Arizona on Sale

Great Texas Coast

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 world city. It is a dynamic city with a large economy and a huge range of cultural activities and recreation.

Two brothers who made a fortune in real estate in New York, founded Houston in 1836 on the banks of Buffalo Bayou; Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen has purchased about 6,500 acres with the intention of creating their own town and name 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 infrastructure a city began to form with the creation of a Chamber of Commerce and elect a mayor. Shipping was the first company to be promoted, however, in 1860, Houston had also become a hub of railway that has transformed the city into a commercial center for export of cotton to Europe. After the civil war, efforts were made to develop the maritime and in particular by working to create a deepwater port in synchronization with the nearby port of Galveston.

Galveston was hit by a terrible hurricane in 1900 that accelerated work to create a deepwater port in Houston and growth was further stimulated by the discovery of oil in 1901 of oil field Spindletop. 1902 saw President Roosevelt approving $ 1 million allocation for the Houston Ship Channel, and this combination of private and government supported initiatives Houston turned into a center of significant growth with a doubling of population between 1900 and 1910 to 78,800.

Finally in 1914 President Wilson opened the Port of Houston a deep-water port and in 1930 Houston was the largest city in America.

World War 2 have declined in the maritime sector and ports on the coast is dominated trans-Atlantic expedition, however, the enormous growth of the petrochemical sector more than offset for that. Huge new military bases were also built with Ellington Field, which was rebuilt in order to train bombers and navigators while medical facilities have also been significantly expanded and research has taken off. The end of the ceramic has seen a return to activity of deep-water port that the bases were dismantled and the moth-balled and the physical area was doubled by the addition of land surrounding the city and began its sprawling growth.

The postwar period saw the creation of a Center of NASA Manned Spacecraft (now known as the Lyndon B Johnson Space Center) and the aerospace industry came to town. The city is also home to the Astrodome which was the world's first domed sports Indoor Arena. In the seventies, the population again in the booming oil industry booming but in 1980 the boom ended abruptly with the aerospace industry has also suffered as a consequence of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986.

Today, Houston has fully recovered and is now one of the largest 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 in the United States. The wealth created has led to become Houston also hosts a wide range of cultural institutions that now has more than 7 million visitors each year, while Houston is one cities with very few companies resident in the year for all major arts scene.