San Jacinto Street Bridge over Buffalo Bayou

Early Development along Buffalo Bayou

Although the Spanish explored the Gulf of Mexico as early as 1519, mapping the Texas coastline in the process, they made little effort to move inland and colonize the Gulf Coast region. At a remote edge of Spanish territory, the area surrounding present-day Houston was left mostly to its Native-American inhabitants, primarily Karankawas, until the 19th century. The Panic of 1819 in the United States and the economic depression that followed encouraged a wave of Americans to emigrate to Spanish (and later Mexican) Texas, where they could escape their debt and acquire free land.

Most Texas immigrants settled in the eastern part of the present-day state between the Colorado and Sabine rivers, including the Gulf Coast region. From those earliest days of Anglo colonization, settlement in the area of present-day Houston has centered on Buffalo Bayou. Most east Texas rivers are slow-moving, and they tend to deposit large amounts of silt where they meet the Gulf, often creating sand bars across their mouths that render them unusable for inland transport. In contrast, Buffalo Bayou was wide and deep and therefore navigable from Galveston Bay to within 40 miles of San Felipe, the effective capital of Anglo colonies in Texas.

Recognizing the bayou's commercial possibilities, John Richardson Harris, one of Austin's original colonists, established the town of Harrisburg at what was believed to be the head of navigation for Buffalo Bayou, just southeast of present-day Houston. Harris also established a trading post at Bell's Landing on the Brazos River, the main artery of the new colony. With access to Galveston Bay via Buffalo Bayou, Harrisburg became the port for a lucrative trade between New Orleans and Texas and the principal supply center for the area's settlers.

Following the Texas Revolution in 1836, several land speculators began scrambling to establish new towns along Buffalo Bayou and Galveston Bay to replace Harrisburg, which had been burned to the ground by Mexican troops. Augustus Chapman Allen and his brother, John Kirby Allen, soon discovered that Buffalo Bayou was actually navigable even farther upstream than Harrisburg. Within four months of the Battle of San Jacinto, the Allen brothers had chosen a site on the south bank of Buffalo Bayou, purchased the land, plotted a town, and begun advertising lots for sale. They named their new city Houston after the hero of San Jacinto, General Sam Houston, and promised that it would become "the great interior commercial emporium of Texas." Although there was not yet a single house built in the town, the Allen brothers persuaded the new congress to name Houston the first capital of the Republic of Texas. Although the capital was moved to Austin in 1839, by then Houston had created a name for itself and secured its place in the industries that would define it, agriculture and commerce."

From its beginning, Houston depended on Buffalo Bayou and its link to Galveston Bay. As soon as the town was established, barges and other light draft craft navigated the bayou between Houston and Galveston, and a regular steamboat service was established along the route in 1837. The significance of Buffalo Bayou as a trade route only increased as the city developed. Shipments of cotton, the area's primary 19th-century export, out of Houston grew from 4,260 bales in 1842 to 11,359 bales by 1854. However, the bayou was difficult to navigate, and after the Civil War local businessmen began efforts to dredge a better channel. In 1876, they opened a twelve-foot-deep waterway to Clinton, just below Houston. The U.S. government took over in 1881 and opened the deeper, wider Houston Ship Channel in 1914, making Houston one of the largest deepwater ports in the country. The channel opened just in time to earn an important role in the newly developing petroleum industry, which would become Houston's economic base for the 20th century. Refineries soon lined the Houston Ship Channel, where they could benefit from the established transportation network but remain sheltered from Gulf storms.

Houston's Warehouse District experienced tremendous growth between the 1890s and 1930s in response to the development of these major transportation networks. Railroad expansion in the 1890s-including establishment of services by the Missouri, Kansas & Texas (MK&T) system in 1893 and the Southern Pacific system in 1896 consolidated the redevelopment of the working class neighborhoods along Buffalo Bayou into the city's primary industrial sector. Regional petroleum discoveries and the introduction of automotive transportation sustained this industrial development by creating demand for new factories and warehouses to service the needs of the expanding regional economy. A major building boom in the community at large and in the district occurred between 1910 and 1930, with new construction fostering a cycle of spiraling growth. Produce and transfer warehouses, regional headquarters for national companies, and shipping and storage facilities supported the rapid growth and development of the city's industrial base during this period. The number of industrial properties, including extensive freight depots built by the Southern Pacific and MK&T systems, constructed during the 1920s, exceeded those built in the previous three decades. Not without cost, this growth precipitated the erosion of the working-class neighborhoods that once characterized the area. Economic decline during the Great Depression slowed new construction in the warehouse district. While the petroleum industry continued to underpin the local economy, reduced availability of land in the warehouse district prompted new construction to the east in the vicinity of the turning basin established downriver at Harrisburg.

Bridges Over Buffalo Bayou

Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the city expanded rapidly on both sides of the bayou, and, especially after the introduction of the automobile, bridges became a necessity. However, navigation of the bayou was an integral part of the area's transportation network and could not be impeded. To effectively meet the needs of both water and land-based transport, bridges over Buffalo Bayou followed the more general evolution of bridge technology throughout the region and the country.

The first bridge constructed over Buffalo Bayou was built in 1862 for a railroad line, the Galveston, Houston, and Henderson Railroad. The expansion of railroads across the country in the mid-19th century generated significant advancement in bridge design and construction. Most 19th-century bridges were constructed of fabricated trusses made first of timber and later of iron and steel. As this type of construction did not easily allow much vertical clearance, bridges built over navigable waters often required a moveable structure. This was usually accomplished, as in the 1862 center-span swing railroad bridge mentioned above, by pivoting the main truss span on a central pier. The earliest swing bridges were operated manually with cables or ropes or simply nudged open by the vessel moving through.

During the latter part of the 19th century, great strides were made in the development of reinforced concrete, and they were promptly applied to bridge construction. The earliest reinforced concrete bridges in Texas, such as the 1908 Euclid Avenue Bridge in Dallas, were closed-spandrel arches that mimicked stone masonry construction. Soon after, bridge engineers developed designs in which extraneous portions of the spandrel walls were left out, creating open spandrel arches composed of individual members. In 1914, two reinforced concrete, open-spandrel arch bridges were completed over Buffalo Bayou, at Main and San Jacinto streets. The central span of the 1275-foot Main Street Bridge crosses the bayou with a single concrete arch reinforced with the "Kahn System," which featured square reinforcing bars with spurs on each side embedded in the concrete. Reinforced concrete enabled much greater vertical lift, and these bridges provided enough clearance for navigating Buffalo Bayou without a movable span."

During the 1890s and the first decades of the 20th century, local governments across the United States began conscious efforts to improve the aesthetic features of their cities. Proponents of the City Beautiful movement during the Progressive era believed that beautiful surroundings would inspire both moral and civic virtue among lower-class urban residents, effectively taming perceived social ills. As many wealthy people left American city centers for the more bucolic suburbs during this period, new and improved urban amenities, inspired by Beaux- Arts Classicism, were also planned to attract the upper classes and their money back to the city to work and play. This movement coincided with rapid growth in Texas, and several cities in the state began their own beautification programs. In 1912, the City of Houston passed a $250,000 bond issue to acquire land and improve its park system. The Houston Park Commission then hired landscape architect and city planner Arthur C. Comey to develop a master plan for the city. Comey's plan, like many being produced at the time, featured a system of parkways and boulevards to link the central city with growing suburbs.

Parkways were planned along Buffalo and White Oak bayous, and Comey recommended that the necessary bridges be built of concrete, in the simplest form of construction.

Several concrete bridges were constructed in the 1920s under Comey's plan, and many employed a type of construction that was increasing in popularity, the reinforced concrete girder. Early concrete girder bridges were constructed with steel wide-flange beams encased in concrete, but engineers soon learned that only parts of the beam were absorbing stress and that a series of smaller metal rods could achieve the same effect. Concrete girder bridge construction was used increasingly in the expansion of the Texas state highway system after the organization of the State Highway Department in 1917, reaching the height of its popularity in the 1930s. The 1924 Sabine Street Bridge over Buffalo Bayou included six spans of continuous reinforced concrete girders supported on concrete bents. Curved concrete fascia walls were used to give the appearance of an arch.

Houston's parkway boulevard and street extension plan continued into the early 1930s. City bridge engineer James Gordon (J. G.) McKenzie continued to design bridges with a similar aesthetic, using a simple concrete girder structure and an urn-style balustrade. McKenzie streamlined the bridges' form and ornamentation, reflecting more general trends in bridge design. The Almeda Road and Telephone Road bridges over Bray's Bayou and the Yale Street Bridge over White Oak Bayou were all built in 1931, and together they illustrate McKenzie's simplified version of City Beautiful design."

San Jacinto Street Bridge over Buffalo Bayou

The 1914 San Jacinto Street Bridge is one of two Houston bridges built as an open spandrel concrete arch; the other is the Main Street Viaduct, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as contributing to the Main Street Historic District. Both of these bridges are reflective of the City Beautiful campaign during Houston Mayor H.B. Rice's tenure. The Main Street Viaduct is longer, at 1,275 feet (San Jacinto Street Bridge is 325 feet long), but has only one concrete arch barrel main span.

The design of the arch at San Jacinto Street was based on the elastic theory in Turneaure and Maurer's "Principle of Reinforced Concrete Construction." Offering water traffic a long, solid, barrel arch ring to pass beneath, the open spandrel was also a medium for the City Beautiful movement's Classical-inspired architectural details, including sidewalk brackets, curved fascia walls, and urn balustrade railings.
Although the San Jacinto Street Bridge's open concrete railings have been replaced, the modern open balustrade is compatible with the original and the bridge retains sufficient integrity with its barrel arch ring and open spandrel design for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. The San Jacinto Street Bridge was designed by city engineer E.E. Sands and constructed by the William P. Carmichael Company of St. Louis for $155,000.00, and was considered the most important bridge in Houston at the time because of the complicated design required for its construction." As it replaced an earlier iron drawbridge, a temporary timber bridge was necessary to serve traffic over Buffalo Bayou between the demolition of the drawbridge and the completion of the concrete bridge. Timber cofferdams were used to excavate for the arch abutments and the contractors had to drive piles twenty-three feet into the subsurface of clay, as there was no natural rock foundation to support the bridge at this crossing. In addition, in order to allow for the continuation of water traffic underneath the bridge during construction, an open arch centering was required for the construction of the main span. Because of the skew of the arch, the engineer had to undertake a special study to design this centering to ensure the load was evenly distributed.

The open spandrel concrete arch was the dominant form for concrete bridges during the time that the San Jacinto Street Bridge was constructed over Buffalo Bayou.

This type of construction evolved, not only because the material costs were cheaper (less concrete required), but also because their apparent lightness was considered more visually appealing at prominent or scenic locations (such as over Buffalo Bayou, in downtown Houston). Individual examples are considered historically significant if they retain the character-defining features of their type: arch ribs, spandrel, spandrel columns, railing or parapet, and piers, abutment, and wing walls. There are twenty-three open-spandrel arch bridges in Texas, according to the Historic Bridge Inventory, maintained by the Texas Department of Transportation, and the San Jacinto Bridge is considered significant because it is one of this small number, it has special design characteristics of the City Beautiful movement, and it retains the character-defining features of its type.