texas more healthy, having an abundance of excellent spring water and enjoying the sea breeze in all its freshness.

No place in Texas possesses so many advantages for building, having the fine ash, cedar and oak in inexhaustible quantities; also the beautiful and tall magnolia grows in abundance. In the vicinity are fine quarries of stone.

Nature seems to have designated this place for the future seat of government. It is handsome and beautifully elevated, salubrious and well-watered and is now in the very center of population and will be so for a long time to come.

It combines two important advantages – a communication with the coast and with foriegn countries and with different portions of the republic. As the country shall improve, railroads will become in use and will be extended from this point to the Brazos and up the same; and also from this to the headwaters of the San Jacinto, embracing that rich country, and in a few years the whole trade of the upper Brazos will make its way into Galveston Bay through this channel.

Preparations are making to erect a water sawmill and a large public house for accomodations will soon be opened. Steamboats now run in this river and will, in short time, commence regularly to the island. The proprietors offer lots for sale at moderate terms to those who desire to improve them and invite the public to examine for themselves.

(Signed)

August 30, 1836, 6m.

A. C. Allen, for “A. C. & J. K. Allen”

 This old document is as fine a piece of advertising as any turned out by the “artists” of today. It has one great merit, that of truthfulness; for whether intentionally or not, the Allen Brothers told almost the literal truth in every line they wrote that day, for all that they forecasted has come true a thousandfold.

Their town was bounded on the North by Buffalo Bayou, all the territory north of the bayou being densely wooded!