1970
Houston's population stood at 1,213,064, which was an increase of 29.3 percent over 1960. The population figure for the five-county metropolitan area was 1,958,491, an increase of 38.1 percent over 1960
Houston recorded 287 murders
Over 8,500,000 square feet of floor space was either under construction or projected, not including two announced redevelopment projects
Rothko Chapel was opened as an ecumenical chapel to house the last great works of Mark Rothko
January
Arman Yramategui, conservationist and head of the Burke Baker Planetarium, is shot to death
January 18
After a federal pollution panel inspected the ship channel, one of its members termed the waters "too thick to drink and too thin to plow"
February 28
The school board voted four to three to institute voluntary integration measures which would meet federal court recommendations. Angry parents formed two organizations to oppose the board's action, and economic reprisals were taken against board members Drs. Robbins and Oser
April 17
Apollo 13 astronauts Jim Lovell, John Swigert and Fred Haise return safely days after an explosion 200,000 miles from Earth crippled their spacecraft and nearly cost them their lives
April 25
The Texas Eastern Transmission Corporation announced the purchase of the major portion of thirty-two city blocks in the downtown area for over $55,000,000. The corporation planned to spend about $1.5 billion to develop the area
June 1
The Federal District Court ordered Houston to drop its freedom-of-choice integration plan and adopt a zoning system. Complete faculty integration was ordered as well
July
One Shell Plaza, the tallest building in Houston, is opened.
July 11
President Richard M. Nixon proposed to Congress a sophisticated traffic control system for the ship channel, which had an average of three to four minor collisions a month
July 19
The Justice Department asked the U.S. Appeals Court to order Houston to pair and group 101 schools to achieve greater desegregation
July 26
One white SDS member and three blacks were wounded in a gun battle with police after a rally by People's Party 2, a Black Panther-like organization. Party Chairman C. Hampton died of his wounds the following day
August
Houston received a Model Cities grant of $13 million for the first five years of the Model Cities program
August 7
The Justice Department filed suit against the state education agency, the State Education Commissioner, and twenty-six school districts including Houston's, charging that they were continuing to operate segregated facilities. The suit contended that segregation involved Mexican-Americans as well as blacks
August 8
The Navigation District announced plans to build at Morgan's Point a new container port and turning basin which could accommodate ships of 800 feet or larger
September 5
Mexican-Americans opened a boycott of Houston's public schools and set up all-Mexican-American "hulga" schools. They demanded to be treated as a separate ethnic minority with special problems and not to be grouped with blacks or any other group
September 23
The grand jury cleared the police in the shooting death of C. Hampton, chairman of People's Party 2
October 4
Death of singer Janis Joplin of Port Arthur
November 2
A coalition of twelve liberal and radical groups accused the Houston Police Department of shielding two "night rider" members of the Ku Klux Klan who allegedly committed acts of terrorism and vandalism
The Texas legislature legalizes the sale of liquor by the drink
1971
January
Texan astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell walks on the moon
The Houston Oaks Hotel in the Galleria is opened
January 18
The Sharpstown Bank Stock Fraud scandal is brought to light and rocks state government
Barbara Jordan is the first black elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the South
Shell Oil Co. relocates corporate headquarters to Houston. More than 200 major firms move headquarters, subsidiaries and divisions here in the 1970's
One Shell Plaza opens
Gilbert Shelton of Houston publishes The Collected Freak Brothers cartoons
Houston Rockets professional basketball team formed
September
Hurricane Fern hits Houston, but does little damage
1972
The Galleria opens
One Allen Center opens
The Hyatt Regency Hotel opens
Larry Blyden of Houston wins Tony Award for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
July
The first Annual Lunar Landing Festival and Ball are held
September 1
La Raza Unida holds its first national convention
Frances "Sissy" Farenthold moves to Houston and teaches at TSU Law School after losing her bid for the governor's seat.
December 14
Americans astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt blast off from the moon, the last humans to visit the lunar surface
1973
January 23
Death of Lyndon Baines Johnson
1100 Milam Building opens
Constitutional Convention writes new organic law, which is rejected by the voters
Texas Monthly begins publication
January 22
George Foreman, 1968 Olympic gold medallist from Houston, knocks out Joe Frazier in the second round to become world heavyweight boxing champion
March
Luidmila Turischeva and Olga Korbut, Russian Olympic Gold meadalists, visit Houston
May 12
NASA launches Skylab, the third stage of a massive Saturn moon rocket converted into an orbital living space and laboratory. Skylab was occupied by three crews for a total of 171 days
Leon Jaworski of Houston appointed special prosecutor in the Watergate hearings that force the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon
August
Twenty-seven young boys are found to have been murdered by three Houston men in what will become know as the "Houston Mass Murders"
August 2
The Famed Chicken Ranch at La Grange ceases operations, thanks to Channel 13 reporter Marvin Zindler's Investigative Report
September 20
In their so-called "battle of the sexes,'' tennis star Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3, at
the Houston Astrodome
November
Voters of Houston reaffirmed their preference for the automobile by defeating a referendum to create the Houston Mass Transit Authority. Only 3 percent of the city's residents rode buses and the proposal went down by a three to one vote
1974
January
Roy Hofheinz, son of the former county judge and mayor, moved into the mayor's office. A Ph. D. in government, young Hofheinz was the prototype for pin-stripe mayors with impressive educational credentials and cultivated interest in the arts. He was the first mayor in the city's history to deal with affirmative action requirements, and he appointed the first women's advocate, Dr. Nikki Van Hightower. Among his accomplishments were construction of an international air terminal at Houston Intercontinental Airport, and completion of the Central Library
Former Mayor Louie Welch becomes President of The Houston Chamber of Commerce
The Super Bowl is held at Rice Stadium between the Miami Dolphins and the Minnesota Vikings
March
President Nixon visits Houston
May
The Houston Aeros Hockey team wins the W. H. A. championship
July
Elmer Wayne Henley is convicted of slaying six of the Mass Murder victims
July 25
Congresswoman Barbara Jordan of Houston delivers her famous " We the People" speech on the U.S. Constitution and impeachment
Two Houston Center opens
August 3
A prison siege at Huntsville comes to a bloody conclusion
Big Thicket National Preserve established
November 1
Halloween changed forever in a deadly treat case that left a mark on the nation when Ronald Clark O'Bryan of Pasadena kills his 8-year old son with cyanide-laced candy after a night of trick-or-treating, for $20,000 in insurance money earning the nickname the "Candy Man"
1975
First Texas Public Utilities Commission established
The Houston Public Library opens
Houston became the fifth largest city, and by some estimates the fastest growing city, in the nation
The city had six television stations, 30 radio stations, and two daily papers and five major weekly publications, about 1,750 churches, 260 municipal parks, 142 banks, hotel rooms for 24,000 guests, 32 interstate truck lines, six major railroads and two switching lines, 1,350 miles of industrial pipeline between some 140 major chemical and petroleum plants, and 1,634,942 motor vehicle registrations--of which 1,149,362 were automobiles
The Pennzoil Towers were nearing completion. Developer for the project--and for One and Two Shell Plaza-- was Gerald Hines
The Rice Hotel closed and reopen, for a short time, as the Rice Rittenhouse Hotel
First performance of Scott Joplin opera Treemonisha by the Houston Grand Opera and Ballet
Death of "Poppa" Don Robey, music producer from Houston
Death of W. O. "Lefty" Frizzell, singer from Corsicana
February
President Ford comes to Houston
March
Henry Kissinger visits Houston
May 13
Death of Bob Wills, musician from Turkey, Texas
July 15th to 24th
Cold war tensions between the U.S. and Soviet Union thaw long enough for the two super-powers to meet in Earth orbit. Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft dock for two days. Visions of new cooperation soon dissolve as hostilities between the two nuclear powers resume
August
Miss Ima Hogg, premier patronness of the Arts and daughter of the late Governor James Stephen Hogg, dies at the age of 93 while on a trip to London
October
Yugoslavian President Tito and his wife visit the Manned Spacecraft Center and the Texas Medical Center
November
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat visits Houston
The Summit Sports Arena opens
1976
Houston issued 28,251 building permits with a total value of $777,556,034. partly because the greater metropolitan area led the nation in total housing starts: 47,254
Retail sales in the area were also the highest in the south and southwest parts of the nation; banks had resources of over 16 billion dollars; foreign trade was over nine billion dollars in value; 43 nations maintained consular offices in the city; and eight banks had international exchange departments
Some 120 steamship lines and 90 tanker lines serve Port Houston, third largest in the U.S. in tonnage and second in terms of both value and foreign shipments. The port moved 90 million short tons of cargo, half of it to nearly 250 foreign ports from a local facility of over 100 wharves. In an average year 45,000 ships visit the port
One Houston Center opens
Pennzoil Place opens
First national tour of ZZ Top, Houston rock band
Charlie's Angels debuts on TV, produced by Aaron Spelling of Dallas and starring Farrah Fawcett of Corpus Christi and Jacklyn Smith of Houston
Death of Hondo Crouch, mayor of Luckenbach, Texas
January
The Houston Public Library moves into its new $11 million building in downtown Houston
February
The Goodpasture Grain Elevator explodes and burns at the Houston Ship Channel
An election is held to fill the Congressional seat of Bob Casey who was appointed to the Federal Maritime Commission
March
$35,000 is paid for the Grand Champion Steer at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
April
Famed billionaire Howard Hughes, Jr. dies enroute to Houston
The plans to renovate and restore the Esperson Building to its original beauty are announced
The Westheimer Independent School District starts proceedings to break away from the Houston Independent School District
May
French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing visits Houston
Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter win Texas' first Presidential primaries
An Ammonia tank truck explodes at the Loop 610-U. S. Highway 59 interchange killing four people and sending scores to the hospital
1977
Chamizal agreement creates undisputed boundary between Texas and Mexico
CitiCorp Center (Two Allen Center) opens
Hofheinz left office as mayor
A plainspoken real estate developer/builder, Jim McConn left his city council slot to run for mayor. He served two terms and generally is credited for the initial conceptualization of the George R. Brown Convention Center. During his tenure, voters approved a referendum creating the Harris-Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas opens on the New York stage, created by Texans Larry L. King, Peter Masterson, Carol Hall, Tommy Tune, Carlin Glynn, and Craig Chambers
November 18
First National Women's Conference opens in Houston
Texas Instruments of Dallas introduces the first commercial bubble memory computer
1978
Robert W. Wilson of Houston awarded the Nobel Prize in physics
The City of Houston opens Tranquility Park designed by architect Charles Tapley
The Farm Credit Bank Building (Federal Land Bank) opens
William P. Clements elected first Republican governor since 1870
1979
Ixotoc I oil spill, the world's largest, washes onto Gulf Coast beaches
July 11
Long-abandoned Skylab re-enters Earth's atmosphere and disintegrates
Dallas and Houston city elections suspended by federal court order pending investigation of compliance with the Voting Rights Act
1980
Ronald Reagan of California and George Bush of Houston, elected president and vice-president of the United States
Capital Bank Plaza (Three Allen Center) opens
Earl Campbell of Tyler and the Houston Oilers lead the National Football League in rushing for the third year in a row
Hotel Meridien opens
Booming Economy
By Ray Miller
ERALD Hines opened the Galleria at
Westheimer and South Post Oak in 1970. Sakowitz and Joske’s had built large stores a
little earlier at this intersection where there had been only a country store and a vacant
school house a few years before.
The Census of 1970 showed a population of 1,232,802 for the city proper, almost double the 1950 population.
Construction began in 1970 on Lake Conroe on the West Fork of the San Jacinto River, another addition to Houston’s surface water supply. The lake was completed in 1973. The Gulf Coast Waste Disposal Authority was created in 1970 to encourage and help channel industries to clean up their operations.
Shell Oil bought 500 acres of land near the Astrodome and started a commercial and residential development called Plaza del Oro. Congressman Bush gave up his house seat to make a race for the U.S. Senate. He lost and Bill Archer was elected to succeed him as 7th District congressman.
Work started in 1970 on the Eleven Hundred Milam Building, taller than anything downtown except One Shell Plaza.
One and Two Shell Plaza were completed in 1971 and in the same year two new projects were initiated, both bigger than anything done downtown before. Trammel Crow and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company started work on Allen Center on an 18-acre site between Smith Street and Interstate 45 just south of the Civic Center. A big part of this property had been part of the old Fourth Ward slum until the building of the elevated freeway cut it off from the main body of Fourth Ward. Texas Eastern Transmission Company bought up 33 blocks east of Main Street for a development called Houston Center.
Memorial Hospital decided in 1971 to sell its downtown property and move to Sharpstown. Classes began in the new University of Texas Medical School in the Medical Center and the Houston Fire Department took over the operation of emergency ambulances in the city in 1971. Most of the ambulances had previously been operated by undertakers. Some of them deplored the change as a setback for private enterprise.
Leonel Castillo became the first Hispanic to be elected to a citywide office in Houston when he defeated long-time City Controller Roy Qakes in 1971. The new Southwest Airlines brought the Hobby Airport terminal back to life that year. Southwest started with three planes, serving Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio.
The Securities Exchange Commission filed suit in 1971 accusing developer Frank Sharp and several state political figures of stock fraud. The agency charged that some high state officials had been bribed to support banking legislation favored by Sharp. The developer was accused of arranging for the officials to make quick profits by buying and selling stock in his National Bankers’ Life Insurance Company. The suit alleged that Sharp’s bank lent the politicians the money for the deals. House Speaker Gus Mutscher and two of his aides were convicted of conspiring to accept bribes and the fallout ruined the careers of several other politicians.
Frank Sharp was granted probation and immunity from further prosecution when he pleaded guilty to making a false bank entry and dealing in unregistered stock and agreed to give testimony against the others. The scandal caused a run on his bank. It closed and Sharp lost control of the Sharpstown empire he had created.
Wayne Duddleston, Billy Goldberg, and Ralph O’Connor bought the San Diego Rockets in 1971 and moved them to Houston. This was the first professional basketball franchise in Texas. Raymond Schindler and his associates in Crest Broadcasting Company put KRIV-TV on the air on Channel 26 August 15, 1971. This was the year congress created Amtrak to run what was left of the railroad passenger business.
The Hyatt Regency Hotel opened at Louisiana and Dallas in 1972 and work started on the Pennzoil Building. W. P. Hobby, Jr., son of former Governor W. P. Hobby and Oveta Culp Hobby, was elected lieutenant governor.
The Houston Independent School District established the Houston Community College system in 1972. The system offered classes mostly at night and mostly in the Houston School District’s buildings in the beginning.
The port began a major expansion of its Bayport Division in 1972 and oilman George Mitchell started work on his new town at The Woodlands on 1-45 North. Mitchell estimated an ultimate investment of $3 billion.
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The L.B.J. Manned Spacecraft Center in Clear Lake. |
Water pollution was getting a lot of attention in 1972 and the Houston Ship Channel was mentioned more than once as possibly the filthiest body of water in the country.
The city itself was identified as the biggest single polluter. Inadequate and overloaded sewage treatment plants were the reason. The city started work on an enormous new sewage treatment plant on the channel at 69
th Street and stopped issuing new building permits in areas where the sanitary sewer system was inadequate. The plant was completed in 1983.The newly created World Hockey Association awarded Houston a hockey franchise in 1972 and Paul Deneau put the Houston Aeros on the ice at Sam Houston Coliseum.
The team played there until the Summit opened and then folded in 1978, a year before the WHA merged with the older National Hockey League. Kenneth Schnitzer was the owner of the Aeros when the club folded.
The space base at Clear Lake was named the Lyndon B. Johnson Manned Spacecraft Center in 1973. The legislature approved a bill that year allowing the creation of a Metropolitan Transit Authority, but voters in Houston turned the idea down and the city took over operation of the foundering bus system.
The city was considering a proposal to give a citywide cable TV franchise to a syndicate of business and civic leaders. Opponents forced a referendum and voters vetoed the franchise plan. The leading opponents were the owners of the established television stations.
The first bridge over the ship channel was completed in 1973 as the final link in the 610 Loop system.
President Nixon fired Archibald Cox in 1973 and appointed Leon Jaworski of Houston to be Watergate Special Prosecutor. Jaworski had been a partner in the law firm then known as Fulbright, Crooker, Freeman, and Bates since 1935.
Louie Welch decided not to run for a sixth term after serving an unprecedented five consecutive terms as mayor. Roy Hofheinz’s son Fred was elected mayor and Welch was elected president of the Houston Chamber of Commerce in 1974.
The Chamber of Commerce calculated in 1974 that new people were moving to Houston at the rate of 55,000 a year. The Two Houston Center Building was completed in Houston Center that year.
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Leon Jaworski prosecuted the Watergate investigation with more vigor than the Nixon White House probably had expected and by 1974 President Nixon was trying to conduct some damage control with appearances around the country.
The president came to Houston on March 19th,
fresh from a meeting with business executives in Chicago where he had been warmly
received. Some of his aides already had been indicted. Jaworski and the House Judiciary
Committee were demanding additional tapes and documents Nixon did not want to furnish. He
was contending that the doctrine of executive privilege entitled him to withhold the
material being demanded. He came to Houston to appear before a group he expected to be
every bit as supportive as the people in Chicago. The National Association of Broadcasters
was in convention here. The members of this organization are owners and operators of radio
and television stations, all holding licenses from the government. No group is less
anxious to offend a sitting president.
The president’s staff and the broadcasters’ organization had arranged a news conference format, where the president would answer questions posed by the broadcasters. The regular White House correspondents were traveling with the president but the president’s aides hoped they would not be permitted to ask questions since , as they explained, the White House correspondents had access to the president all the time. The program was staged in Jones Hall. The White House correspondents were permitted to ask questions. Dan Rather was there for CBS. The president and his staff did not consider Rather a friend. When he stood to ask his question, President Nixon just looked at him without inviting him to speak, as he had been doing with others. Rather waited a few seconds and then said, "Mr. President, Dan Rather, CBS News." There was a chorus of boos and some scattered applause from the audience. The president asked, "Are you running for something?" Rather said, "No, Sir, Mr. President, are you?" There were more boos before Rather asked the president to say how the House of Representatives could carry out its duties in the impeachment process if the president continued to hold back evidence the House wanted. The president replied that the House was trying to go beyond the constitutional grounds for impeachment. There were many more questions and answers but the exchange between Rather and the president got most of the attention in news accounts of the president’s appearance. NBC News President Reuven Frank said Rather smart-assed the president. CBS News President Dick Salant received many demands that he fire Rather. He declined to do it.
The new City Library was completed in the Civic Center in 1975 and the Summit Arena opened in Greenway Plaza. The Summit was built with the proceeds from a city revenue bond issue on land donated by Kenneth Schnitzer. The city owns the building and leases it to an operating company in an arrangement similar to the one between the county and the Houston Sports Association. The Houston Rockets had no regular place to play until the Summit was completed. The Summit also was the home of the Aeros hockey team from 1975 until 1978.
Philanthropist Ima Hogg died in London in 1975 at age 93.
The Houston Rodeo was the biggest in the world by 1975. This was made possible by the Livestock Show and Rodeo’s move from the Sam Houston Coliseum to the Astrodome complex in 1966.
Houstonians voted in 1975 to legalize the sale of liquor by the drink, a blow to the private clubs, but a big plus for the restaurant and convention business.
The legislature created the Coastal Subsidence District in 1975 to begin regulating and reducing the withdrawal of groundwater in Harris and Galveston counties.
Howard Hughes, Jr. died on April 5, 1976, on a chartered jet that was bringing him to the Texas Medical Center. He was 71 and a billionaire. He had been a recluse for 13 years, living in Las Vegas, the Bahamas, and Mexico, where he was when he lapsed into the coma that prompted his staff to try to get him to the medical center.
Congressman Bob Casey resigned in 1976 to accept appointment to the National Maritime Commission. Republican Ron Paul of Lake Jackson was elected to succeed him.
The One Houston Center building in Houston Center was completed in 1977. Work started that year on the First International Bank Tower where Memorial Hospital had been.
The National Women’s Conference was held in Houston in November, 1977. It was part of the observance of International Women’s Year and it was the biggest women’s meeting ever held in America. Former Congresswoman Bella Abzug of New York was in the chair and the delegates resolved among other things that the Equal Rights Amendment ought to be ratified.
City Council member Jim McConn was elected mayor of Houston in 1977 and the city the same year annexed Clear Lake City and some other large suburban areas, including Alief.
British Caledonian Airways started direct service between Houston and London in 1977. The city transit system established the first Park and Ride service on the Gulf Freeway and started planning contra flow lanes for buses on the freeways. Voters in 1978 approved the creation of a Metropolitan Transit Authority to take over the bus system. Also approved was a one-cent addition to the sales tax to pay for improvements to the system. The first contra flow lane opened, on 1-45 North, in 1979. It worked better than some people had expected. There was only one fatal accident on it in the first 5 years.
The Chamber of Commerce reported that 539 energy companies had headquarters in Houston by 1978.
Tranquility Park in the Civic Center was completed in 1979 and the city council
that year granted cable TV franchises for separate areas of the city to five groups made
up chiefly of people with political influence. The franchisees soon sold their rights to
the national chains, Warner and Storer.
The port reported a new record of 112,056,767 tons of cargo handled during 1979.
Work started in 1979 on the Texas Commerce Tower. The value of building permits issued by the city for the year 1979 went above $2 billion for the first time. Almost three times as much office space was built in the 1970s as was built in the 1960s.
The number of vehicles in the city almost doubled between 1970 and 1979. City officials and civic leaders have been busy ever since trying to fend off Environmental Protection Agency moves to limit industrial building permits and restrict the use of motor vehicles.
.
he city council
proposed a charter amendment in August, 1979 to expand the number of council positions
from eight to 14, to comply with the 1964 Voting Rights Act requiring more minority
representation. Nine of the 14 council members were to be elected by district and the
district boundaries were drawn to make it likely that some blacks and Hispanics would be
elected. Moses LeRoy had filed a suit in federal court to force redistricting and the city
government wanted to hold a bond election, but the Department of Justice was not going to
allow that without some move toward compliance with the Voting Rights Act. City voters
approved the expansion. The bond issues were approved in September and the city council
election was held in November. The council had always been all-male. It had been all-white
from the end of Reconstruction until 1971 when black real estate operator Judson Robinson
was elected. Robinson was reelected and two more black men were elected in 1979, Ernest
McGowen and Anthony Hall. Also elected were the council’s first women members,
Eleanor Tinsley and Christin Hartung, both white, and the first Hispanic, Ben Reyes. The
Astros signed free agent Nolan Ryan in 1979.
