Origins & Early History
Houston was founded after Augustus and John Allen purchased land at the junction of Buffalo and White Oak bayous in 1836.
A Town Site on the Bayous
Houston’s founding grew out of the Texas Revolution era, when John Kirby Allen and Augustus Chapman Allen looked for a town site within the Galveston Bay navigation system. After considering other tracts in the region, they bought about half a league of land from Elizabeth Parrot in 1836. Four days later, they advertised the planned town of Houston in the Telegraph and Texas Register.
The Allen brothers selected land where White Oak Bayou meets Buffalo Bayou, a location that served as a natural turning basin later known as Allen’s Landing. Gail Borden and Moses Lapham carried out early surveying work, taking field notes and setting stakes. At the same time, John Allen lobbied the Texas Congress to choose the not yet surveyed town as the seat of government.
Steamships and the New Capital
In January 1837, the Laura became the first steamship to reach Houston. At that point, the town had twelve residents and one log cabin. Within four months, it had grown to 1,500 people and 100 houses.
The Allen brothers promoted Houston as a place at the head of navigation on Buffalo Bayou, though critics questioned whether vessels could reliably reach the site. Captain Edward Auld brought the vessel to the wharf at the foot of Main Street, though the ship was too long to turn at the mouth of White Oak Bayou and had to back down the bayou for more than six miles before finding a natural turning basin.
The Texas Congress first met in Houston in May 1837 after beginning its session in Columbia. Houston received incorporation from the Texas legislature on June 5, 1837. The town served as the temporary capital of the Republic of Texas, though the capital moved to Austin, then known as Waterloo, in 1839. It returned briefly to Houston in 1842 before moving to Washington-on-the-Brazos, and Austin became the capital again in 1845.
Frontier Conditions and Bayou Work
Drunkenness, dueling, brawling, prostitution, profanity, saloons, brothels, and street violence were all part of town life in the late 1830s. Financial trouble and yellow fever outbreaks added to the difficulties, including an 1839 outbreak that killed about 12 percent of the population.
Houston’s municipal government began with a mayor and eight aldermen elected at large. Charter changes in 1839 and 1840 divided the town into four wards, using Main and Commerce streets as axes, with each ward electing two aldermen. Snags, undergrowth, and sunken vessels obstructed Buffalo Bayou, and in 1841 the first wreck was removed under a bayou-clearance program supported by the city and Harris County.
Early Statehood and Rail Connections
Texas became part of the United States in 1846, placing Houston within a new statehood era. In the 1850s, the city retained many frontier-town characteristics. Its free population had a growing imbalance of men, saloons and gambling halls were active, violence remained common, and many residents were born abroad, including people from German-speaking countries. More than one in five Houstonians during this period was an enslaved person, and hiring out enslaved workers was common on the eve of the American Civil War.
Rail development began to expand Houston’s transportation links in the 1850s. The Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway first operated from Harrisburg, but Houston gained access to it through the Houston Tap Road in 1856.
War, Emancipation, and 1870
During the American Civil War, Houston served the Confederacy as a regional military logistics center. It housed the Quartermaster Depot for Texas and the headquarters of a wartime administrative district that included Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Refugees from Louisiana and Galveston nearly doubled the wartime population compared with 1860, and blockade runners sometimes used Houston as a port.
After the war, news of emancipation brought former enslaved people from the countryside into Houston. Black residents already living in the town organized groups to help newcomers find housing and work, though many newcomers initially lived in abandoned buildings and tent communities. Houston added the Fifth Ward in 1866.
Texas was readmitted to the Union in 1870. That year, Houston was designated an official port of entry, and a new charter drew up eight wards. Houston also hosted the first Texas State Fair in 1870 on a temporary site north of Buffalo Bayou.