 Facts at a Glance
Population: 1.7 million
Area: 570 sq miles (1485 sq km)
Elevation: 49ft (15m)
State: Texas
Time zone: Central Time (GMT/UTC minus 6 hours)
Telephone area codes: 713 central, 281 outer areas and airport
Houston got its start in 1836, when brothers Augustus and John Allen set up a trading post on the Buffalo Bayou, a river that now meanders through the heart of the city. The Allens named their new holding Houston in honor of General Sam Houston, who had just defeated the Mexican Army at San Jacinto. The coming of the railroad boosted the economy in the 1860s and 1870s, but it was the 1901 discovery of oil at nearby Spindletop that put Houston on the road to riches. The city's only obstacle to growth was its sweltering summer heat, but beginning in the 1930s, the widespread availability of air conditioning made massive downtown development a reality.
Beginning in the 1950s, downtown underwent wave after wave of skyscraper construction. Hand in hand with the building boom was a craze to raze: dozens of older commercial and residential buildings were leveled and turned into parking lots for the growing army of office workers. NASA's Mission Control Center opened a few miles from Houston in 1963, and six years later the city's name became the first word ever spoken by a human being on the surface of the moon.
Throughout the 1970s, Houston's fortunes continued skyward. When oil reached $40 a barrel in 1981, Houston was awash in money as scores of happy Texans got rich quick; four years later, the price of oil plummeted to single digits and Houstonians got poor even faster. Glitzy but empty highrises stood next to giant construction holes that had to be filled back in when the financing ran out. In the 1990s, Houston's economy diversified as the city rode the general economic boom that swept the US. In 1997, Houston elected its first black mayor, Lee Brown. The following year, Houston was drenched by a torrential downpour and menaced by tornadoes. The floodwaters were strong enough to sweep houses off their foundations. Several people were killed and large areas of the city remained under water for days.
Late spring (April and May) and early summer (June and July) are the best times to come, as rainfall starts to taper off and the humidity isn't peaking. In July, the average daytime temperature is a sweltering 94°F (34°C), but humidity is at its lowest level of the year. Humidity is highest in October, when it can be 93% at the crack of dawn. If you want to catch the rodeo, plan on coming in late February or early March. Houston gets crowded during the many festivals and events in April.
The fourth-largest city in the US, Houston is the hub of a sprawling metropolitan area. Houston is located in eastern Texas, 50 miles (80km) northwest of the Gulf of Mexico on the southern edge of the US. The city is 240 miles (385km) south of Dallas and 200 miles (320km) east of San Antonio. Streets follow a fairly predictable grid pattern, though south and east of Buffalo Bayou the downtown grid shifts 45 degrees. Given Houston's size and lack of geographic definition - it's flat as a pancake - a map is the best way to keep track of where you are - you may even want to bring a compass. Snaking along west of downtown, the trickling waters and high banks of the Buffalo Bayou are the closest thing Houston has to an interesting landscape.
Downtown Houston, the original business center, is a thicket of highrises interspersed with parking lots, ringed by elevated freeways. The streets can seem surprisingly empty during the day, with nary a pedestrian to be found braving the hot and shimmering sidewalks. But the people are there. In a variation of a post-apocalyptic nightmare, most downtown buildings are linked by air-conditioned underground pedestrian tunnels lined with shops and restaurants. After dark, the area is sparsely populated above and below ground, though some life can be found around the major cultural centers. Major neighborhoods include Houston Heights, an affluent, quiet residential area north of downtown, overlooking the Buffalo Bayou; Montrose, the center of Houston's gay scene, with a funky mix of shops, restaurants, galleries and tattoo parlors a few blocks southwest of downtown; the Museum District, sandwiched between Hermann Park and Hwy 59 southwest of downtown; and University Village, a few square blocks with hundreds of shops, cafes and pubs west of Rice University, adjacent to the Museum district.
Houston has two airports: Bush Intercontinental Airport is located 22 miles (35km) north of downtown Houston; William P Hobby Airport is 11 miles (18km) southeast of the center. The Amtrak train station is in a scruffy area at the western edge of downtown Houston. The bus terminal is between downtown and the Museum District.
Museum District
The blocks northwest of Hermann Park, a few miles southwest of downtown, are home to Houston's major museums. Old trees overhang the streets, and some of the city's grandest old homes take shelter in the deep shade of over-hanging Spanish moss. Many restaurants and cafes line the district's streets. Sam Houston Park, at the western edge of the district, has an outstanding collection of historic homes.
Founded in 1900, the Museum of Fine Arts is the oldest art museum in Texas. The large collection features French Impressionists, American Modernists and Texan Postmodernists. The sculpture garden across the street contains works by Rodin and others.
Nothing stays put for long inside the stainless steel walls of the Contemporary Arts Museum. With no permanent collection, the museum presents 10 or more temporary shows a year. Travelers with inner or outer children in tow should visit the crayon-colored playground for the mind known as the Children's Museum of Houston. Adults should have no problem having fun watching the tots milk the mechanical cow.
The Holocaust Museum is an excellent though sobering memorial. 'Our destination was extermination,' says Houstonian holocaust survivor Siegi Izakson on one of the many videos shown at this excellent museum, opened in 1996. The permanent exhibition, housed in a black cylinder meant to evoke the ghastly image of a smokestack, traces the lives of European Jews from before WWII, through the holocaust and after the war as the survivors tried to rebuild their lives.
A huge statue of noted drunk and Texas pioneer Sam Houston commands the entrance to this 407 acre (165ha) wooded park, a few miles south of downtown. Inside the park, Houston Zoological Gardens feature gorillas, tropical birds, lions, bats and a menagerie of other critters. This large zoo takes advantage of the area's climate to grow many tropical plants and palms. There's an adjoining aquarium.
An excellent destination for kids is the Museum of Natural Science, where a huge granite globe rotates in a fountain outside. Inside, the Cockrell Butterfly Center is a large three-story dome where you can wander about in the company of thousands of live butterflies. Get your inexpensive ticket and explore the rest of the museum, which has all the usual natural history museum features, right down to dinosaur displays and an IMAX theater. The park is served by Metro buses.
Beginning in 1954, the late Jeff McKissack began building a monument to honor the orange. Starting with a simple house, he added sculptures, wishing wells, folksy sayings, observation decks and wheels - lots of wheels. Everything is painted orange, naturally. Some call the work folk art, others dub it madness: it's both. The house is about 4 miles (7km) southeast of downtown and accessible by bus.
Museum of Printing History
An often missed gem, this carefully curated museum has rare and unusual printed works that range from the Dharani Scroll, which dates from 764 and is one of the oldest printed works in existence, to the 4 March 1887 San Francisco Daily Examiner, which is the day William Randolph Hearst (of "They kidnapped my granddaughter and turned her into a terrorist" fame) became a newspaper publisher. If the word 'kerning' means anything to you, you'll enjoy the vast displays of typography through the ages. The museum is in the southern part of downtown.
Johnson Space Center
While manned US space missions such as the Apollo and shuttle programs have their high-profile launches from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the planning and most of the training happens at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC), just outside of Houston.
The glory, guts and cigarette butts of the NASA experience have been theme-park packaged as Space Center Houston, the tourist gateway to the JSC. Heavy commercial sponsorship has led to exhibits featuring Saturn automobiles with 'space age plastic components' and a collection of Lego rockets (with kits for making them available at the giftstore).
Despite all the hype, however, you can find some actual evidence that the space program had a function beyond marketing, including Faith-7, the Mercury capsule used to orbit the earth; the command module from Apollo 17, used on the last trip by humans to the moon in 1972; and a trove of actual moon rocks, including one you can touch. You can also see Mission Control, the space shuttle training mock-up, zero-gravity labs and more, but to see them all involves several 90-minute tours. Combine the complexities of the schedule with the fact that usually you have to wait in lines for the trams, and you'll soon determine that it will take most of the day to see the JSC. Visitors have much easier access to adjacent Rocket Park, where tiny Redstone rockets are dwarfed by a giant Saturn 5 used in the Apollo program.
The JSC is 20 miles (32km) southeast of downtown Houston. Metro buses connect is with downtown.
National Museum of Funeral History
This huge and well-funded museum has to be seen to be believed. Run by an organization that trains funeral directors in everything from embalming to merchandising, the museum documents the vast industry that profits from the American way of death. There are dozens of hearses, including the ill-fated 1916 bus that tipped on a San Francisco hill and dumped the dearly departed on the mourners. The museum is located 15 miles (24km) north of downtown on I-45.
San Jacinto Battleground
It was a late spring afternoon on 21 April 1836, and the Mexican army of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was taking a break in the shade of some scruffy oaks. Suddenly Sam Houston and his ragtag army appeared in a surprise attack. The Mexicans surrendered in only 18 minutes, but the killing continued for two hours as Houston's men 'remembered the Alamo.' The final tally was 630 Mexicans dead and hundreds more injured, as opposed to only nine Texan casualties. Victory was total: Santa Anna's troops were routed and Texas had its independence.
Over 1000 acres (405ha) of the battleground are now preserved as the San Jacinto Battleground State Historical Complex. Away from the two major sites, the land is pretty much as it was. A walk on one of the trails on a hot day is a good introduction to the conditions endured by the area's early settlers. During the elevator ride to the 489ft (150m) high observation deck of the San Jacinto Monument, the operator will inform you in typical Texas fashion that the monument is '15ft [5m] higher than the Washington Monument.' There's an excellent view of the surrounding park and the prosaic sight of petrochemical plants stretching in all directions just beyond. On many days you can admire the Houston skyline through the clouds of gaseous emissions.
The museum at the base of the monument has a collection of historical Texas artifacts. An adjoining theater has a multimedia show called Texas Forever! The Battle of San Jacinto, a 35-minute spectacle narrated by actor and National Rifle Association shill Charlton Heston. The park is 22 miles (35km) east of downtown Houston and is accessible by Metro bus.
Home of one of the largest concentrations of recreational boats in the US, the lake isn't all that clear anymore (gasoline has a way of doing that to water), but it's still a great place for a day trip. Surrounding this inlet near the western shore of Galveston Bay are beaches, harbors, jetties and scores of laid-back waterfront joints that attract fun-seekers in droves. Visitors can rent jet skis, go parasailing or head over to Lance's Turtle Club, a rowdy floating bar surrounded by customers' boats. The lake is 25 miles (40km) southeast of Houston and accessible by Metro bus.
Memorial Park and Hermann Park are the two main areas in the city for walking and running. If your heat tolerance is less than a lizard's, the huge oak trees of Main Street provide deep shade over the wide sidewalks. If you get too cooked, you can go ice skating at the Galleria Mall, a few miles east of downtown.
There's great cycling along Houston's many park trails, and the area's flat topography makes for easy pedaling - though in summer just sitting still can be trying. Run your own time trials on the banked track at the Alkek Velodrome, built in 1986 as a training track for the US Olympic cycling team. The open-air facility is in Cullen Park, 20 miles (32km) west of downtown.
The Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo goes for 17 days from mid-February to March. Big name cowboys ride bulls and broncs in the Astrodome, followed by big name country music acts in the exhibit halls next door. This event is well worth seeking out if you want to two-step right into Texas culture.
April's Houston International Festival is a multicultural celebration of food, art and music that lasts for 10 days beginning the third week of the month. Events are held all over the city and include the Houston International Film Festival. Also in April, the Westheimer Colony Arts Festival shows off the Montrose District at its flamboyant best, with blocks of booths selling arts, antiques, food and items that defy classification. There's usually a parade or two to keep the nipple-ringed residents amused. Dates vary and the event repeats in October.
Juneteenth is a multiday celebration around 19 June, the day in 1865 when word reached Texas that the slaves had been emancipated. Events include gospel and blues festivals and other celebrations of local African-American culture. Fiestas Patrias features a parade, ball and music celebrating Mexican Independence Day on 16 September.
Public Holidays:
1 January - New Year's Day
19 January - Confederate Heroes Day
Third Monday in January - Martin Luther King Jr Day
Third Monday in February - Presidents' Day
2 March - Texas Independence Day
Late March or April - Easter
21 April - San Jacinto Day
Last Monday in May - Memorial Day
19 June - Texas Emancipation Day
4 July - Independence Day
27 August - Lyndon Baines Johnson Day
First Monday in September - Labor Day
Second Monday in October - Columbus Day
11 November - Veterans' Day
Fourth Thursday in November - Thanksgiving
25 December - Christmas Day
Houston has two airports: George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) is served by major domestic and international airlines; William P Hobby Airport (HOU) is primarily served by discount carrier Southwest Airlines.
Greyhound is the major bus carrier, with a web of services in all directions, some of which are operated by a contractor named Valley Transit.
Amtrak service is very limited. The chronically late Sunset Limited wanders through town three times a week in each direction on its runs between Los Angeles, New Orleans and on to Orlando, Florida.
As a city built around the car, Houston has highways radiating in all directions.
Limited bus service is available to Bush Intercontinental Airport, making taxis and private shuttle buses a better bet. Bus service to Hobby Airport is more reliable. Both airports have car rental agencies.
The Metro network of over 100 bus lines serves the Houston area from north of IAH south all the way to Clear Lake. Much of the system is geared for the weekday commute in and out of the downtown area, which means that weekend service to outlying areas like Clear Lake and the Johnson Space Center isn't the best.
By far the best way to get around Houston is with a car. Parking is plentiful and usually free, and many sights are clustered together so you can ditch your wheels and walk around a bit when you like. Other sights and attractions are so scattered that driving is the only convenient way to reach them. Driving is on the right.
- The Work Projects Administration's Houston: A History and Guide came out in 1942 and is still a good read.
- Charles Peifer's Houston is a historical tour of the city for kids.
- Black Dixie: Afro-Texan History and Culture in Houston is a wide-ranging collection of historical essays on black Houstonites edited by Howard Beeth and Cary D Wintz.
- Houston's rich Latino legacy is related in Arnoldo De Leon's Ethnicity in the Sunbelt: A History of Mexican Americans in Houston.
- Dorothy Knox Howe Houghton's Houston's Forgotten Heritage: Landscape, Houses, Interiors, 1824-1914 documents the city's architectural past; Stephen Fox's Houston Architectural Guide covers the present.
- The city's ups and downs are charted in Houston: Growth and Decline in a Sunbelt Boomtown, by Beth Anne Shelton.
- Looking for the yellow-crowned night heron? Check out Birds of Houston, by B C Robison.
- Twist the night away with Alan Govenar's The Early Years of Rhythm & Blues: Focus on Houston.
- Houston is the setting for serious plot twisting in David Lindsey's espionage thriller Requiem for a Glass Heart.
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