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
1981
Kathryn J. Whitmire elected first woman mayor of Houston
April 12
The first reusable spacecraft, NASA's shuttle Columbia, launches on a successful maiden voyage with astronauts John Young and Robert L. Crippen of Porter piloting
John Kolius of Seabrook is the U.S. Yacht Racing Union's Champion of Champions
Nolan Ryan of Refugio and the Houston Astros becomes the first man in history to pitch five no-hitters in the major leagues
1982
Braniff Airlines of Dallas files bankruptcy petition
One-fifth of Houston's new housing units were within a thirty-minute drive of the Post Oak area at peak driving periods
Houston launches comprehensive regional mobility plan. More than $1 billion a year is budgeted for new roads, freeway expansions, transit ways and toll roads
"Ninfa," a musical based on the life of restaurateur Ninfa Laurenzo, opens in Houston
Death of singer Lightnin' Hopkins of Houston
Mark White, Democrat, elected governor
Sugar Babies, co-starring Ann Miller of Chireno and Houston with Mickey Rooney, closes on Broadway after 1,208 performances
Jennifer Holiday of Houston wins the Tony Award as best actress in a musical for Dreamgirls, and Tommy Tune of Houston wins his third Tony--this time as director of the Broadway musical Nine
1983
August 18
Alicia, the most expensive hurricane in U.S. history, hits Galveston and Houston
1984
Business and community leaders create the Houston Economic Development Council to help diversify and expand Houston's economy
January 26
In his state of the Union address, President Reagan directs NASA to build a permanently occupied space station with in a decade. NASA estimates the price tag at $8 billion
The average number of business bankruptcy filings increased from the twenty-five a month in 1980 to ninety-three a month; a number of these bankruptcies involved firms worth more than $200 million
1985
Houston had about 159.2 million square feet of office space, with 133 million square feet in multi-tenant buildings, which was reportedly the third largest amount for any city in the U. S.
1986
Oil prices collapse
January 1
The shuttle Challenger explodes moments after launch, killing its seven member crew in the worlds space disaster
The annual number of bankruptcies increased to 1,618, substantially more than the number for 1984 and 1985
Building permits dropped from a seasonally adjusted rate of $251 million in 1982 to $64 million
During the first week of June a major office building and a major hotel were among the 2,500 Houston area properties repossessed by banks and other lenders. For the entire year a total of 25,602 properties were foreclosed upon
The Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden at The Museum of Fine Arts was created by internationally renowned sculptor Isamu Noguchi. It is the setting for major works by the 19th and 20th century sculptors
The Fortune 500 list eleven Houston companies with combined sales of $54.1
billion
1987
A total of 3,047 residential and commercial properties were posted for foreclosure at the Family Law Center in downtown Houston. Posted foreclosures included major hotels, such as the Westchase Hilton and the French-owned Meridian, and major shopping centers, such as the 100-store Town and Country Village. About 90 percent of the foreclosures involved residential property. This pace set a new record for the city
The Texas Medical Center demolished the Shamrock Hotel in 1987
Eleven banks failed in Houston in the first nine months, the largest number since the Great Depression. The most dramatic of the bank failures was that of the First City Bank corporations. It received a $1 billion bailout by the FDIC, the second largest bank rescue in FDIC history
George R. Brown Convention Center, Wortham Center and the Menil Collection open in Houston, enhancing the city's cultural tourism and convention amenities
Since its opening, the Gus S. Wortham Theatre Center has been an internationally known success story. Conceived to house the rapidly growing Houston Grand Opera and Houston Ballet, the performing arts center was founded entirely by the private sector during Houston's economic downturn. The City of Houston donated the site; foundations and Houston corporations gave over 75 percent of the $75 million needed for the total project; individual donations donated the remainder. The acoustically excellent Wortham Center is the cornerstone of Houston's Theatre District, which includes the Alley Theatre, Jones Hall and the Music Hall
The Menil Collection, ranks among the greatest private art collections in the world. Assembled by French-born art patrons and philanthropists John and Dominique de Menil over a 40-year period, the museum consists of more than 15,000 paintings, sculptures, objects, prints, photographs and books
While oil prices rebounded from $10-$12 per barrel, the $38 level
reached in 1981 was not likely to recur
1988
Average afternoon peak-period freeway speed has improved by nearly 20 percent over the period from 1982 to 1988
September 29
Americans return to space aboard the shuttle Discovery, after a 32-month absence in the wake of the challenger accident
German-born Christoph Eschenbach became the Symphony's music director, having previously earned a distinguished international reputation as a concert pianist and conductor of the major orchestras of Europe and North America
August 7
Congressman Mickey Leland was killed in a plane crash over Ethiopia. State Senator Craig Washington won the special election to succeed Leland in the district originally represented by Barbara Jordan
August 25
Defense attorney Percy Foreman died at the age of 86
August 25
Flamboyant wildcatter Glenn McCarthy died at the 81
1989
From 1984 to 1989, Houston made the greatest improvement in mobility of all major U.S. cities
Katy, Texas native, Clint Black, spent the better part of a decade working as a solo singer-songwriter in Houston nightclubs and restaurants before his career took off with the album Killin' Time
Houston's Justice Records was founded by lawyer Randall Jamail and has become one of the most respected new jazz-oriented labels in the country, with a roster that includes Herb Ellis, Kellye Gray, Sebastion Whittaker and the late Emily Remler
The Sam Houston and Hardy Toll Roads accommodated 37.5 million passengers
Houston's unemployment rate dropped below the national average
October 23
The Phillips 66 plant in Pasadena resembles a war zone after
flammable gases spewed from a reactor and exploded, killing 23 workers and
injuring 130
1990
The Houston Ship Channel, a 50-mile inland waterway, connects Houston with the sea lanes of the world. Its turning basin is six miles east of Houston's central business district. Most of the Channel has a minimum width of 400 feet and a depth at mean low tide of 40 feet
Located on more than 680 acres, the value of Texas Medical Center buildings completed or under construction is about $7 billion
$479 million in Health Care research was conducted in the Texas Medical Center
Texas Medical Center's operating budget was over $4 billion
Texas Medical Center's employment was approximately 51,000, and some 12,000 students attended institutions there
Houston host the 16th annual Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations
Fiscal Houston Customs District collections of $465.5 million ranked 12th nationally
Harris County ranked fifth among U. S. counties in value of shipments of manufactured products ($21.4 billion)
Recession
By Ray Miller
HE Census of 1980 showed a population of
1,594,086 for Houston. Only New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia had bigger
numbers and Houston passed Philadelphia in 1982, by unofficial Houston calculations.
A survey of new office buildings in 1981 revealed that more new office space was built in the suburbs than was built downtown during the preceding five years. Houston Magazine listed 54 suburban office parks, but building continued downtown, too. The Texas Commerce Tower was completed in 1981. Work was proceeding on the Capital National Plaza in Allen Center, on the First City Tower, on 1010 Lamar, and on 801 Travis. The old Memorial Professional Building on Louisiana was being demolished to make way for the new Allied Bank Tower. Building permits totaled $2.5 billion in 1980.
The city bought the old Sharpstown Country Club and began converting
it to a public park. The city council agreed to make the two blocks bound by Texas Avenue, Smith, Preston, and the bayou available for a proposed new Lyric Theater. George Brown was pushing for a new and bigger convention hall in Houston Center.Work began in 1981 on the Allied Bank Tower, and on a new Gulf Tower and The Park retail mall, both in Houston Center. A new hotel was completed in Allen Center, originally called the Meridian and operated originally by Air France.
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The new international terminal at Intercontinental Airport was named when it opened in 1990 for the late Congressman Mickey Leland. The federal office building on Smith Street is also named for Leland. |
American General started work on a new 42-story tower in the American General Center in 1981. Gerald Hines started work on a new tower for Republic Bank on the block bound by Smith, Capitol, Louisiana, and Rusk. Hines bought the Lamar Hotel block bound by Main, McKinney, Travis, and Lamar. He closed the hotel in 1983, sold the contents, and in 1985 demolished the Lamar and the other buildings on the block, including the remnants of the long-closed Loew’s and Metropolitan, once the city’s grandest movie palaces. Hines started work on a new building for Transco near the Galleria. The Transco Tower was the tallest building outside the downtown district when
it was completed in 1983. Building permits issued in 1981 added up to $3 billion. It was the largest total recorded in a single year by any American city up to that time. The port was again third in the nation in total tonnage handled, and first in foreign trade.The board of the Houston Independent School District was expanded from seven members to nine members in 1981 for the same reason the city council had been expanded.
The city election in the fall of 1981 produced something new. Mayor Jim
McConn failed to make the runoff. City Controller Kathy Whitmire beat former sheriff Jack
Heard to become the first woman mayor in the city’s history. She made some changes.
She hired Alan Kiepper away from Atlanta to run the Metro system and she brought Lee Brown
from Atlanta to be chief of police. Brown was the city’s first black police chief.
The Texas Turnpike Authority completed a toll bridge over the ship channel at Beltway 8 in 1982 and named
it for the late Jesse Jones. Channel 20, Inc., put KTXH-TV on the air on Channel 20 on November 7,1982.
Roy Hofheinz died on November 21, 1982 at the age of 70. Most of the empire he
had created had gotten away from him a few years before. He couldn’t meet the payments
on the debts he had incurred in buying control of the HSA and building hotels and the
Astroworld Park. His creditors foreclosed in 1975. G. E. Credit and Ford Motor Credit
Company took control and then sold HSA and the hotels to a limited partnership headed by
John McMullen in 1979. The Hofheinz funeral procession detoured to circle the Astrodome
enroute to Glenwood Cemetery on November 24, 1982.
Caroline Hunt’s Rosewood Corporation built the Remington Hotel on Briar Oaks Lane for a reported $60 million in 1982. Investors from out of state bought it six years later for half that price and changed the name to Ritz-Carlton. The Queen of England and Prince Philip stayed at the Ritz-Carlton when they visited Houston in May, 1991.
The Four Seasons Hotel in Houston Center was completed in 1982, as were several high-rise condominium buildings. Plans were announced for the 50-story Four Allen Center. Work started on the United Bank Plaza Building at 1415 Louisiana and on the 1600 Smith Building in Cullen Center. But applications for new building permits fell a little short of the 1981 mark.
Houston Democrat Mark White upset Republican Governor Bill Clements in the November election in 1982 and when White took office in 1983, he named Houston developer Bob Lanier to chair the Texas Highway Commission. Lanier held that job until Clements won the governor’s office back in 1986. Houston did not lack for highway improvements.
George
Bush had served in several high appointive offices during the Nixon and Ford
administrations and then returned to Houston when the Democrats captured the White House
in 1976. The Bushes were living on Indian Trail on the west side when he mounted his
campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 1982. They sold the house on Indian
Trail and moved to Washington after he was elected vice president in November, but the
vice president continued to vote in Texas, as he said he had since 1948.
Democratic State Representative Clint Hackney challenged Bush’s qualifications for voting in Texas but attorney Hal DeMoss argued that the vice president still considered Texas his home and Tax Collector Carl Smith, as voting registrar, ruled on June 3, 1985, that it was okay for Bush to continue voting here.
Houston and Harris County got another congressional district in 1982 and Assistant District Attorney Mike Andrews, a Democrat, was elected to represent the new District 25.
Applications for building permits were back down by 1983 to the 1978 level, below $2 billion. The petroleum industry was in a slump. Business declined at the port. Migration from the North and East dwindled. Real estate brokers were estimating that it might take two years for the developers of office buildings already built to find tenants to fill them. The rest of the country and the rest of Texas appeared to think this was just a local problem. Speculative building continued elsewhere, and even in Houston, until the savings and loans started crashing in 1986.
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Metro proposed to begin a rail system from the southwest suburbs to downtown with provisions for later extensions. Voters rejected the plan in an election held on June 11, 1983. Metro started planning more improvements to the bus system and more contra flow lanes. Harris County Judge Jon Lindsay and Commissioners Court easily won voter approval for a County Toll Road Authority. The authority completed the Hardy Street Toll Road from 610 North to Intercontinental Airport and I-45 North in June, 1988, and the Sam Houston Toll Way between the Southwest Freeway and I-45 North in July, 1990.
City voters in 1983 approved plans for the new convention hall George Brown wanted in Houston Center. Brown did not live to see it but it was named for him when it opened in September, 1987.
Houstonian Frank Lorenzo changed
the character of the airline business in 1983 when he put Continental Airlines in
bankruptcy and reorganized the company, voiding union contracts in the process. Lorenzo
had acquired Continental in 1981 and merged it with the regional Texas International he
had acquired in 1972.
The federal government deeded Ellington Field to the city in 1984. The city did not change the name.
Jerry Argovitz and his partners fielded a Houston team in the new United States Football League in 1984. The Houston Gamblers played their home games in the Astrodome until Argovitz and company sold them in 1985 to Eastern interests who moved them to New Jersey. Jack Pardee was the Gamblers’ coach.
The Getty Oil Company of California agreed in 1984 to merge with Pennzoil of Houston, then merged instead with Texaco. Pennzoil filed suit for damages.
The Market Square Historic District on Main Street was entered in the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. One of the district buildings most cherished by preservationists collapsed the same year. The Pilot Building on Congress Avenue was put back up by a syndicate called City Partnership Limited.
Oil prices were dropping in 1985 toward a low of around $10 a barrel by 1986. Many investors were ruined, oil service concerns were folding, drilling rigs were stacked, loans were going into default, and property values in Houston were declining. Appraised tax valuations in the county totaled $132.8 billion in 1985 and they declined by $16 billion between 1985 and 1990, when they turned up again.
Houston Natural Gas merged with InterNorth of Omaha in 1985, and adopted the name Enron Corporation. Enron established headquarters in a Schnitzer building at 1400 Smith. HNG chairman Kenneth Lay became Enron’s chairman.
A jury in Houston in 1985 found in favor of Pennzoil in the damage suit Pennzoil had filed against Texaco over the Getty merger. The jury awarded Pennzoil $11 billion in damages. Texaco set appeals in motion but settled with Pennzoil two years later for $3 billion.
One of the area’s high-flying real estate speculators was brought down in 1987. His creditors forced J. R. McConnell into Chapter 11. His obligations were said to be around $500 million and he was accused of swindling investors. McConnell was indicted in 1987 and he killed himself in the Harris County Jail in July, 1988
The explosion of the Challenger on January 28, 1986, put NASA’s flight schedules on a prolonged hold.
The owners of KTRK TV, the Capital Cities chain, bought the ABC television network in 1986. The city of Houston upset environmentalists by buying 1,432 acres of prairie in Wailer County for a proposed fourth airport. The price of the land, south of I-10 West between Katy and Brookshire, in an area much favored by migratory geese, was $5.7 million.
Billy
Reagan retired in 1986 from his position as Superintendent of the Houston schools and the
school board picked Joan Raymond, superintendent of the Yonkers system in New York to
replace him. Dr. Raymond was the first woman to head the Houston district.
Both the surviving Houston daily newspapers changed hands in 1987. Houston Endowment sold the Houston Chronicle to the Hearst Corporation. The Toronto Sun sold the Houston Post to Dean Singleton’s Media News Group.
Dr. Paul Chu of the University of Houston achieved overnight fame with a breakthrough that could lead to development of a conducting material with no resistance to electricity.
Joske’s sold out to Dillard’s and disappeared from the Houston scene in 1987. Dillard’s closed some of the stores and changed the name of the others.
The Texas Medical Center demolished the Shamrock Hotel in 1987. The center
had bought the hotel and grounds from Hilton in 1985 and then determined that the hotel
building could not be converted to serve its purposes. The parking garage and the Grand
Ballroom were saved. The swimming pool was covered with a parking lot.
The theater that was being called the Lyric when it was in the planning phase got a new name when the foundation established by insurance magnate Gus Wortham made a large donation to the building fund. The Wortham Theater was completed and opened in May, 1987. A new art museum was completed the same year on Sul Ross in the St. Thomas University neighborhood to house the treasures collected by Schlumberger heiress Dominique de Menil and her husband John.
Respected old Texas banks were buying each other and merging to try to avoid being swamped by loans they could not collect. Bank of the Southwest merged with Mercantile of Dallas to become M Bank in 1984. The venerable Texas Commerce sold out to Chemical of New York in 1987. United Bank and Western Bank both failed in 1987 and First City was reorganized with federal assistance. RepublicBank merged with Inter-First in 1987 to become First Republic.
Loans he could not pay off forced former Governor John Connally into bankruptcy in 1988. The Connally's raised $2.5 million for their creditors by selling their personal possessions. John and Nellie Connally attended every session of the auction at Hart Galleries, visiting with the bidders and buyers.
The last downtown skyscraper built before the end of the boom bankrupted the developers who had paid the highest price yet for downtown property. A partnership including the Michigan State Employees Pension System bought the Heritage Plaza on Bagby for a reported $110 million in 1988, rented most of it to Texaco in 1989 and changed the name to Texaco Heritage Plaza.
Merger did not save First Republic Bank. The new company failed in July of 1988 and NCNB Corporation of North Carolina took it over with federal assistance. The Houston Astros balked at his asking price and declined to offer Nolan Ryan a new contract in 1988. He went on to greater fame and bigger paychecks with the Texas Rangers.
Mayor Whitmire appointed former Highway Commission Chairman Bob Lanier to chair the Metro board in 1988. Voters the same year approved Metro’s Phase Two Mobility Plan including a rail line.
Defense attorney Percy Foreman died August 25, 1988 at the age of 86.
Foreman grew up in Lufkin where his father was sheriff. Watching trials convinced him he
should be a lawyer. He started work in Houston as an assistant district attorney but soon
switched to defense work and became a star. Cases he tried always drew crowds of
spectators. He gained a national reputation for getting defendants acquitted, so people in
serious trouble beat a path to his door and made him rich. He never denied that his fees
were high. He often said, "My fees are their punishment." But he also defended
people without money and from them he accepted whatever they had. He ended up with more
jewels, houses, and cars than he could count. The criminal courts in Harris County shut
down for Percy Foreman’s funeral.
His cherished Shamrock Hotel was shut down and gone when the once flamboyant
wildcatter Glenn McCarthy died on December 26, 1988, 81 years and one day after he was
born.
The Houston Chamber of Commerce had become the Greater Houston Chamber of Commerce by the time Eileen T. Crowley became president in December, 1988. She was the chamber’s first female president. The chamber merged with the Economic Development Council in 1989 to form the Greater Houston Partnership. The Houston World Trade Council joined the partnership in July, 1989. All three organizations still exist as divisions of the Greater Houston Partnership.
Bank failures continued. M Bank became insolvent and was reborn as Bank One, still occupying the original Bank of the Southwest quarters on Travis.
Panhandle Eastern took over Texas Eastern Transmission in a $3 billion deal in February, 1989, and sold off the Houston Center development in December. The buyers were JMB-Houston Center Partners. Panhandle Eastern had started in Kansas in 1929 and moved to Houston in 1967.
Congressman Mickey Leland was killed August 7, 1989, in a plane crash in Ethiopia. State Senator Craig Washington won the special election to succeed Leland in the district originally represented by Barbara Jordan.
An explosion and fire at the Phillips plant in Pasadena killed 23 workers in October, 1989, and the first of the famous Houston oil well firefighters died the same year, at the age of 100. He was H. L. Pat Patton. He had started his career in 1929.
The Wyndham Hotel chain took over the Warwick Hotel and started another renovation in 1989. John Mecom, Jr. had surrendered the hotel to his creditors in 1987.
The city council imposed admission fees at the Hermann Park Zoo for the first time in 1989
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ouston got a new passenger train
service in 1989 when Franklin Denson, with a lot of support from Galveston interests,
started running the Texas Limited between Houston and the island, on weekends. But
commuter rail proposals continued to generate controversy. During the mayoral election
campaign in the fall of 1989 when Mayor Whitmire was being challenged by former mayor Fred
Hofheinz, Bob Lanier let it be known that he was not enthusiastic about Metro’s rail
plans. He talked about resigning from his post as Metro chairman. Mayor Whitmire and her
supporters persuaded him to stay. With this apparent vote of confidence, Lanier then
forced the resignation of Metro’s pro-rail general manager, Alan Kiepper. But Mayor
Whitmire fired the last shot in this skirmish, after she won reelection. She let Lanier
know he was not going to be reappointed to the chairman’s job. Lanier quit. Kiepper
got a better job as head of the New York transit system and the Metro rail plan was still
alive.
A trivia question making the rounds after the 1989 city election was "Name the only living ex-mayor Kathy Whitmire has not beaten." She defeated Jim McConn to get elected the first time in 1981. She beat back a challenge by former mayor Louie Welch in 1985. C. A. Neal Pickett was the only living ex-mayor who had never opposed her and he died March 22, 1990. Pickett had served one term as mayor, 1940-1942.
Two black women won seats on the city council in the election of 1989. Sheila Jackson Lee was elected to a seat that had been occupied by black men since 1979. Beverly Clark defeated a white male council member, Jim Westmoreland.
