Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday might seem like redundancy, since this entire blog is dedicated to looking back at the history of the South Belt area. 

But since it's Thursday, and since I've just returned from a trip to Houston where I had a bit of time to get into the Houston Public Library files, this post is going to be even earlier than our little community was established.

Houston librarians, for decades, have sat at their desks, in between helping patrons, and clipped items from the local newspapers to file away.  They sat in the same building I spent quite a few hours in last week, the Julia Ideson building, before the Jesse H. Jones building was completed in 1976. And what they left behind from these "scrapbook" types of collections, at least until the late 60s, are now housed in the "Morgue Files" in the Texas Room, alphabetized by subject or, in the case of people, last name and kept on microfiche.

(After the late 60s, the work continued, but hasn't been converted to fiche format, which baffles me. The Vertical Files are housed in the Texas Room of the Ideson building as well, but in their paper formats, much less efficient and less protected.)

Here are a few things I managed to dig out regarding the Almeda-Genoa area from the mid-60s that were stored in the Microfiche Morgue. 

(I mistakenly assumed I'd found a few from the late 50s, filed under "Almeda" that were also germane, but these addresses turned out to be on the Almeda Road that is now 521. west of 288. Oops.)

What did check out as "our" area are the early signs of Houston's growth southward, especially the fight for the city to pick up the tab on water and sewage lines as well as paving roads.

1961 (Noting completion slated for 1980)

1963

1965