5 Early Industrial Sites on Buffalo Bayou

As a major Texas transportation hub and population center, Houston incorporated a number of primitive industrial sites, some manufacturing for export from Houston, some supporting Houston industries and population, and some processing the raw materials brought through Houston for shipping. The businesses, and their earliest dates include shipping and warehousing (1826); tanneries (from 1846); brick works (from 1840); tinsmith (1858); cotton mills (1866); foundry and ironworks making parts for sawmills, cotton presses, cotton mills and railroads (1869); railroads (1856); bottling nonalcoholic drinks (1866); and brewing (1882). Noted Houston historian Louis Aulbach has kindly provided his lecture notes and powerpoint presentation, from a short course at Rice University, showing locations, dates and background information on these sites including some photos. The information is largely taken from his book, "Buffalo Bayou: An echo of Houston's wilderness beginnings".

Two rare remnants from Houston's early industrial era can be visited by cyclists. One is the 1847 Kellum Noble house (photos) (see page 1 of the lecture notes) at the Heritage society at Bagby and Lamar, the stately home of the owner of the former brickyard on this site and the oldest building in Houston in its original location.

The other is a newly designated historical site as of October 2015. The building at 1200 National Street (photo) (see page 15 of the lecture notes) was formerly a Cottonseed mill, built 1880 and rebuilt after a fire in 1886. Beautiful original structural timbers remain inside (photo). It now houses Historic Houston, a fascinating salvage warehouse open to the public that contains a wide range of materials from "deconstructed" historic Houston homes.

Cotton ginning yielded two pounds of cotton seeds for every pound of cotton. Originally, seeds were a waste product. Advances in technology during the 1870's, made the milling of cotton seeds commercially viable. Mills reduced the seeds to four byproducts: linters, hulls, meal and cottonseed oil. Cotton linters were processed for textiles. Cottonseed hulls provided roughage in cattle feed, and the ashes of the hulls were used as fertilizer and to produce lye for soap. Cottonseed meal was used as a high protein supplement for livestock feed. The most valuable product, the oil or “crude”, was used to make commodities such as soap and candles, and cooking oils after 1899 (Wesson Oil and Crisco) when new refining processes were developed.

Houston’s mills consumed more cotton seed and produced more oil, cotton seed meal and cake than anywhere else in the world. Cottonseed processing was then second only to the lumber industry in Texas in value of the product, and Texas was both the leading cotton producer and leading cottonseed processor in the US. In 1892, the mill at 1200 National Street, then largest in Texas, produced 12,000 tons of oil cake and cotton seed meal, 1.25 million gallons of crude cottonseed oil and 2000 bales of lint.