Historic Houston Maps

[IronTiger]

That landfill is too big and in the wrong place. I doubt the oval ever existed in reality. There is zero evidence of it on the 1944 aerials. It might possibly have been a storage tank site, but I doubt that as well.

When I said a landfill, I didn't necessarily mean trash.

[plumber2]

I noticed a reference to a "Proposed Turning Basin" on the ship channel, this one further upstream at Turkey Bend. I wonder is this was really seriously considered or was it just something on paper. It would have required dredging the bayou another mile or so to do this.

[Materene]

Yeeaaa, something older than I am

[plumber2]

I can't stop looking at this map. I can only imagine what the landscape (cityscape) was actually like. My father's fist job was a deliverman for City Chevrolet, so this map shows what type of roads he was driving on in 1936/7 as a sixteen/seveteen year old high school student. He told me that OST was basiclly the edge of the city then, and Westheimer was just farms beyond the railroad tracks.

 

I spotted the Gulf Brewing Co. on Polk St. Being that this was a Howard Hughes Company, it make sense it being next to Hughes Tool.

 

Also, now that the Houston City Council voted to de annex the Valero Refinery, I'm wondering what parcel that is on this map?

I see a Deepwater Refinery Co just west of Manchester, and the Sinclair Oil Refinery north of Allendale. The Sinclair refinery became ARCO now BP, not sure if that is it or not, might be too far east.

[Ross]

I see a Deepwater Refinery Co just west of Manchester, and the Sinclair Oil Refinery north of Allendale. The Sinclair refinery became ARCO now BP, not sure if that is it or not, might be too far east.

 

The Sinclair Refinery is now Lyondell, not BP. I assume the Deepwater Refinery is now Valero - their address is 9701 Manchester. Here's an early aerial http://digital.houstonlibrary.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/schlueter/id/471/rec/9

 

[JLWM8609]

I just noticed something about this map after viewing it a few times. Many of the historically black and Hispanic areas (Third Ward, Fifth Ward, Fourth Ward, Independence Heights, Denver Harbor, Magnolia Park) are shaded in. The legend doesn't show anything about the shading, though. I guess it's redlining?

[Materene]

All those areas were always known as non white areas, it was a subject not spoken about, just assumed everyone knew the bondaries back then.  I only go back to 48 but I do know what the city boundaries were then and often rode the city buses with my Grandmother and of course it was still signs in the bus that told Black folks sit in the rear, there were Black water fountains everwhere.  To see a map outlined like this would be a normal thing.  For anyone to be born after this period in history it is hard to understand, Black folks and other non white communites were existing in their own little cities more or less unless they were working outside, they had their own stores own schools pretty much sef contained so to speak.  Non whites did not go into these areas.  For older people like myself it is hard to understand why today after so much change and progress it is suddenly under attack and we find ourselves blamed for failures not instigated by us.  I know where it stems but this is not a political forum so I'll just for once be quiet.

[NenaE]

I've wondered about the shading every time I've looked at that map. These are all areas that pique my interest. I hate to see the cultures within these little cities being diluted or erased.  

[NenaE]

http://digital.houstonlibrary.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/maps

 

more nice old Houston maps, digitized... Houston Library.