VOLUME 13 • NUMBER 2 • SPRING 2016 CENTER FOR PUBLIC HISTORY Around the Region Published by Welcome Wilson Houston History Collaborative LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Houston, Broadly Defined t times Houston’s “suburbs” small town of Katy, which passed in a quick blur on trips to A appear destined to reach Austin. Towns like Katy were then thought of as one-horse from San Antonio to New towns or, more accurately, one-high-school towns. Orleans and from Dallas to When we drove to Austin on U.S. 290, we left the city Cancun. Our city knows no somewhere around Cypress Fairbanks High School, then bounds. Yet when I first moved to the only high school in Cy-Fair. Beyond were few subdivi- Houston upon entering Rice sions. U.S. 290 was still a hazardous four-lane, undivided University in 1966, our city highway with no resemblance to the four-lane “Interstate seemed to stop roughly at the Aggie” that now goes to Hempstead. Just past that town current location of Loop 610. was the infamous dead man’s curve where 290 crossed What a difference fifty years Highway 6 at the intersection of UT and A&M. have made. The landmark that served as a northern boundary in Joseph A. Pratt Having grown up near these years was the Goodyear blimp hangar near Spring. I Beaumont, my introduction to have fond memories of a road trip to Huntsville to the pris- Houston came from drives in on old U.S. 90 and later on on rodeo to show some of my non-Texan friends at Rice the I-10 to visit an uncle, attend high school athletic contests real Texas. We had a ball watching the prison “volunteers” with schools from Baytown to Galena Park, and finally try to ride bulls or half-heartedly attempt to snatch a $100 to see major league baseball. I got excited when the San bill taped between a mad bull’s horns. The announcer’s Jacinto Monument came into sight (and more excited when introduction of each contestant went something like this: we stopped to eat at the San Jacinto Inn). But the real “The old boy gettin’ ready to ride is Joe Pratt; he’s serving eastern boundary for me was the Baytown tunnel under the 8-10 for armed robbery. Let’s give him a hand.” After Buck ship channel or the Budweiser brewery on I-10. Tempering Owens performed on a platform pulled into the arena by a my excitement was the growing tension as my country boy tractor, we headed back to the city, passing only a few fill- dad broke into a cold sweat at the prospect of driving on ing stations and homes along the stretch of road now domi- Houston’s freeways. nated by the urban clutter of Conroe and The Woodlands. My sense of Houston’s boundaries extended in other It gives me pause to remember the Houston I first encoun- directions while at Rice. Trips for a class project took me tered in my teen-age years. Freeways now seem to fill up the southwest to the Sugar Land prison. I drove out South moment they are finished, with HOV lanes at times becom- Main and onto an uncrowded two-lane road. My pleasant ing parking lots. The cute little trains downtown have as yet country drive culminated when the prison and the sugar made little impact on traffic congestion. Life in the suburbs mill popped up with few other buildings to block my view. can be good, but few honest observers in 2016 can say the There was little traffic in the quiet village of Sugar Land. same about life on our freeways. And if you want to take a To the west, Houston seemed to end at the turn-offs to leisurely drive down a country road from Houston to Sugar Memorial, before the spot where Beltway 8 now crosses I-10 Land or Katy or Conroe, I recommend the road I take more in a maze of freeways. From there a leisurely drive led to the and more often these days, Memory Lane. Thank You! We wish to thank Ginger Berni and The Heritage Society for collaborating with us to produce their exhibit “Asian Americans in Houston: A Kaleidoscope of Cultures,” based on our fall issue, and for hosting the joint launch party. The exhibit in The Heritage Society Museum Gallery truly brought the magazine stories to life, providing a wonderful atmosphere for the event. Attendees enjoyed delicious treats thanks to the generosity of Sharon and Resham Gahunia at Raja Sweets and gracious donations made by Shelley Ding, president of the Houston chapter of the Chinese American The Heritage Society and Houston History showcased the exhibit and magazine, “Asian Americans in Houston: A Citizens Association, and Betty Chapman, board member of Kaleidoscope of Cultures” at the November launch party. Houston History and The Heritage Society. Thanks also go to Shown left to right are Joe Pratt, Ginger Berni, Shelley Ed Chen for his invaluable assistance in creating the fall issue. Ding, Ed Chen, Debbie Harwell, and Betty Chapman. Table of Contents FEATURES: Home in the Pines: Creating 2| VOLUME 13 • NUMBER 2 • SPRING 2016 The Woodlands By George T. Morgan, Jr. and John O. King with Joseph A. Pratt AroundEDITORIAL STAFF the Region Houston: Becoming the 8| Joseph A. Pratt, Editor Ranch House City Debbie Z. Harwell, Managing Editor By Stephen James Marina DonLevy, Associate Editor Denise Gomez, Intern/Oral History Nimra Haroon, Intern Paige McNamara, Intern The Bryan Museum: 1 3| Ethan O’Donnell, Intern/Oral History History in History James Thornock, Intern A Conversation with J. P. Bryan Andrew Huff, Junior Intern and Chris Cookson Marsha Van Horn, Art Director ADVISORY BOARD First Providence, then Susan Bischoff William Kellar 20| Betty Trapp Chapman Fred Korge Prosperity: A Brief History Barbara Eaves Martin Melosi of Beaumont’s Rice Culture Steven Fenberg Jim Saye By Denise Gomez Oscar Gutiérrez Anne Sloan EDITORIAL POLICY 25| Katy: West Houston Houston History is published three times a year by the Wonder Welcome Wilson Houston History Collaborative in the By James E. Thornock Center for Public History at the University of Houston. We welcome manuscripts, interviews, photographic essays, and ideas for topical issues on the history and culture of the Houston region, broadly defined. Please send correspon- dence to Houston History, University of Houston, Center 30| A Quest into the World of Rennies for Public History, 3623 Cullen, Room 320, Houston, TX By Taylor Mankin 77204-3007 (713-743-3123), or email [email protected]. © 2016 by the Center for Public History. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this issue or any portion of it is expressly prohibited without written permission of the publisher. The Center for Public History disclaims responsibility for DEPARTMENTS statements of fact and opinions of contributors. 34| HOUSTONIANS In Time: The Rise, In Memory of Decline, and Rebirth Houston History Board Member of the Cullen Rifles Yolanda Black Navarro By James Wang July 15, 1947 – November 9, 2015 FROM THE ARCHIVES Yolanda gave tirelessly to make 39| Houston a better place for all of The First Decade of the University us. She is and will continue to be of Houston’s Creative Writing sorely missed. Program, 1979-1989 By Mary Manning COVER PHOTO: The MKT (Missouri Kansas Texas) 42| NEWS AND BOOKS train depot, from which Katy got its name, circa 1910. By Barbara Eaves Photo courtesy of Carol Adams. HOUSTON HISTORY Vol. 13 • No.2 1 Home in the Pines: Creating The Woodlands By George T. Morgan, Jr. and John O. King with Joseph A. Pratt This 1973 scale model of The Woodlands illustrates the desire to incorporate the new city into its natural surroundings and provide opportunities for outdoor recreation. Photo courtesy of the Houston Metropolitan Research Center, Houston Public Library, RGD0006-1973-0334N08. n my adult lifetime, I have watched IHouston spread in every direction. People migrated to the region seeking jobs. The circles of highways around the city grew from one to three; the spokes in the wheel of freeways reached farther and farther out onto the flat prairie stretching toward Galveston, Freeport, Baytown, Sugar Land, Huntsville, Jersey Village, Katy, and other suburbs. New, affordable homes sprouted up along these roads, attracting more and more migrants to Galveston-born oil magnate George Mitchell embodied the the jobs and the new neighborhoods that vision of a more environmentally friendly answer to Houston’s explosive, madcap growth. sprawled across the Houston metropolitan 2 HOUSTON HISTORY Vol.13 • No.2 region. The Houston suburbs looked much alike, with the One such cause was environmental stewardship, an unusu- same stores, the same developers, the same interchanges al passion for an oilman of his time. This interest spilled over and highway signs. But one major suburb, The Woodlands, into his work on The Woodlands, which he hoped would remains somewhat distinctive. Since opening in 1974 it become a model for a new type of community. His vision has grown dramatically as a distant suburb where people for this development rested in his growing dissatisfaction can live and work without commuting daily to downtown with the quality of life in Houston during its rapid, chaotic Houston. It has partially fulfilled its aspiration to be an expansion in the 1960s and 1970s. Like many other oilmen of environmentally friendly place to live for people from all the time, Mitchell had moved his family into the Memorial economic strata of life, with housing for the rich, the middle area west of Houston as he built Mitchell Energy.