The Port That Runs on Oil and Changed the Century

The Port That Runs on Oil and Changed the Century

On January 10, 1901, the Spindletop oil gusher erupted south of Beaumont — ninety miles from Houston — and the modern petroleum industry was born. The well produced more oil in one day than all the other wells in America combined, and the industry that formed around it chose Houston as its headquarters because the city had the port, the railroads, and the particular Texas ambition that turns a natural resource into a global economy.

The Houston Ship Channel — dredged from Buffalo Bayou to the Gulf of Mexico — became the highway that moved the oil to the world, and the refineries that line its banks today process a quarter of the nation's petroleum. The San Jacinto Monument near the channel marks the 1836 battle where Texas won its independence from Mexico — a 570-foot Art Deco column topped with a star that is fifteen feet taller than the Washington Monument, because Texas considers modesty a character flaw.

Houston's identity — the energy, the sprawl, the relentless growth, the diversity that comes from being a magnet for people who want to build something — all traces back to the oil that came out of the ground in 1901 and the city that decided it belonged to them.