Member since:
April 12, 2007

A NEW YEAR, A NEW CITY

January 02, 2009 04:23 AM EST (Updated: January 02, 2009 02:44 PM EST)

views: 213 | comments: 67

A New Year - A New City

- Robert Burnham

This isn't new. I have lived my entire adult life with a new city becoming my home every year or two. I have watched warships being built in Bath, Maine, gorged myself on the international treats of Quincy markets in Boston, Massachusetts, stood beside the Liberty bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and I have watched the sunrise over the ocean at Daytona Beach, Florida. I have witnessed the great snows of Buffalo, New York, endured one very nasty 'Hurricane Hugo' in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and hiked the dry riverbeds of drought-laden San Antonio. I met a charming and lovely lady in Tucson, Arizona, dined with a beautiful preacher's daughter in Dallas, and once made love with a dark-haired Jewish princess in Raleigh, North Carolina. And now it is Houston.

What is new, is this feeling of 'belonging' to a place so quickly. I hope the feeling last. It is appropriate to begin my sharing of Houston lore with a little history and to begin my photographic record of the same from City Hall Plaza.

With its independence, Texas saw the arrival of many pioneers and prospectors. Among them were two New York land speculators shopping Texas for an ideal interior location to establish a port city on the western shores of the Caribbean. To build a port city that link Texas to the outside world. The brothers John and Augustus Allen had heard of a canal-like stream called Buffalo bayou that merged into the San Jacinto River to the east and meandered westward through fertile farmland and cotton fields. Failure to acquire land at Harrisburg near the junction of the river and the bayou, they followed the stream farther inland until they arrived at its confluence with White Oak Bayou which proved a suitable spot for vessels to turn around and head back to sea. That spot, where they stepped ashore to found their township, is now Allen's Landing Park at the foot of Main Street in downtown Houston.

In August, 1836, the brothers struck a deal and bought roughly 7,000 acres from the widow of John Austin for a little more than $9,000, and through great wisdom, struck political pay-dirt by naming their town Houston, in honor of their friend, hero and Texas greatest citizen, General Sam. Even the visionary Allen brothers would be astounded and flabbergasted if they could return today to see what has happened to their little bayou town they inaugurated in 1836. Yes, they did promote their new settlement with some fanciful claims but even they could not have possibly foreseen that in less than 200 years it would become the largest city in Texas and the fourth largest metropolitan area in the United States.

My guess is with such a namesake as Sam Houston, it may have not been foreseen; but it damn well sure had been inevitable. Welcome to Houston me mateys; please allow Streaker to show you around the City Hall Plaza.