tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6528775934724928426.post8004036822374353946..comments2023-11-03T06:02:47.788-07:00Comments on Confessions of a Half A$$ Historian: Houston's Forgotten Tragedy: The Gulf Hotel FireAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08187510083959305935noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6528775934724928426.post-2847040858610220952018-12-20T00:03:56.442-08:002018-12-20T00:03:56.442-08:00I appreciate your detailed account of this Houston...I appreciate your detailed account of this Houston fire. <br /><br />I wish to offer my insight regarding your take on Houston's limited reverence for preserving historical sites and your opinion that Houston has little to offer the present regarding it's past. You are an arson professional, I am a Houston history professional. Here's my take:<br /><br />Houston has one of the richest, most tangible collection of still very present pieces of it's historical past of any city in the United States. Houston just simply has been too busy with it's ever changing and evolving present since 1865 to make any real effort to point it out or historical marker it. <br /><br />The Londale hotel (almost a replica of the a Gulf Coast hotel) still stands and operates as a boarding house at Preston and San Jacinto. It's only the second building to ever stand on that sight in the center of Houston's modern and dense downtown. The first building on that sight?? Houston's original Fire Station Number 1. The fire that destroyed that building and resulted in the deaths of two of the city's first fire fighters was so devastating to the woman who owned the property that she sold it to the family who built the three story building that still stands there today (but since it's never stopped being a boarding house since the late 1800's, it's still more useful present than charming historical marker) and Houston No. 1 moved to the location referenced in your blog.<br /><br /><br />Another still very much standing reminder of a past historical tragedy sits almost directly under where the Gulf Hotel once stood. Just after the Civil War, that same location was stage for a previous growth Houston growth spurt (as it would soon become the original location of The Port Of Houston). Scuttled Union munitions were stuck in the mud of the bed of Buffalo Bayou at the bend directly under what was The Gulf Hotel and two boys whose family home was on the other side of the bayou pulled a cannon ball up from the mud just after the Civil War. The cannon ball detonated and killed both boys. The crypt built for the boys by the grieving father of one of the boys remains, in tact, on the opposite bank, under Franklin street, to this day. Again, the city has never slowed it's present day pace in that area to need or want to call attention to the Reconstruction era still functioning crypt that resides under the bridge of one of the busiest parts of it's central business district.<br /><br />It's that type of Do It Yourself historical discovery that is literally all over Houston. <br /><br />The next time you visit this great city, please be my guest. I would consider it an honor to show you , a half-@$$ed historian these sites first hand.primarybshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09251378235820737486noreply@blogger.com