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Historic Houston Books


hokieone

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in the process of researching my home...I keep getting hit with a BUNCH of stuff on Germans and the early settlers. There is a book on ebay right now about that very topic....60 bucks though, or I might have bought it!!

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My sister was looking for a good, detailed book on how the city got settled, as well as how the 6 different wards came to be and progressed. Anyone have any good ones they know of?

I recently put up a blog item about books focusing on Houston History. Most of them can be found at any bookstore in town.

http://bayoucityhistory.blogspot.com/2006/...art-1-of-2.html

The link provided earlier in this thread goes to one of the best books about Houston history. Copies can be somewhat hard to come by because it's out of print, but you'll find one on eBay or Amazon every so often.

While not the best, Marguerite Johnston's "Houston: The Unknown City" is widely available at most bookstores, too.

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This is my favorite book on Houston. I have read it numerous times, and each time I am amazed by the history.

If you want to know what makes Houston the city it is, and to truly understand the Heart of the city, this is a must read!

Houston, the Unknown City, 1836-1946

Edited by Heights2Bastrop
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there are several books i use for reference, all together cover the basics...

Historic Houston, Betty Trapp Chapman

Houston: a History, David G. McComb

A Houston Legacy, Marie Phelps McAshan

Ray Miller's Houston

Houston: Land of the Big Rich, George Fuermann

Houston Electric, Steven M. Baron

Houston: A History of a Giant, Jim Hutton

Houston: The Unknown City, Marguerite Johnston

Houston Freeways, Erik Slotboom

Houston Women, Betty Trapp Chapman

and Houston Then and Now is neat to look at

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A good one that is mentioned in gonzo's excellent blog is "Houston's Forgotten Heritage: Landscapes, Houses, Interiors: 1824-1914".

Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman has written many books about Texas. Did he write one about the city of Houston?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Peter Marzio, director of the MFAH and a Ph.D. in sociology, once said that while there are probably 300 quality histories of the city of Chicago, there's not a single one about Houston.

A bit harsh, but I would have to agree that there really isn't a history of Houston that captures the growth and development of this city. McComb's book might be the closest thing to a formal history, but it seems more like a collection of facts than a real narrative. Marguerite Johnston's book captures the color that McComb misses, but there's no skeleton - just disconnected scenes of cultural life, and it deals almost exclusively with the elite set.

I think the best bet might be to read T. R. Fehrenbach's Lone Star. It's a history of Texas, not Houston, but very little of Houston's history can be told separately from the rest of Texas, and Fehrenbach's writing is first-rate.

Another great document is the Federal Writers' Project guide to Houston from the early 40's, which is nearly impossible to find but thankfully is online, at the link in 57TBird's post above. A hard copy can be found in the Texas Room at the Houston Public Library, and is well worth an afternoon there.

Edited by H-Town Man
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  • The title was changed to Historic Houston Books

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