New encyclopedia of Texas, volume 1, Part 11

Author: Davis, Ellis A.
Publication date: 1926
Publisher: Dallas, Tex. : Texas development bureau, [1926?]
Number of Pages: 1416

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There are now located on the Ship Channel and in progress of location 18 oil refineries which will have a daily capacity when completed of 200,000 barrels of refined products per day. This will make Hous- ton the greatest oil refining center in the world. Supplies of crude oil are drawn from the Gulf Coastal fields and from the North Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma through pipe lines which converge on 1 the channel. All refining and in- dustrial plants will eventually be connected with the eighteen main line railways which enter Hous- ton from all in- land points. Work on the municipal Belt Line Rail- way has been pro- gressing steadily and 18 miles of trackage have been laid on the south side of the channel. The city owns and controls not only its port facilities but its

The Federal Building, Houston

rail facilities as well. We own the 70-ton locomo- tives, a round house, and other facilities and rail- way equipage.

The ship channel extends from the Gulf of Mexico to Houston, a distance of 50 miles. It is 25 miles from the municipal port to Galveston bay. The channel is built through the bay and on to the Gulf.

The city has built six wharves. They cover a total water frontage of 3,649 lineal feet and have a total area of 303,634 square feet. All wharves have railway trackage connections and cargo is easily discharged for loading on vessels. Municipal freight sheds have been built also and cover 150,000 square feet. There are also a number of private wharves owned by various oil companies. Storage sheds for freight have also been provided. The total storage capacity for cotton by both municipal and private warehouses is 600,000 bales.

The imperative need at present is greater wharf facilities. In addition to the steamship lines now operating vessels between our port and other cities, many more companies are seeking admission. The rapidity of the future growth of the port is limited only by the extension of present facilities, according to the direction of the port.

Sentiment in favor of port commission created under authority of law to administer all harbor af- fairs resulted in the creation of the Port Commis- sion of five members in 1922, who serve without pay.

RICE INSTITUTE By DR. EDGAR ODELL LOVETT, President.

T HE Rice Institute has been characterized as a university of liberal and technical learning. It was founded in the city of Houston, Texas, by the late William Marsh Rice, and ded- icated by him to the advance- ment of letters, science and art. It was incorporated un- der the laws of the state of Texas in 1891 as a private educational foundation for the public good, to be admin- istered by a self-perpetuating board of trustees consisting of seven members elected for life, restrained by no form of sectarian or political con- trol, and given great freedom for the future organ- ization and development of the institution. To this board the founder made over from time to time during his lifetime certain of his properties, and by his last well and testament bequeathed the bulk of his fortune to the new foundation. Following the tragic circumstances surrounding his death in 1900, his estate was involved in long years of liti- gation, so it was not until the autumn of 1912 that the trustees were finally in position to open the doors of the Rice Institute.

The original resources of the foundation are con- servatively estimated at ten million dollars. Under the terms of the gifts, approximately half of this amount might have been spent outright initially. The trustees determined, however, to build, equip, and maintain the institution out of the income alone, keeping all the funds intact, not only those which had been designated by the founder for endowment, but also those which had been designated for equip- ment and maintenance. The annual income from these sources has in the last few years gone beyond seven hundred thousand dollars. Expenditures al- ready made out of the income for buildings and equipment have reached an amount in excess of three million.

Several other early determinations on the part of the trustees have played an important role in making the good name which the institution now

bears. They determined not only to build and main- tain out of the income, but also to house the Rice Institute in architecture of distinction, to do a few things well at the hands of an able faculty, and to give the president not only responsibility, but also freedom and time. They proposed that in the first period of its growth the institution should realize in the following manner its three-fold dedication to the advancement of letters, science, and art: it should enter on a university programme beginning at the science end both in research and in instruc- tion; it should, as speedily as circumstances might permit, offer facilities for general and liberal edu- cation preparatory to any higher specialization; it should take care of the art end of that three-fold dedication once for all in its early years by taking architecture seriously in the preparation of all of

Houston Public Library, New Main Building, Completed in 1925-Cost $500,000.00-Miss Julia Ideson, Librarian

its plans, thus seeking to secure for the new uni- versity a physical setting of great beauty as well as of more immediate utility.

In accordance with this original programme thus briefly outlined, the institution is being built under an elaborate and comprehensive architectural plan, in buildings of extraordinary beauty, on a campus of three hundred acres, situated four miles from the municipal centre of the city, and facing an open public park of another five hundred acres. Its edu- cational programme was inaugurated, as has been already intimated, in the fall of 1912, by the reception of the first freshman class and a small group of graduate students, and by an academic

The Student Body and Campus of Rice Institute, Houston's Leading Educational Institution

NEW ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TEXAS

festival to which twelve foreign scientists and scholars, and representatives of many American colleges and universities contributed. The institu- tion has a carefully selected faculty of able men, and a hand-picked student body. It has from the start maintained high standards for admission and for graduation. Under its present selective plan of admission it receives but four hundred freshmen, and is obliged to turn away as many as it accepts. It is also compelled to restrict the number of trans- fers applying for advanced standing from other colleges and universities. At present it has some

Carnegie Branch of the Houston Public Library

twelve hundred students, who come from a hundred and fifty towns in Texas, as many as five and twenty states of the Union, and several foreign countries. There are no students with conditions and no special students are received.

The Rice Institute offers a variety of courses of study, carefully coordinated, in the liberal arts, pure science, architecture, and engineering. Of these courses the year is the academic unit, and the failure of a course can only be removed by the repetition of that course or the substitution of an acceptable one. These courses lead after four years or more of study to bachelors' and masters' degrees in arts and in science. Rice has also conferred a few earned degrees of Doctor of Philosophy in math- ematics, physics, and chemistry, respectively. Five of its graduates have come into National Research Fellowships, one has been awarded a Rhodes Schol- arship, and many others have proceeded to grad- uate with professional degrees at other institutions in this country and abroad. Though its first class was not graduated until June, 1916, more than seven hundred members of the Rice Institute appear in the Rice record of war service at home and abroad during the great war.

Undergraduate life at the Rice Institute is highly organized and on a thoroughly democratic basis. There are no fraternities or sororities. Every en- couragement is given to outdoor sports of all sorts. On the academic side these undergraduates have unusual advantages in individual instruction in small classes and sections, in a library which already has extensive collections of American and foreign lit- erary and scientific periodicals, in scientific equip- ment for instruction and investigation in mathe- matics, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, and architecture, which is not excelled in the South, and

in independent laboratory establishments already built, for physics and chemistry which are compar- able with any in the country. Moreover, the orig- inal facilities offered the students so generously out of the founder's philanthropy have already been supplemented by private benefactions on the part of friends of the new institution providing lecture- ships in public affairs, in civics and philanthropy, in music, a number of endowed scholarships, and a loan fund for promising students in need of finan- cial assistance.

The Rice Institute has already made substantial contributions to the material, intellectual, and spir- itual welfare of Texas and the Southwest. These contributions it has been able to make through the men and money and freedom so generously provided originally by the founder. By virtue of the trustees' sound and conservative financial policy, and equally sound and progressive educational programme, commensurate high standards of requirement and achievement on the part of the professors and stu- dents, and an altogether gratifying justification of the institution in the place already attained by its graduates in public service and private enterprise, the Rice Institute has early reached such a success- ful stage in its development that with some confi- dence it may begin to expect further private and perhaps public support towards the fuller realization of its far-reaching plans. Though initially hand- somely endowed, its resources are far from adequate to the building of anything like a complete, modern university. It needs money, and a great deal of money, money for the endowment of new professor- ships and in particular traveling fellowships; money for a library building; money for a chapel; money for a great public hall; money for a gymnasium; money for more residential halls for men; money for its college for women; money for its school of fine arts; money for its graduate schools, of law, medicine, engineering, education, business adminis-

Houston Heights Branch of the Public Library

tration, and for all the other brain-working pro- fessions of our time which are steadily being ele- vated to foundations on college training. Millions for men, and millions for the construction and en- dowment of buildings. Indeed, the Rice Institute is prepared wisely to administer tomorrow another additional gift of ten million, and such a gift would multiply ten-fold the original ten million of the founder.

HISTORY OF THE HOUSTON HARBOR

By COL. THOS. H. BALL, Counsel Port Commission

A S early as 1825, what is known today as the Houston Ship Channel was used as a water way by the early settlers of this section. Sail boats worked their way up the tide water stream of Buffalo Bayou, and in the sixties the steam boat traffic began. The steamship line between Hous- ton and New York was es- tablished by Commodore Chas. Morgan, and shallow draft side-wheel steamers were used. When the cotton warehouses and compresses were built at Houston a large barge traffic handling cotton was built up between the warehouses and Galveston.

The River and Harbor Act passed by Congress March 3, 1899, provided for the construction of the Houston Ship Channel to the depth of twenty-five feet, and a few years thereafter the actual dredging commenced. The progress made was slow until 1910, when the local interests proposed to provide for one-half of the cost of the building of the twenty- five foot channel. Thereafter Congress appropriated one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and the Navigation District comprising Harris County issued bonds in the same amount and the contracts were let for the project. The channel to a depth of twenty-five feet was completed on September 7th, 1914.

It was soon apparent that the channel was inad- equate for the traffic and on March 2nd, 1919, Con- gress approved the project to deepen the channel to thirty feet, and to widen it from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty feet across the bay and from one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet from Morgan's Point to the Turning Basin. The local interests were asked to provide the sum of one million three hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars towards this cost, which was estimated at

Houston Harbor

about four million dollars. In September, 1925, the thirty-foot channel was completed.

When the twenty-five-foot channel was completed the city of Houston under a three million dollar bond issue had terminals constructed at the Turning Basin providing 3,649 feet of wharf space with tran- sit sheds and supporting warehouses and sections

of Public Belt Railroad to connect with other lines and serve the oil refineries and other port industries, and a large traffic was soon built up. In November, 1919, the United States Shipping Board Steamer "Merry Mount" carried the first cargo of cotton, consisting of 23,319 bales and from that time on the movement of this commodity has increased steadily and on April 3rd, 1924, on the Steamship "Ida Zo" of the Odera Line, (Italian) the millionth bale was loaded for the cotton season beginning August 1, 1923. A total of 1,868,440 bales were shipped during season 1924 and 1925, and 447,969 for the first two months of 1925-1926 season.

Along with the movement of cotton, shipments of other commodities have kept pace, and during 1924 a total of 949,923 tons of fuel, gas and lubri- cating oils and gasoline were exported, while 627,572 tons of crude and fuel oil were imported and 2,631,- 248 tons were moved coastwise. Large shipments of scrap iron, iron and steel articles, structural

Loading Cargo at Houston Harbor on Sea-going Vessels Destined to Foreign Ports

steel, canned goods, groceries, cotton seed cake and meal, fuel, lime and cement, and approximately one million tons of sand and shell are handled locally on the channel. The story of the ship movements is briefly told in the increase of arrivals and de- partures from 425 in 1920 to 1907 in 1924, and 1686 vessels for the first nine months of 1925.

The terminal facilities have been added to and improved by the city of Houston, and by the Nav- igation District, which on October 1, 1922, took over, under a lease agreement with the city of Houston, all the latter's wharf facilities. On January 1, 1925, the new facilities were completed. Several wharves have been completed by private enterprises and others are under construction, these private facil- ities such as the Houston Compress Company plant, while primarily for the handling of cotton will handle other commodities as well. At present there are 45 industries located on the main channel with an estimated capital investment of over One Hundred Million Dollars and a daily payroll of about Thirty Thousand Dollars. There are twenty-two industries, in addition to the above, located on the light draft

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NEW ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TEXAS

channel above the Turning Basin, with an estimated capital investment of Twelve Million Dollars and a daily payroll of about Five Thousand Dollars.

The Houston Lighting and Power Company has constructed the first unit of a huge electric power plant which will cost complete approximately Ten Million Dollars, in order to provide adequate power for these industries on the channel. There was put in operation on July 1st, 1924, the Port Terminal Railroad Association that operates all the facilities of the Public Belt Railroad, connecting with the main trunk lines entering the city and providing for a neutral switching organization to handle all traffic to and from the Port Terminals and indus- tries with equal dispatch and without discrimination to all of the 17 railroads reaching the city. The arrangement is proving a very satisfactory solution of the railroad and port terminal problem, and with the extension of the Public Belt Railroad and this service along each side of the channel every indus- try is guaranteed the maximum of rail and water service.

The port is operated by the Navigation and Canal Commission, made up of five members, who serve without pay. They are appointed, two by the city

and two by the county commissioners and the chair- man by the city and county commissioners in joint session. The period of service is two years, the terms expiring alternate years. The director of the port handles the affairs under this board. The board controls the commercial activities of the port and the construction and maintenance of the termi- nal facilities, and through co-operation with the Federal Government the construction and improve- ment of the waterway. All wharves and railroad facilities constructed and operated by the city of Houston in 1915 and 1918 were transferred to the Port Commission under a lease agreement on Octo- ber 1st, 1922, for a period of thirty years. The city is to be paid the net revenue after operation and maintenance charges were deducted from the gross receipts. The Navigation District will have the di- rection of all further construction.

The Port Commission are made up of the follow- ing men: R. S. Sterling, chairman; D. S. Cage, vice chairman; R. J. Cummins, Ben Campbell, W. T. Carter, Jr .; B. C. Allin, director of the port; Charles Crotty, assistant; J. A. Schiller, chief engineer; E. T. Davis, assistant chief engineer; H. H. Rose, chief clerk; H. J. Scott, superintendent wharves; Thos. H. Ball, counsel, and H. L. Washburn, auditor.

HISTORY OF HOTEL ACTIVITIES IN TEXAS

By R. E. PELLOW Chairman Board of Directors Texas Hotel Keepers' Association

T HE hotel industry has more than kept pace with the industrial and commercial develop- ment of Texas, and there is no question that the far-seeing men who have invested upwards of $150,000,000 in hotels in this state have done their full share in the general advancement. The fact that Texas has now a large number of absolutely first-class hotels that have a national reputation among hotel men, as well as goodly sprinkling of good hotels in the smaller cities and towns has been an important factor in bringing the opportunities for profitable investment in the state to the attention of men of wealth and influence in other states. The fame of the character of entertainment to be se- cured in any of the larger cities of the state has become widespread, assuring tourists that to what- ever section of the state their urge of the moment may take them they will find all of comfort and of luxury that the hotels of the metropolitan cities have accustomed them to. The result of this reputation is more farreaching than is recognized by many of the citizens themselves.

A retrospective glance does not need to go so very many years back to reveal a condition with regard to hotel accommodations in Texas that bears a strik- ing contrast to present-day conditions. The delight- ful winter climate of San Antonio, the wonderful beach at Galveston and at Corpus Christi brought a limited number of seasonal visitors regardless of the equally limited accommodations afforded, and when men of courage and vision ventured upon the con- struction and equipment of hotels in keeping with the demand for the best that had been created by the splendid hostelries of the northern cities, local wiseacres shook their heads and predicted disaster. But the outcome of the early ventures proved the wisdom of the pioneers, and the cities of the state,

one after the other, took up the idea, and each new hotel built outshone the last. Tourists who were attracted by the appeal of climate remained to in- vest in business and in manufacturing, homes were established and the cities grew in wealth and ad- vanced in culture, creating demands for more and better hotels, which added their appeal in turn, at- tracting constantly widening streams of homeseek- ers in this favored land, new additions to the in- vestors of their wealth in productive enterprises, un- til Texas has taken her place among the leaders of the states, not only in the value of her primary products, but in the volume of her manufactured products, and in the splendid public improvements which mark her many cities.

In every city of the state, among those which have passed the hundred thousand mark, and in not a few of those of lesser population, are to be found hostelries that represent investments which put them in the category of the much aligned "big business." Million dollar hotel plants fail to excite more than passing mention in the news columns, and along with this evidence of an advanced civilization are to be found all the facilities for outdoor sports which have come to be a necessary adjunct of any city which attempts to make appeal to the growing class of wealthy people who seek a warm climate in winter and a cool climate in summer.

In short, probably the most influential factor in upbuilding of the cities of the state have been the splendid caravansaries which are in every center of population the rallying point of the business life of the community, the scene of the most elegant social functions, and the sure reflection of the stage of progress, financially, socially and intellectually that the city has made.

IIISTORY OF GALVESTON By ALEXANDER RUSSELL Galveston Tribune

A S many as half a dozen more or less authentic records of the beginning of Galveston have been written and after perusing all of them, the reader is permitted the liberty of exercising his option as to the one he prefers, for after all, it makes little difference as to which of the narratives one follows, all of them agree that some time between the year 1686 and 1816 the island upon which the city is now located, was used by Indians as & hunting and

In 1820 Lafitte seized an American ship in Mat- agorda Bay and for that act the United States gov- ernment sent an armed vessel to break up the ren- dezvous. Later in that year Lafitte quit the island and made his headquarters at one place or another until 1826 when he is said to have died in Yucatan. When Lafitte left Galveston island, it was occupied by General Long, who, with a small body of adven- turers, had been camped on the Bolivar peninsular,

Galvez Hotel, the Popular Hostelry of Galveston, Open Throughout the Year. This Hotel is Well and Favorably Known to Tourists all Over the World

fishing resort and designated as rattlesnake island. because of the number of these reptiles found here.

In 1816, supposedly on Sept. 12, Don Jose Man- uel Herrera, commissioner of the Mexican revolu- tionary, or Morelos government, to the United States together with Don Luis Aury, a gallant naval of- ficer, landed on Galveston island with the purpose of making this place their headquarters in their en- deavor to wrest Mexico from the Spanish yoke.

In November the same year, General Francisco Za- vier Mena, with 200 men and a few small ships joined the forces at Galveston and laid out an en- campment. Because of disagreements between the two leaders, Galveston was abandoned early in 1817, being shortly afterwards occupied by the Pirate Lafitte whose headquarters at Barrataria Louisi- ana, had become untenable. Lafitte held a commis- sion as Governor of Texas from the revolutionary government of Mexico, and under the flag of that government he carried out his piratical practices upon Spanish ships, fought with the neighboring Indians and added from time to time to the pop- ulation of the island.

the bay from Galveston, and many of the houses which had been destroyed by Lafitte were rebuilt and occupied. Long became involved in trouble with a band of Indians occupying the western end of the island and failing in his effort to enlist a suf- ficient number of men to assume active operations against the Mexican government, the Island was gradually abandoned and until 1832 again became a hunting and fishing resort for neighboring tribes of red men.

In the year mentioned, Juan N. Seguin, a Mexi- can citizen of the State of Coahuila, was granted a league and labor of land on the eastern end of Gal- veston island, but did nothing with his grant. In the year 1824, Colonel Michael B. Menard, agent and purchaser of the grant of Seguin, petitioned the Alcade of Liberty Territory to put him in posses sion of the one league and labor of land on the eastern extremity of Galveston island, and the pe- tition was granted.

After Texas had gained its independence and set up business as a republic, Colonel Menard offered

NEW ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TEXAS

the Texas congress $50,000 to make good his grant, his offer was accepted and from that hour began the history of what is now one of the greatest seaports of the United States. The city was incorporated in March 1836, John M. Allen being its first mayor. The city was planned and ample provision made for schools, churches, public buildings and parks. Just prior to the battle of San Jacinto, which battle gave to Texas her independence, the government of the republic, forced to flee from its capital at Washing- ton by the approach of Santa Anna, made Galveston its temporary abiding place. During the time the young republic was struggling against Mexico for independence, Galveston was the headquarters for the Texas Navy, consisting of half a dozen small vessels. This navy gave a splendid account of its self when ever a Mexican vessel could be found willing to engage in battle.

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New encyclopedia of Texas, volume 1, Part 11

Author: Davis, Ellis A. Publication date: 1926 Publisher: Dallas, Tex. : Texas development bureau, [1926?] Number of Pages: 1416

Author: Davis, Ellis A.
Publication date: 1926
Publisher: Dallas, Tex. : Texas development bureau, [1926?]
Number of Pages: 1416