FilioScotia

Maybe it's your screen settings. It reads fine on mine. Click on "View" and increase the size of the text. Also, the webpage itself allows you to zoom in on the text, Just like the maps on Google Maps.

I can offer personal testimony that this website can be very useful in searching out family histories. My paternal great great grandfather died in Austin County in the late 1860s, and I had been scouring the Internet for anything I could find about him. One day, after Googling his name and various combinations of his widow's name and where they lived, a link to this Portal of Texas History website turned up and you won't believe what I found. It was a link to the Legal Notices Page in the April 1869 edition of the Hempstead Texas newspaper The Texas Countryman. It was a notice setting a date for probating my ancestor's estate, and dividing it between his widow and surviving heirs, all of whom are named in the notice. It had an added bonus of naming an ancestor I didn't know I had - a child who was my grandfather's half sister. It blew me away. To illustrate how this helped me, I am providing a link to the notice to show the phenomenal amount of information I was able to glean from it. http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth180339/m1/2/zoom/?zoom=5&lat=3551&lon=4308.5&layers=BT Based on my experience, I highly recommend using this site in family history searches.

Not sure which Ranger Drive-In you remember, but the Ranger I remember was at Telephone Road and Holmes Road behind Gulfgate. A long way north of Hobby. That was long before the South Loop cut through on the Holmes Road footprint and blew out a lot of businesses that had been there a long time. As I recall, the Ranger had the hottest car-hops on that end of Houston.

Not sure which Ranger Drive-In you remember, but the Ranger I remember was at Telephone Road and Holmes Road behind Gulfgate. A long way north of Hobby. That was long before the South Loop cut through on the Holmes Road footprint and blew out a lot of businesses that had been there a long time. As I recall, the Ranger had the hottest car-hops on that end of Houston.

I don't believe Houston will ever annex "all" or even "part" of NW Harris County. There are too many voters who would be angry enough to vote out any Mayor and/or City Council members who voted to annex them. A few thousand votes one way or the other can send a Mayor or Council Member back to private life. Houston is more likely to do what is known as carefully gerrymandered "strip annexation", such as what it did along Hwy 249 from the Beltway northward past Willowbrook Mall. They are very careful to avoid residential areas and annex only the commercial frontage on both sides of the highway. This tactic allows Houston to collect commercial property and sales taxes, without having to provide infra-structure and city services that a large scale residential annexation would require it to do.

Savitch was not a Houstonian. Far from it. She was born in Kennett Square Pennsylvania, coincidentally, a small town not very far from where she died in the town of New Hope. She was educated in the east and most of her TV career was there in the northeast. As a retired Houston reporter who covered many of the same stories she covered, I can tell you she absolutely detested Houston and the south in general. Houston was "the sticks" for her, and she made no secret of her disdain. She was in Houston just getting enough experience and exposure to help her get back to "big time" TV up north. She and a guy she was dating both drowned in that New Hope canal that night. On October 23, 1983, Savitch had dinner with Martin Fischbein, vice-president of the New York Post. After their meal at Odette's Restaurant, they began to drive home about 7:15 pm, with Fischbein behind the wheel and Savitch in the back seat with her dog, Chewy. Fischbein may have missed posted warning signs in a heavy rainfall, and he drove out of the wrong exit from the restaurant and up the towpath of the old Pennsylvania Canal's Delaware Division on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River. The car veered too far to the left and went over the edge into the shallow water of the canal. After falling approximately fifteen feet and landing upside down, the station wagon sank into deep mud that sealed the doors shut. Savitch and Fischbein were trapped inside as water poured in. A local resident found the wreck at about 11:30 that night. Fischbein's body was still strapped behind the wheel, with Savitch and her dog in the rear seat. After the autopsies, the coroner ruled that both had drowned. He noted that Fischbein was apparently knocked unconscious in the wreck but Savitch had struggled to escape. There was no finding that drugs or alcohol played any part in the crash. A truly tragic ending to be sure. Personally, and professionally, I never thought she was as "great" a reporter or anchor as she thought she was. All she had going for her was her ego driven ambition and a willingness to use her looks to open the right doors. She was also very high strung and one of the most tightly wound people I ever met.

***If anybody is still visiting this site and has access to the Westbury60.jpg picture that has been mentioned on this site and the Plane Crash in Meyerland site, could you please post the picture again.*** Is this the photo you're talking about? http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=2490

***Great. So, our tax dollars will be hard at work feeding, clothing and educating this scumbag.*** Would you rather have him out on the streets robbing people?

I found an article with an old photo of this grisly memorial to dead wolves at Hwy 6 and FM 529. Remember this was far outside the city, way "out in the country" at that time. NORTHWEST HOUSTON — During a time when Northwest Houston farms were pestered by wolves snatching up chickens and calves at their liking, one local rancher, Charles Grisbee, stepped up and sent a message to the predators: Wolf Corner. Grisbee, a dairy farmer with a ranch off Jackrabbit Road, started hanging dead wolves in the 1950s at the corner of FM 1960 and FM 529, which became known as Wolf Corner. “He would do this because wolves were getting the baby calves and lambs,” said Celeste Haltom, Grisbee’s niece. “He was very proud of it because he was helping all of the other farmers and ranchers.” At the time when Grisbee hung the wolves, Harris County collected a bounty on wolves, foxes and other wildlife. The county began collecting the bounty in 1955, according to a Houston Chronicle article published in 1970. Hunters who turned in the ears of the animals they killed to the county clerk would receive $5 for each kill. “On Jan. 1, 1970, Grisbee collected $140 for 27 wolves and a fox killed in the Cypress area during 1969,” the Chronicle article reported. “He has earned $645 in bounty money in the last four years.” Despite the large payoff, Grisbee, who had been hunting wolves to protect local farm animals for about fifty years, told the Chronicle he hunted the wolves as a hobby, not for the money. “I help out people who call, and it mostly just pays for the gasoline,” he told the Chronicle in 1970. Since Grisbee’s collection of wolves on Wolf Corner was so large, it often drew attention and visitors from inside of the city of Houston, Haltom said. Barry Bogs, Grisbee’s grandson, remembers driving out to Wolf Corner to look at his grandfather’s killings when he was a child.“I remember going over with my father and grandfather and smelling the wolves from the corner,” Bogs said. “The telephone guys had phone boxes there, and they did not appreciate the smell.” The practice of hanging wolves on fence posts was common in areas where the animals threatened livestock, according to a Chronicle article published in 1968. The people who hung the wolves believed other wolves would avoid the area upon seeing their dead companions. It also let local farmers know that a neighbor was looking out for their wellbeing, Haltom said. “At the time, [FM 1960] was the main thoroughfare, and Wolf Corner let all of the farmers and ranchers know he was helping them,” she said. Grisbee used steel traps and cyanide guns to kill the wolves, and he continued to hang wolves at Wolf Corner until he became ill in the mid-1970s. Around the same time, Harris County also stopped paying a bounty for wolves due to complaints that the bounty was ineffective at controlling the predators, according to the Chronicle. “It was a labor of love,” Bogs said. “People highly respected him for having done it, and it was something he loved to do.”

Wolves were common in this area up until the 1970s and early 80s. In those days the state paid a bounty for killing the wolves. All you had to do was kill one and cut off its ears for proof. I think the bounty was fifty dollars, and that was just one of the things that led to their extinction in this area. There were so many wolves in NW Harris County that some yahoo out there hung their pelts on a big sign at what is now the intersection of Hwy 6 and FM 529. People out there called that intersection Wolf Corner. There was a fairly lengthy discussion of this here on HAIF back in August of 2006. Here's a link back to it: http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/7500-wolf-corner/

As I recall, Baytown's Brownwood neighborhood had to be abandoned because of land subsidence. The area was sinking into the San Jacinto River and it finally became unliveable. Residents were forced to move out and find higher ground. That area is now completely underwater.

You're right about Thom. He was a great reporter at KTRK, and as a longtime friend who worked with him long ago at KPRC Radio I can tell you he has always had a hellaciously funny and profane sense of humor. I wasn't there but I can tell you exactly how that "out-take" came into being. He was waiting to go live from that scene, and as all reporters do in that situation he was cutting up and clowning around with the guys in the satellite truck. It's a "test-test-test" that gives the crew a chance to make sure the video and audio levels are up and ready to go on the air. The tape was probably tucked away and forgotten deep inside the KTRK archives, along with countless other similar examples that no one will ever see on the air. I'm guessing that somebody at KTRK found it while searching for something else and thought it would be fun to put it on YouTube. BTW: It is a fact that EVERY TV station has a private file of videos like this one. They're called office reels and party reels, and they're shown only at private parties for station employees. No outsiders. They're mostly out-takes and bloopers like those we see on YouTube, but you would not believe some of the things TV people do and say when they don't know the camera is on.

You're right about Jack Cato. He and I were friends for many years going back to the 1950s. In private he made no secret of his conservative leanings, but on the air he was straight down the middle. That was easy for him because 99 percent of the stories he covered were crime stories which don't have a political angle. There's no such thing as a conservative or liberal murder, or fatal car accident. Jack did come out of the closet in his last few years when he left TV and got into politics. He was elected County Treasurer as a Republican -- twice. He was one of the greatest guys I ever knew and I still miss him.

Knute Rockne and Gus Dorais (note spelling) both graduated from ND in 1913. Rockne went to work as an assistant coach the following year, 1914, so he was probably on the sidelines of that 1915 game in Houston. He became head coach in 1918, and died in a plane crash in 1931. Gus Dorais also went into coaching. He coached at several colleges around the country, and he was head coach for the NFL Detroit Lions in the 1940s. He was backfield coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers for one year in 1952. He died in 1954. I am fascinated by the fact that when he was ND's QB, Dorais stood 5 feet 7 and weighed 145 pounds. I haven't been able to find Rockne's physical stats, but he was probably about the same size. They were tiny compared to today's giants. A lot of people think Rockne and Dorais invented the forward pass. Not true. The pass had been around for some time, but it was only used as a desperation last resort when a team was trying to come from behind late in a game. Rockne and Dorais were the first to make the pass an important part of their offense and use it throughout the game. It made national news when they used it confuse and beat Army 35 to 13 in 1913. The fans loved it and it revolutionized the game.

I think we can finally state conclusively that the Jim West mansion has been "saved", although what it has been saved for isn't making everyone happy. Those people need to get over it. As for me, I am delighted with the mansion's newest incarnation under Hakeem Olajuwon and I hope it succeeds. Check out this item in the Chronicle. http://www.chron.com/life/article/Clear-Lake-s-West-mansion-starts-new-chapter-with-4211422.php?cmpid=hottopicshpatfpm

Smart traders know the stock market and which stocks will rise and fall depending on the weather, and they can make some serious money buying and selling certain stocks. Example: They know where a hurricane will hit, so they could buy stock in construction companies and those that make and sell building materials, and they could sell their stock in luxury hotels and resorts in the area, BEFORE the storm hits. And you're right. It's not "insider" trading. It's SMART trading.

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Turns out my memory was faulty on who the sponsor was, and faulty about what he was talking about. After some Internet searching, I've found that the commercial I'm talking about was for McDonald's. Early in the 1985-86 season, McDonalds started airing a local commercial that showed Hakeem doing his trademark "dream shake" move and dunking a McNugget in some sauce at the same time. That's when he uttered the word, in his thick Nigerian accent, that has been linked to him ever since: "Unbeatable".

Looks like a very high-end boutique to me. Way above my pay grade. Don't get me wrong. I salute Hakeem for using his wealth to turn that beautiful old mansion into something new. He's probably the only person in town who could and would do this, so we we can give thanks that he's the one who bought it from the previous owners. This story makes me very happy. I wonder if he's going to be doing TV commercials. I can hear him now. "Come to the DR34M ! It's unbittable." * *(For Houston newbies: Back in the 80s or 90s Hakeem did some local TV commercials -- I forget whose they were -- and his last line was always about the prices -- "They're unbeatable." Except when he said it with his Nigerian accent, it came out "They're unbittable." It got to be something of a local joke.)

I remember the bowling alley in the Merchant's Park Shopping Center on North Shepherd at West 11th. It was where I bowled the best game of my life one night back in the 60s. I bowled 8 straight strikes spread out over two games, and finished that second game at 238. It was a memorable night, but, sadly, I never even came close to that again. Thanks for the memories.

Paul and Johnson are card carrying meteorologists, as graduates of the University of Southern Mississippi's school of what I will call "meteorology in broadcasting." They went to college to learn meteorology and how to put it on TV and radio. Neither has ever actually worked as a meteorologist out in the real world. They only do it on TV. Gene Norman spent years as a meteorologist in the Air Force and for NASA before he moved to TV. There is a difference, and I can understand why Gene and other "real world" meteorologists like Neil Frank would resent them.

You are correct. I misstated the history in saying the rivalry began in Houston. The site of the old West End Park is still a kind of "hallowed" ground though, don't ya think? I've always felt a small ping of pride driving through downtown and thinking about what used to be on that spot just south of the Dallas St. overpass.

And to this day the Aggies cling to a relic of those days in the Aggie War Hymn, where they sing "Saw varsity's horns short". I am a dyed in the purple Aggie fan, but speaking just for myself I think it is long past time for someone to come up with some new and more relevant lyrics to that old song. Can you name another college in the country where the entire theme of their fight song is to sneer at an old rival they don't even play anymore? BTW, West End Park was that baseball field on the southwestern edge of downtown Houston. It was on a spot where the NB I-45 Pierce Elevated starts curving around that hotel to go under the Dallas St. overpass, and where the SB side curves around past the Leland Federal Bldg. https://www.tsl.stat...ges/map0435.jpg Think about this the next time you drive I-45 through downtown. You're driving over the hallowed spot of ground where the first three UT/A&M games were played.

LOLL. I needed that. I think I've already bet my entire farm away on things like this. Too soon old, too late wise.

Oops. My old memory is really failing me now. I withdraw everything I've written about TSU and the auditorium, and I'm going to my room for time-out.