Old Houston Roadways

[Goatman79]

I began to gain interest in an abandoned section of Addicks Fairbanks Rd. in west Houston (present day Eldridge Parkway) when I visited the TexasFreeways website earlier this year. I had known about the seemingly useless segment of old paved road north of Patterson and parallel with Bear Creek Pioneers Park for years, but never knew what it was for.

This spawned a whole new interest in locating other similar abandoned roads on my side of town, because using Historic Aerials and Google Earth, I was able to discover a whole bunch of other roads that have been bypassed, cut off, or re-purposed. I am finding more and more by using the time comparison feature. I thought I would share my information for others with similar interests.

1.)Addicks Fairbanks Rd: (There is a whole thread about this). Find Eldridge Parkway and Patterson Road. Directly north of Patterson and west of the present day Eldridge Parkway is a small portion of the old road pointing north then sharply east. Further south along Eldridge Parkway is another abandoned road that no longer appears on maps called "Lamb Rd." It once led to a farm, but has been closed off for decades. Lamb Rd. will lead you to the mysterious circles cut into the forest, one of which resembles an upside down cross. This used to be some sort of fish farm or other manmade structure, but it is now only a fossil etched into the greenery.

2.)FM 529/Spencer Rd: Before FM 529 intersects the 290 freeway, it takes a slight curve to the south near Golden Gate Drive. If you ignore the curve and follow the map in a straight line, you will see an abandoned segment of the old two-lane Spencer Rd. aiming towards 290. This expansion was done between 1987 & 1989 according to maps, and has been left to decay ever since. FM 529 used to meet up with Hempstead Road until the 290 freeway reached this area of town, and Hempstead Rd. was overrun by the 290 eastbound feeder. The old portion of 529 was barricaded off with concrete guardrail pieces, and has been used as a dumping site for tree branches, and old appliances. You can still see the railroad crossing markings on the pavement, and can still manage to get a car on the old road, although the area has gotten a bit dodgy, and I would not recommend visiting alone.

3.)Little York/Hillcrest: Further along 290 near the Beltway 8 interchange, there is a small asphalt road behind Carpet Texas labeled simply "Little York". It runs east and then turns north, but the freeway bisects the road, which resumes on the other side of the freeway under the name "Hillcrest". The road is barricaded off on both ends, but is still clearly an old two lane blacktop road. The road is pictured as far back as 1944 on Google Earth, long before any freeway reached out into west Houston.

4.)Telge Rd: South of 290, but west of the current Telge Road path, is an older, narrower road that is labeled Cameron Rd. on maps, but it is now off-limits to public traffic. The road, which runs in a straight line, unlike modern Telge Road, is now enclosed within the perimeter fence of the factories there, and is used as an intercompany transit route. The general public cannot get on this road, but it can still be seen in aerial photos.

5.)Cypress North Houston Rd: Between Huffmeister and Eldridge Parkway, Cypress North Houston runs east/west, and then curves smoothly to the northeast near Tall Forest Drive. This was done to bypass a dangerous curve (circa 1970s), but they left the old corner of road intact, which now serves as the entrance to a small private school. If you use the compare feature on Historic Aerials, you will see how the newer alignment plowed through the first line of houses in the nearby subdivision. This also brought a lot of other homes dangerously close to the roadside.

6.)FM 2920: Just west of the intersection of 2920 and Stuebner-Airline Rd., there is an old abandoned segment of 2920 that has been closed off since the mid 1970's. The old road runs parallel with the north fence of Hooks Airport, and on weekends, private vendors use it to sell arts and crafts. Much of the road has been overgrown with greenery, but you can see the clearing in the treeline where 2920 used to meet up with Stuebner Airline.

7.)Ora St: At Hempstead Highway and Dacoma, there is Ora St, a small residential drive that once led to a tract of small houses. The homes were reduced to slabs, and Ora is now closed off, part of the property of the nearby industrial business.

8.)Addicks-Howell Rd.: Not technically abandoned, just without purpose, is the old north/south alignment of Addicks Howell Rd. Before SH6 was constructed, this road was the main artery south of Addicks linking it with Howellville to the south. The old road remains open today, but is not exactly a necessary path, just an alternative.

9.)Jackrabbit Rd: Just south of Hempstead Road, Jackrabbit runs north, and then takes a sharp curve to the left to meet up with Highway 6. Before Highway 6, Jackrabbit ran straight into Hempstead, without a curve. If you keep looking north of this curve, you will see a small section of exposed asphalt & gravel that used to be Jackrabbit's old path directly to Hempstead Road. I imagine the railroad crossing was also moved.

I would love to post pictures of these roads, but cannot figure out how. It only gives me a blank to fill in a URL code, but I don't know how to obtain this code information from my picture files.

[IronTiger]

I like this topic. You can kind of see them on Google Earth (but since there's no street view, and SV is bad resolution anyway). House & Hahl Road out near Cypress was turned into a subdivision mostly.

Near Alvin, some abandoned highway sits near the north end of the loop. Although the loop existed since 60s, sometime, circa 2005, the intersection was redone, and now a chunk of disconnected asphalt is now there.

The Beltway was realigned some point in the past (1980s?), creating a four-lane (no space for frontage) "Old North Belt Dr." and another road (two way).

Near I-45 and Saunders, an entire subdivision was leveled, its roads gone.

[Ross]

Goatman, I've used tinypic.com to post photos on other forums. Once you put the pictures there, it gives you a link to embed.

[IronTiger]

Also, Dairy Ashford Road has a cut-off section called Stiles Road near 59. The railroad crossing closed off before '95. And speaking of railroad crossings, there were lots on the railroad paralleling Westpark (now gone). The railroad crossing signals (with gates, too!) remained in areas after the closing of the roads, and even after the abandonment of the railroad.

[sevfiv]

You can either attach images to the post (in the "full editor" there are "choose file" and "attach file" buttons) or host them somewhere and insert the link to the image with the picture button --

I just posted some of the Ora St. area in the Hempstead Drive In thread - here's a street photo:

[Goatman79]

Interesting, I did some browsing around Google Earth and found a few of those locations. I found Stiles Rd off Dairy Ashford near 59, although the resolution doesn't date back far enough to find out when it was made. I also had some fun touring the Westpark Tollway before and after....so many things have changed down there since the late 90's. Westpark and Hempstead Rd. have a lot in common.

I have over 250 photos of Hempstead Highway, just in preparation for when they finally make a tollway out of it. Every time I drive on it, I feel like I am visiting a terminally ill cancer patient in the hospital. I never know when the day will come when the old road, in the blink of an eye, will be overtaken.

I didn't find the leveled subdivision off I-45 and Saunders....mainly because I didn't know where to look for Saunders, but I did find some other interesting sights along I-45 using the time travel feature. Northline Mall at I-45 and Crosstimbers before, during, and after its demolition, Landmark Chevrolet before and after it's heyday, and an old apartment complex on I-45 and Gillespie Rd. just inside the Beltway that was demolished in the mid 2000's. The only reason it stuck out in my mind is because I remember driving past it while it was open, thinking how seedy it looked. Dozens of hispanic prostitutes and drifters hanging around like it was some sort of 24 hour bordello.

[sevfiv]

I found the Saunders subdivision off of 59 - it looks like it was gone by April 2005 and the roads and houses were just being built in the 1953 view.

Also, here are block book maps - the area was Hall Park and/or Farrington Place:

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v079/AE1997_79_0079.jpg

http://books.tax.hctx.net/v068/AE1997_68_0027.jpg

Harris County Flood Control owns them so Halls Bayou must have had issues..

2011:

April 2005:

February 2004:

December 1978:

[Tumbleweed_Tx]

Dairy Ashford was called Stiles Rd south of the DA/W Bellfort intersection. It was a dirt road until the mid/late 70's.

In the mid 80's, they added in the curve that took it to the Spur 41 intersection with Alt 90, closed the railroad crossing and alt 90 intersection, and renamed the section of Stiles to Dairy Ashford, leaving just the end of Stiles where a few houses were/might still be.

A few years later, they widened the road to it's current configuration.

I took that road every day going to school at the D-Word.

[sevfiv]

Another place that is interesting is Brownwood in Baytown (now the Baytown Nature Center). Last time I went there were still visible slabs and other subdivision remnants.

This was MacArthur street, now a nature trail:

..and here's a HAIF discussion about it:

[Urban Commando]

For those interested, the Saunders/Langley neighborhood is along US 59 behind the Sak-N-Save store and adjacent to Halls Bayou between Parker and Little York. The homes were destroyed by T.S. Allison and I believe the government bought them out,condemned the area, and raised it. The streets were destroyed to prevent them becoming a dumping ground and hang out for illegal activity...although a trip through that area will cause you to debate the success in that.

It was and still is a pretty rough area. It will never be developed again and will probably just be let go to seed although a park MAY eventually result from some of it...as is already the case behind the Fiesta across the freeway.

[NenaE]

Speaking of Telge Rd. (Post #1), it's interesting how Huffmeister curves onto Telge at the Tin Hall location (it becomes Tin Hall Rd.) w/ a Cypress Gun Club Rd. running perpendicular, off of it.. At the intersection of Telge & Tin Hall Rd. the road name changes back to Huffmeister. All of the changes happen on the same straight piece of road. Hmmm...must have been an important place, Huffmeister bows to it, if only for a short spanse. Does the gun club road lead to the old location of Tin Hall. My parents knew of it, said it had been there for a very long time.

[Tumbleweed_Tx]

Tin Hall opened in the 1890's, and was the only gathering place for people in that area.

It was rebuilt a few times (all wooden structure on stilts).

we did a few shows there in the 1990's- I don't even know if the structure is still there (if not, good riddance, i hated that place)

[IronTiger]

Looks like Old Telephone Road had this done to it in the 1960s or 1970s. Part of it was demolished for a drain ditch expansion in the 1990s, the rest has had pavement removed.

[Goatman79]

While exploring old maps, I discovered an isolated segment of Old North Houston-Rosslyn Rd. on the southeast corner of SH-249 and North Houston Rosslyn Rd. The road appears in photos as far back as 1943, but has been abandoned since approximately the 1970's since the newer road was built to the west. Part of the old road now serves as a parking lot for a church, and the other half, which borders some shady apartments, is almost totally overgrown on both shoulders, but can still be traversed on foot (though I highly recommend not going alone in this part of town). Get your pictures taken now, because urban development trends suggest that this abandoned road, which sits alone in a grassy field, will likely be built over in the near future.

[plumber2]

Hollister at Hammerly? Anyone remember that curve?

[Goatman79]

I don't remember it personally, but I sure found it on the map. That looked like a pretty nasty dead man's curve. Apparently the curve was bypassed in the 70's at some point, and an apartment complex was built right over it.

[IronTiger]

There's another curve south on N Houston Rosslyn Road near Log Hollow Road that looks like it was taken out circa 1990.

[crooow579]

There's another curve south on N Houston Rosslyn Road near Log Hollow Road that looks like it was taken out circa 1990.

Yes, that part of N. Houston-Rosslyn was bypassed in the early 90s when the road was widened to 4 lanes. There was a bar and grill there called Zach's Shack. It was popular with the employees of the oil and gas companies that still line that road. I went there once for a wedding reception and stickers advertising those businesses lined the walls.

[djrage]

Looks like Old Telephone Road had this done to it in the 1960s or 1970s. Part of it was demolished for a drain ditch expansion in the 1990s, the rest has had pavement removed.

Where exactly is this?

[Dagnabbit]

Where exactly is this?

I'm guessing it's the part of telephone road thats just south of Hobby airport and north of Braniff St.

[plumber2]

Seawall Blvd. in Galveston was realigned sometime in the late 1950's when Ft. Crockett was abandoned. There is a section of the old roadway still visible just north of the present boulevard, between Academy and the San Luis hotel. Apparently the original road veried around some seawall gun implacements.

[billyf]

Hollister at Hammerly? Anyone remember that curve?

We were looking up my friends condo on Historical Aerials and saw that this road went right through it. The remains can be seen on the 1978 areial on Google Earth. The condo was built in 1980.

Edited June 3, 2012 by billyf

[NenaE]

Seawall Blvd. in Galveston was realigned sometime in the late 1950's when Ft. Crockett was abandoned. There is a section of the old roadway still visible just north of the present boulevard, between Academy and the San Luis hotel. Apparently the original road veried around some seawall gun implacements.

That's interesting Plumber2, I'll have to look at that. What's going on with the Crockett Buildings? Are they still standing?

[Earlydays]

Seawall Blvd. in Galveston was realigned sometime in the late 1950's when Ft. Crockett was abandoned. There is a section of the old roadway still visible just north of the present boulevard, between Academy and the San Luis hotel. Apparently the original road veried around some seawall gun implacements.

The San Luis sits on top off the old gun implacements...they are still there.

[Ross]

The old alignment is clearly visible in Google Earth on the oldest aerials

[Goatman79]

I'll have to check that out next time Im on the seawall. I knew about the gun turret installations in front of the San Luis, and always point it out to my passengers when I ride past it. If any of y'all remember Sea Arama, it also used to be along the seawall near the long fishing pier that got destroyed by Hurricane Ike. Numerically, it would have been located approximately at 89th street, if such a road exists. I managed to get inside and take plenty of photos before it got bulldozed in 2007.

[Earlydays]

....there were also gun implacements behind the seawall on the east end of the island. They were still there in the early '60's.

[FilioScotia]

***Seawall Blvd. in Galveston was realigned sometime in the late 1950's when Ft. Crockett was abandoned.***

Fort Crockett was never "abandoned". The army deactivated it as a military post in 1948, and it became the Galveston Recreation Center for the Fourth Army. Fishery research started at the fort in 1950, and in 1957 it was acquired by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Bureau of Commercial Fisheries acquired 10 buildings there. The fort was transferred to the National Marine Fisheries Service in 1970, and the Department of Commerce began renovating the complex in 1998. The Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary moved its offices to the Post Exchange building in 2006.

Just last year, Galveston celebrated 100 years of history with Fort Crockett.

Here's a link to that story. http://galvestondail...m/story/266278/

I was surprised to learn that Fort Crockett was not a Civil War fort. It was built in 1897, but didn't acquire the name "Fort Crockett" until 1903, when it was rebuilt after the 1900 hurricane.

Edited June 14, 2012 by FilioScotia

[IronTiger]

MacGregor Way looks like it had that section through the trees cut off in the last past five years (I vaguely remember a HAIF discussion on it).

Marvin Taylor Exercise Trail looks like it must have been a road at sometime, though it looks like it was abandoned by the late 1970s.

[Native Son]

I like the Old Main Loop which ran from near Craghead and ran all the way through the Astrodome site