I did not know that houston had its own port, when people talk about ousting port I always think they're talking a it Galveston and they just call it houston. I never knew that we had our own port, but apparently we do it was what is now called buffaloe bayou. I didnt think that the bayou was big enough to fit ships through but they transported cotton through there, because they were afraid to ship from Galveston. Apparently they thought that Galveston was going to wash away because bad storms kept hitting and ruining the things that people had built down there
Another thing that I didnt know about houston is that when we integrated we were peaceful for the most part the press didnt get to have a field day. There were no walk outs or sit ins, we got the press to give us 12 days to work it out and we did. Houston was successfully integrated with little to no problems, people might not have been very happy about it but it happened successfully.
Yes, Galveston was a much bigger and more important city than Houston, before the hurricane of 1900. The old Moody Mansion in Galveston, built just before the storm in 1895, is proof of just how important and wealthy Galveston was. (http://www.moodymansion.org/) That storm washed much of Galveston away and ruined the port that was there. Investors started to think about other options, and the people of Harris County approved the building of the Port of Houston in 1909. Another thing that happened around this time was the discovery of Spindletop - a major oil deposit - in Beaumont, TX in 1901. It really was the perfect set of conditions for Houston to become an oil center.
ReplyDeleteBusiness has always been Houston's top priority. Someone even said, "The business of Houston is business." I think that this goes a long way in explaining why integration went so smoothly here.