Page:Houston, Where Seventeen Railroads Meet the Sea.djvu/9

 in and out of Houston daily. Houston is the largest railroad center and deep-water port combined in the South. Houston is general headquarters for the Sunset-Central Lines (Southern Pacific lines in Louisiana and Texas), the International & Great Northern Railway, the Texas Frisco Lines, and the Trinity & Brazos Valley Railroad.

The only general office building of Southern Pacific Lines is at Houston—the nine-story, half-million dollar general offices of the Sunset-Central Lines. A modern half-million dollar hospital is maintained in Houston by the Southern Pacific.

The shops of the Sunset-Central Lines and of the Houston & Texas Central Railroad are in Houston. Nearly 2,500 men are employed in the great shops of the Texas & New Orleans Railroad, and over 500 men in the shops of the Houston & Texas Central.

Houston is the financial center of the Southwest, with more banking capital, greater clearings, and greater deposits than any city in Texas. Deposits subject to check average $45,000,000, while bank clearings are second only to New Orleans in any southern city. Several costly and modern buildings house Houston's financial institutions.

Houston is the largest inland port cotton market in the world, handling nearly 3,000,000 bales annually, or the bulk of the crop of Texas and Oklahoma. Houston has greater concentration facilities than any city in Texas and a compressing capacity of 3,000,000 bales per year. The greatest item of commerce over the Ship Channel is cotton, and the channel alone saves over $6,000,000 annually to the cotton producers of Texas, as it reduces, for a haul of fifty miles, the railroad rate of 21 cents per hundred pounds to 6 cents.

Houston is the oil center of Texas, twenty-three oil corporations, with a combined capital of $70,000,000, being domiciled in Houston. One corporation—The Texas Company—is capitalized at $50,000,000.

Houston is the lumber center of the Southwest, forty-nine lumber corporations, with a combined capital of $40,000,000, being domiciled in Houston. Annual business amounts to $37,000,000. The cut is confined almost entirely to long-leaf yellow pine, great forests of which are located within a few miles of Houston.

Houston is the industrial and manufacturing center of Texas, with 347 manufacturing institutions, turning out 282 different articles and employing 10,000 factory workers. The annual payroll of Houston is in excess of $10,000,000.

Houston is the sugar and rice center of Texas, being in the center of the producing region for both commodities.

Houston has forty tall buildings of six stories and over, ranging up to eighteen stories, which is more skyscrapers of six stories and over than possessed by any other city of equal population in the world.

Houston has greater modern hotel facilities than any city in the South, having two hundred more first-class hotel rooms than New Orleans, the nearest competitor. The Rice Hotel, of eighteen stories, containing six hundred guest rooms and costing $3,500,000, is the largest and costliest hotel in the South.

The largest and most modern convention hall in the South is in Houston—the great Municipal Auditorium, recently completed at a cost of $400,000. It seats 700 persons and 10,000 can be accommodated with seeing and hearing distance of the stage. It was built by the city and paid for out of the general revenues of the city.

Municipal government in Houston is by commission form. Taxable valuations are $100,000,000, the greatest of any city in Texas, and the taxable valuation of Harris County, of which Houston is the county seat, is $128,500,000, the greatest of any county in Texas.

Houston is an all the year 'round city. A pleasant winter resort, warmed by gulf trade winds, and cool in summer, fanned by gulf winds. It is a hospitable city where true southern hospitality is exemplified.