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Plumb Bob

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  1. Someone told me that house was moved to that site... can anyone confirm that?
  2. OOPS, I forgot about this photo. This is what is enblazed in my memory of downtown..... this is the REAL reason they should have kept the mansions downtown.
  3. Houston was a planed commercial development. Once the infrastructure was put into place; cotton, oil, and shipping drove it's engine. Look at Frost Town. It's gone. Houston grew so fast, that by 1930 it was, and has stayed the largest city in Texas. Look at the 1891 map and you can see how spread out things were. Many of the "working class" lived in tiny box houses or stayed in apartments or boarding houses; if they lived in the city. You have to remember that there was a trolly service to get around. Here are some postcards of Main Street at around 1910. The original photo: Another postcard. Another promotional postcard. And sadly after the blight set in; the upper crust moved outward, leaving this sort of thing in downtown. (Houston 1944 - in color) There were many high rollers back in the day. The cotton exchange, the railroad, the oil field, made fortunes. As far as population goes, I'm sure that there were at least double the amount of people that lived outside the city limits of a couple of miles. Many labors, farmers, craftsman, along with their families that weren't counted. It sux eggs that all these grand houses are gone, but it appears to be like that in most of the big cities of today. -PB
  4. Hi danax, Yes this is a photograph of the first telegraph line in Houston. It's on the corner of Preston @ Fannin, looking east. This line going down to Galveston. The reason you can't see any wires is because of the very poor quality of the photo. What you have is crude copy. The poles were painted white to keep people from cutting them down and I also assume the same reason they used to whitewash trees. Anyway, see if these images help clear things up for you. There was only one line at first that ran between Houston & Galveston. Also there is a close-up of the 1873 map of Houston. There are only two telegraph lines on this map. One on the north side of CBD and the other heading south. BOB
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