isuredid

The description also sounds like Simpson's Dining Car, but Simpson's Dining Car was at 1415 Main and not really that close to Spaghetti Warehouse.

We used to go to the Hi Neighbor Drive Inn off Mykawa. It was across and south from Dixie drive going towards Belfort. That would be on the west side of Mykawa. You can use historicaerials.com to find it. I don't know what the address was, but I think there is a warehouse there now. I saw To Russia With Love and the Incredible Mr. Limpet there.

The "order at the window ice cream stand" was Carr's Tastee Freeze.

I remembered a few more landmarks on that drive: Bruce Bristol Motorcycles - There was an old motorcycle up on the sign pole in front of the business. This was on the inbound side of the freeway between Telephone and Dumble Mack Trucks - Close to Telephone on the outbound side past Schlumberger

That area you speak of is the Letein Subdivision and came later, around the turn of the century. The Leitein subdivision was built on the old Willima P. Rogers homestead site. That area was Rogers home when he was killed at Shiloh in the Civil War. His wife Martha continued to live there for a time after he died. William Peleg Rogers

No, it wasn't the same family. Brunsville was developed by H.H. Bruns, who was the county surveyor at the time.

Yes, but past the RR trestle underpass going west. It is next to the Paradise Motel.

That house was cobbled together and contains both 19th and 20th century elements. It is on a piece of land that was owned by Mathias Stuer in the 19th century. Mathias was a German farmer who also ran a store along there when the road still followed the RR tracks. That area was called Eureka until the 1940s because of the Eureka textile and lumber Mills that were there from 1866-1875. The house used to sit along the old road, but was moved when they re-routed the highway in the early 1930s. Back then it belonged to the Zahn family. A Zahn daughter married a man named Bruns and inherited the house. The house still belongs to the Bruns family. It used to be a farm. There is still an old windmill on the property.

2. Markle Steel Co. (grey bldg. with neon worker sign that moved) East This was a guy in a hardhat standing on an I-Beam that was being hoisted by a crane. The movement was his arm signaling to the crane operator to lift the beam. It was a neon sign. Later they just painted the guy on the building, but it wasn't the same. 3. A Taxidermy business (2 story bldg., had a upright, white polar bear in a large picture window) West This was not a taxidermy business, although I can understand why you would think that. It was Glenn Slade's Sporting Goods. Glenn was a big time old fashioned Great White Hunter type, and all those taxidermied animals in the window and inside the store came from his hunting trips. The store sold guns and ammo, archery equipment, fishing equipment, binoculars, etc. I think the store was knocked down when they expanded the Gulf Freeway. 3b. what remained of Prince's Drive-In (sign & bldg. frame, all that was left, rt. after Fingers) East In the sixties Prince's Drive in would have still been open. I remember when Buff Stadium was still where Fingers is now. Alas, Fingers is now also gone. 5. A colored tile bldg (1-story, orange, turquoise, yellow tiles, '60's style, maybe an architect or drafting office, X from Shlumberger) West Color Tile was the name of the business 8. Helena Motel (huge glass windows) West This was at Wayside. Some of the buildings are still there 10. Big "Fritos" sign at Lay's factory (@ Griggs) I grew up smelling those Fritos being made. 18. Wedding Chapel (rt. before Bellfort) West Harmony Wedding Chapel 19. Taj Mahal Indian Restaurant (white strip bldg, at Bellfort) West I don't think this was there until the 80s I also remember an Old Crow whiskey sign close to town that had a 3-D crow wearing a tux and top hat that used to creep me out as a young child. There was also the electronic sign that counted up the population of Houston until it reached 1 million.

I think she lived at the Willowick Condominium from about 1978 until she died. That condo is in the River Oaks area. Before that I believe she lived in the Broad Oaks subdivision north of Woodway between Sage and Chimney Rock.

We used to play our Jackson Junior High School (middle school) games at Little Jeppesen. That is all we ever knew it by. There are some photos of one of the Jackson football games at Little Jeppesen in a thread about the East End on this website (posted by me). Jackson Thread

The deed records would not list the street name or number anyway. Deed records typically list the lot, block, and subdivision. Harris County deed records go back to 1836, but some of the actual deeds pre-date Texas Independance. You can look up deed records in person at: Coffee Pot Building Annex 20 102 San Jacinto St If you don't know how to look names in the indexes just ask one of the folks there for help. Hopefully you have a first name as well as surname as that will make the lookup easier. You can try looking the name up in the Harris County Real Property Records under either Grantor or Grantee by typing in "Harris County Clerk" in Google. There should be a link under the first heading for "Real Property". From there you just hit the "Search Databases" button. As far as the Appraisal District, Harris County has been appraising property for tax purposes since Texas was a Republic. I'm not sure when they started using the specific name of "Harris County Appraisal District", but I would guess that 1984 may have been when they started to digitize the records.

In the 1924 Sanborn map that location appears to have been a two story store of some type. Who knows what that building was used for by 1971. I don't know what you are looking for exactly, but neither Oscar Steele Jr. or his wife ever owned that property.

This is from the Galveston Daily News, September 20, 1981: Santa Fe castle full of mystery Nestled in a grove of pecan trees in the small community of Santa Fe is a landmark that has amazed motorists traveling Highway 6 between Galveston and Alvin for many years. Incongruous as it seems, there stands a stately castle that conjures up visions of Lancelot and Guinevere, knights and dragons and the mystical days of yore. Only the steady hum of traffic outside the castle gates disclaims the illusion of ancient time's. Santa Fe has practically as many legends about the castle as England has about King Arthur, but it is doubtful any of them are true. One of the more romantic stories maintains that a wealthy Texan had the castle dismantled and imported from Europe, then reassembled at its present location as a haven for his mistress. According to another fanciful tale, an eccentric woman built the house to live out a childhood fantasy. As the story goes, she never actually resided there, but visited the castle for a few hours each week. Actually, the complete story may never be known, since the original owners are dead. But, according to Galveston County deed records and people familiar with the property, the castle's history began with a man from Denmark by the name of John Christensen. A r e m a r k a b l e m a n . Christensen came the the United States in 1891 with assets totaling $16 and no knowledge of the English language. He worked on the Galveston docks and saved as much of his money as possible. In 1899, he bought a bicycle shop which eventually became the first Ford automobile dealership on the island, John Christensen and Co., later known as A.J. Rasmussen and Sons. Christensen's obituary in the Dec. 15, 1934 edition of The Galveston Daily News states that his hobby was farming the 70-acre tract of land in Alta Loma that is the present site of the castle. He is credited with contributing a great deal to the betterment of working conditions on the mainland. It is said he invited farmers from all over the county to his Alta Loma farm for a demonstration of the first Ford tractor. In 1930, he retired from his business and devoted most of the remaining four years of his life to farming. Christensen had been a widower since the death of his first wife in 1912. In 1930, he married NMeska Vogel, to whom his left his beloved farm. It was she who would build the castle. Many people believe Mrs. Christensen built the castle intending to give it to the Catholic church as a retirement home for aged nuns. When the church did not desire the property for that purpose, she elected to make it her home. The exact date of the castle's construction is uncertain. According to Lawrence Henckle of Henckle Lumber Co., construct i o n b e g a n soon a f t e r Christensen's death

What stands in it's place are those big apartments that have shops and restaurants on the first floor along the sidewalk. Old Mexico was on the block bounded by Gray, Baldwin, Valentine, and Webster. It is an odd shaped block because Valentine cuts through at a diagonal. Here is a photo of the patio:

Here is the link to the full Chronicle story. Lots of info in here: Chronicle Story on Morse Cemetery

You can use this Harris County Block book map to find the location of the Morse cemetery Harris County West Oaks Section II You can use this HCAD map to find the cemetery. It is marked "RES B -0066" and it is just beyond Wynden Oaks Drive on S. Wynden Drive. HCAD map of Morse cemetery I haven't seen that cemetery so I don't know if anything remains of the headstones.

There was a Humble camp in Harris County around the Genoa area, but I have no idea what it was called.

I don't know anything about that store, but the original Hilltop Herb Farm restaurant was outside of Romayor next to the Chain-O-Lakes Resort

The Peacock Apartments were built in 1924 by a man named Lenard Gabert. Lenard Gabert was the architect for several Houston deco buildings including the Eldorado Ballroom, Monarch Cleaners, and Brochsteins building on Main. He was also the architect for several synagogues, including Temple Emanu-el on Sunset. He bought the land for the Peacock and Plaza Court in 1923 from J. E.C. Schmidt. The Plaza Court Apartment building was constructed the year following the Peacock in 1925. Gabert eventually lost the building in 1931 to forclosure after taking out a loan and using that building as collateral. Lenard Gabert was in the first entering class of Rice University. He married a woman named Gladys Thelma Rothalz and they had and least two children. Gabert is a fairly well known local architect and I don't think it is widely known that he was the architect for these apartment buildings. This would have been very early in his career when he was only abou 30. An interesting side note: Gabert's daugher was named Rilda Gabert and she later became the wife of TV announcer and City Councilman Dick Gottlieb. Long time Houstonians will know who that is.

Very interesting T-Mar. I knew that, while in Houston, Clyde Barrow was part of a group of criminal confederates that called themselves "The Root Square Gang" , but I never thought of the connection to that park.

There's a slide show at the bottom of this page. On the old web site these houses were all identified: www.houstonhistory.com

1981

Here is that area of Addicks (below) from a 1915 Topo map. The black squares represent buildings. I've read some other stories on the web about supposed hauntings on Patterson road from the spirits of soldiers killed in some supposed Civil War battle in that area. The only problem with those stories is that there were no Civil War battles in that area or anywhere else around here other than Galveston. This is the section to the east of the section above. The north-south road would be today's North Eldridge