kylejack Posted August 22, 2012 Share Posted August 22, 2012 Do you have the roads from where Addicks Reservoir is now? There used to be some roads and houses there that were eliminated. I'm not remembering the names right now, but there's an old thread around here somewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earlydays Posted August 22, 2012 Share Posted August 22, 2012 Great job! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Blaise Posted August 22, 2012 Share Posted August 22, 2012 Thanks everyone. I have corrected those two broken links. -- The areas around downtown are a great hunting ground for old roads. Before we had freeways in the downtown area, there were many roads, especially in industrial areas. Some roads still exist, but in a much shorter form. And there are those streets that disappear completely. Before Montrose was extended over Memorial, there were short streets called Winnie, Butler and Brown. Others now gone were Avie, Willia, part of Wichman, Raymond and Barness. Butler Street was where the Scouts used to deliver used newspaper. Today, where these streets were, are lofts and condos. -- John Williams has an awesome site about the west side of Houston - it's been on here, but I'll post the link - http://www.westhoustonarchives.org/ - with great information about roads that existed prior to the building of Barker and Addicks reservoirs. -- One of my favorites my site is Old Katy Road -- today it's a dead end road on two sides of a railroad track. Fifty or 60 years ago it was a major thoroughfare! Another is Neurath Plaza, a real mystery, in which only a tiny chunk of concrete remains, now behind a locked gate. Who is it was named for is up for grabs. -- I'll look up some other roads that have gone away and see if we can perhaps find a little bit of history. -- And no, Breen Road was never Mulberry, except on early subdivision plans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdude Posted August 23, 2012 Share Posted August 23, 2012 Cool site. I'm impressed at your knowledge of this. There was Frederick Street downtown, eliminated for the Allen Center development. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevfiv Posted August 23, 2012 Share Posted August 23, 2012 There were quite a few north and south of the bayou as well (including Frederick) - mostly where Allen Parkway Village was built, I believe (these are all snipped from the maps from this site): 1890 1913 1920 2012 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdude Posted August 24, 2012 Share Posted August 24, 2012 Looking at those "lost" streets, and taking into account their location and proximity to the bayou, I wonder if they were ever "real" streets, actually laid out and perhaps with buildings, or just ideas from a developer back then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NenaE Posted September 16, 2012 Share Posted September 16, 2012 Thanks Marty for fantastic research. I especially liked the abandoned roads, bridges, etc. section. Many of the old street names I recognize from viewing old Houston maps. It's nice to see actual photos of them. Your link in post # 11 is appreciated, as well. The person's recollections of the "mansion" on Hwy 6, between West Rd. and Clay was interesting. We've talked about that house, before, on HAIF. I read an anthropologist's (archaeologist) thesis on the Addicks Reservoir -Corp. of Engineers project a while back. The archaeologist student had relatives who owned a farm and land there, before the construction of the dams and roads. I've always wondered about that particular house, at Hwy 6 and West Little York. The story is feasible, about pieces of other houses being used, to build it. I wouldn't be surprised if the pieces of the removed homes and barns were incorporated into this particular house. I know the paper said they were either moved or torn down. Sad story, if it is somehow linked to the other farm houses... but intriguing.The house has always been hard to pinpoint, for style, year built. It reminds me most of the River Road, outside of new Orleans- Louisiana style. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NenaE Posted September 16, 2012 Share Posted September 16, 2012 Marty, I will be looking forward to seeing your research on the elysian viaduct. That area has always peeked my curiosity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Blaise Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 I have tried to go through my website of abandoned roads/highways/bridges in Houston (and also around Texas) and fix the broken links. The site is at www.abandonedroads.zxq.net. I hope to add more in the future.Marty Blaise Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IronTiger Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 How long have you had this site? Like, this link refers to a highway that was eventually built out around 2005... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Blaise Posted June 7, 2014 Share Posted June 7, 2014 Some of these roads are built out. I took the photos before they were built, So I guess those were temporarily abandoned. I need to update some of the text. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MapMaker Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 FYI, the site appears to be down again. Look forward to checking it out in the future! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goatman79 Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 I was hoping someone who knows the older parts of Houston (such as Heights, River Oaks) could shed some light on something for me. I hunt for abandoned roads and old right-of-ways in the primarily west side of Houston, and I recently took notice of one on North Shepherd Dr. between 34th and 38th St., near the Garden Oaks Theater. On either side of the North Shepherd main drag where the underpass goes beneath the railroad corridor, there are two old right-of-ways surrounding the main road at ground level. These old right of ways have been closed off for a long time, but they are very unusual. Even the oldest aerial imagery I could find shows both the main lanes of North Shepherd, and the little side street up at ground level. Were the two built in conjunction? Or did the outer roads pre-date the current right of way that dips below the railroad? I would love to learn more about this bizarre configuration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goatman79 Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Hi all, I am John Williams, I operate the westhoustonarchives.org site Marty mentioned above (thanks for the shout-out Marty). I have been ongoing in my efforts to document more of historic West Houston. I have not been posting on this forum for quite some time now but I wanted to see what has been posted about the area of town I pay the most attention to. I have been quite occupied with documenting the construction of various parts of Grand Parkway and the 290 overhaul, but I have also unearthed quite a bit of new topics regarding abandoned roads. I still find them four years after thinking I'd seen them all. I covered a few new discoveries in 2014, such as Susquehannah Dr. in Cypress, the Telge/Spring Cypress intersection, Old North Belt Dr., and North Shepherd near 38th. I also have done some research on the Elysian Viaduct. Not abandoned but most certainly doomed. I was excited to see there were still parts of ground-level Elysian St. intact beneath the viaduct. That was a 1950's creation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 A colleague lives near that site, and has since he was born. His mother still lives in the house his parents bought in 1939. According to my colleague, the residents of that area used the ground level ROW until the railroad redid the tracks, and eliminated the level crossings, forcing everyone to use the underpass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goatman79 Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Ah, that actually would make sense. I wondered why they would bother to build the ground level roads at a diamond shape if there wasn't already a main underpass in place. I thought it would be quite beneficial for local residents to have those ground level roads just for whipping around the corner while the heavy traffic passed by harmlessly below. If the railroad is really the one to close off those surface streets that was kind of a mean thing to do. Any idea when that happened? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IronTiger Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 From Google Earth, I would GUESS sometime between 1989 and 1995. Own experiences, though--railroads are the ones close down crossings usually... - In College Station, there's a problem brewing because the railroad wants to cut two railroad crossings heavily used by people in the southern rural subdivisions. The "compromise" is to build a new crossing a bit farther north, but even that is ineffective as the reason why the two are closing is a siding is to be built, and trains would be slower around the siding. - I remember a news story in Brenham, TX where UP actually wanted to PAY the city if they could get rid of W. Vulcan Street's crossing (but that kinda made sense at the time since there were 5 grade crossings within a quarter mile span) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Blaise Posted July 4, 2015 Share Posted July 4, 2015 I had been using zxq.net for a host and they have had major problems. Apparently my abandoned roads and highways site is gone. Also my high school website and church site as well, so I have to start over. The good news is I have all my abandoned roads and highways and bridges photos and will rebuild. I have 100 plus photos from the Houston area and near Houston/around Texas. So I just need to find a good webhost. Hope to rebuild even better. Marty Blaise Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IronTiger Posted July 4, 2015 Share Posted July 4, 2015 Archive.org may help you get back the HTML layout and text. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylejack Posted July 5, 2015 Share Posted July 5, 2015 Darn, that was a good resource. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceGhost Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 I had been using zxq.net for a host and they have had major problems. Apparently my abandoned roads and highways site is gone. Also my high school website and church site as well, so I have to start over. The good news is I have all my abandoned roads and highways and bridges photos and will rebuild. I have 100 plus photos from the Houston area and near Houston/around Texas. So I just need to find a good webhost. Hope to rebuild even better. Marty Blaise Good luck rebuilding! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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