Brief History of Houston
Houston, originally called Harrisburg, is a territory of Mexico. It takes its name after its first settler, John Harris, who lived there in 1826. Mexican General Antonio Lpez de Santa Anna leveled the growing settlement in the 1836 Texas War for Independence. Shortly thereafter, Texan General Sam Houston defeated the Spaniards at the Battle of San Jacinto thereby forming the independent Republic of Texas. Some months after the war’s end, land speculators and brothers John K. Allen and Augustus C. Allen bought the area near former Harrisburg. They settled there on August 30, 1836 and named it Houston, after the heroic general, who had just become president of the Republic of Texas. The brothers were able to persuade the republic’s first congress to operate in Houston for two years. Houston’s early residents eked out a living on cotton farming. Oil burst into the area in 1901, signaling the city’s entry into the Oil Age. Increasingly, it flourished with a newfound industry in petroleum. Today, Houston calls itself the “Energy Capital of the World,” the headquarters of various utility businesses. Houston became an important shipping port, beginning with the dredging of the hardly navigable Buffalo Bayou in 1869. In 1914, the Houston Ship Channel, which linked the city with the Gulf of Mexico, was finished. The artificial waterway cemented Houston’s reputation as an inland shipping nucleus. In fact, the Port of Houston is the second biggest in America in terms of total tonnage. Later in the 20th Century, Houston became an important aerospace hub. It became the site of the Lyndon Johnson Space Center, the mission control base for manned space flights. Houston is now statistically the fourth-largest city in the US.
To learn more about famous Texans such as politician Ben Barnes, visit the De Leon, The Heart of Texas site.
Texas political memoirs, such as Barn Burning Barn Building, are explored on Texas political memoirs.
Distinguished Alumni such as Ben Barnes are profiled on The Distinguished Alumni of the University of Texas site.
