The Houston Ship Channel, in

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

, is part of the

Port of Houston The Port of Houston is one of the world's largest ports and serves the metropolitan area of Houston, Texas. The port is a 50-mile-long complex of diversified public and private facilities located a few hours' sailing time from the Gulf of Mexico. ...

, one of the busiest

seaport A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...

s in the

world In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

. The

channel Channel, channels, channeling, etc., may refer to: Geography * Channel (geography), in physical geography, a landform consisting of the outline (banks) of the path of a narrow body of water. Australia * Channel Country, region of outback Austral ...

is the conduit for ocean-going vessels between Houston-area terminals and the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

, and it serves an increasing volume of inland barge traffic.

Overview

The channel is a widened and deepened natural watercourse created by

dredging Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing da ...

Buffalo Bayou Buffalo Bayou is a slow-moving body of water which flows through Houston in Harris County, Texas. Formed 18,000 years ago, it has its source in the prairie surrounding Katy, Fort Bend County, and flows approximately east through the Houston Ship ...

and Galveston Bay. The channel's upstream terminus lies about four miles east of

downtown Houston Downtown is the largest central business district in the city of Houston and the largest in the state of Texas, located near the geographic center of the metropolitan area at the confluence of Interstate 10 in Texas, Interstate 10, Interstate 45, ...

, at the Turning Basin, with its downstream terminus at a gateway to the Gulf of Mexico, between

Galveston Island Galveston Island ( ) is a barrier island on the Texas Gulf Coast in the United States, about southeast of Houston. The entire island, with the exception of Jamaica Beach, is within the city limits of the City of Galveston in Galveston County. T ...

and the

Bolivar Peninsula Bolivar Peninsula ( ) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Galveston County, Texas, United States. The population was 2,417 at the 2010 census. The communities of Port Bolivar, Crystal Beach, Caplen, Gilchrist, and High Island are located on ...

. Major products, such as

petrochemical Petrochemicals (sometimes abbreviated as petchems) are the chemical products obtained from petroleum by refining. Some chemical compounds made from petroleum are also obtained from other fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas, or renewable sou ...

s and

Midwestern The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legum ...

, are transported in bulk together with general cargo. The original watercourse for the channel, Buffalo Bayou, has its

headwater The headwaters of a river or stream is the farthest place in that river or stream from its estuary or downstream confluence with another river, as measured along the course of the river. It is also known as a river's source. Definition The ...

s to the west of the city of Houston. The navigational head of the channel, the most upstream point to which general cargo ships can travel, is at Turning Basin in east Houston. The channel has numerous terminals and berthing locations along Buffalo Bayou and Galveston Bay. The major public terminals include Turning Basin, Barbours Cut, and Bayport. Many private docks are there as well, including the ExxonMobil Baytown Complex and the Deer Park Complex. The channel, occasionally widened and deepened to accommodate ever-larger ships, is wide by deep by long. The islands in the ship channel are part of the ongoing widening and deepening project. The islands are formed from soil pulled up by dredging, and the

salt marsh A salt marsh or saltmarsh, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It is dominated ...

es and bird islands are part of the Houston Port Authority's beneficial use and environmental mitigation responsibilities. The channel has five vehicle crossings:

Washburn Tunnel The Washburn Tunnel is a two-lane underwater motor-vehicle tunnel connecting Galena Park and Pasadena, two suburbs of Houston, Texas. Completed in 1950, it travels north-south underneath the Houston Ship Channel. It was named after Harris Cou ...

Sidney Sherman Bridge The Sidney Sherman Bridge is a strutted girder bridge in Houston, Texas. It spans the Houston Ship Channel (Buffalo Bayou) and carries the East Loop segment of Interstate 610 (Texas), Interstate 610 on the east side of the city. It is more popula ...

Sam Houston Ship Channel Bridge Sam Houston Tollway Ship Channel Bridge (formerly known as the Jesse H. Jones Memorial Bridge) is a span in Harris County, Texas. It was acquired from the then– Texas Turnpike Authority (TTA) (now North Texas Tollway Authority) on May 5, 1994 ...

, popularly known as the Beltway 8 Bridge. Two Dollar bridge is another local nickname; Fred Hartman Bridge connecting La Porte and Baytown, Texas; and

Lynchburg Ferry The Lynchburg Ferry is a free ferry across the Houston Ship Channel in the U.S. state of Texas, connecting Crosby-Lynchburg Road in Lynchburg to the north with the former State Highway 134 and San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site in La ...

History

John Richardson Harris

platted In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bear ...

the town of

Harrisburg, Texas Harrisburg is a community that is now (originally documented as Harrisburgh, then shortened to Harrisburg in 1892) located within the city of Houston, Texas, United States. The community is located east of downtown Houston, south of the Brays Bayo ...

on Buffalo Bayou at the mouth of

Brays Bayou Brays Bayou is a slow-moving river in Harris County, Texas. A major tributary of Buffalo Bayou, the Brays flows for from the western edge of the county, south of Barker Reservoir along the border with Fort Bend County, east to its convergence ...

in 1826. He established a steam mill there, while making Harrisburg into a logistical center for the

Austin's Colony The "Old Three Hundred" were 297 grantees who purchased 307 parcels of land from Stephen Fuller Austin in Mexican Texas. Each grantee was head of a household, or, in some cases, a partnership of married men. Austin was an American approved in 1 ...

. He plied his schooner ''The Rights of Man'' through the waters of Galveston Bay and Buffalo Bayou, importing supplies from the United States, and exporting cotton and hides. However, fewer people settled Buffalo Bayou than the fertile Brazos Valley, so Harrisburg remained a remote overland location from the critical mass of farmlands: about 20 miles from

Fort Bend, Texas Fort Bend County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. The county was founded in 1837 and organized the next year. It is named for a blockhouse at a bend of the Brazos River. The community developed around the fort in early days. The ...

and about 40 miles from San Felipe de Austin, Texas. Travelling the

Brazos River The Brazos River ( , ), called the ''Río de los Brazos de Dios'' (translated as "The River of the Arms of God") by early Spanish explorers, is the 11th-longest river in the United States at from its headwater source at the head of Blackwater Dr ...

presented several hazards, most of all, its shifting, shallow sandbars at its mouth. Despite several interventions, the river remained hostile to navigation. Nicholas Clopper acquired land downstream from Harrisburg, the eponymously named Clopper's Point. He recruited six men from Ohio to work as traders, who sailed the schooner ''Little Zoe'' from Cincinnati laden with supplies such as flour and spices, nails and other hardware, and whiskey and tobacco. Two of these hires were his sons, Edward and Joseph Clopper. They recorded their travels in a journal, reporting several hazards of Galveston Bay in route to Buffalo Bayou. They ran ''Little Zoe'' aground on Galveston Island and later observed two wrecked ships in the bay. They encountered the shallow Red Fish Bar, which they passed while dragging over it. The channel has been used to move goods to the sea since at least 1836. Buffalo Bayou and Galveston Bay were dredged during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to accommodate larger ships. In the wake of the

1900 Galveston hurricane The 1900 Galveston hurricane, also known as the Great Galveston hurricane and the Galveston Flood, and known regionally as the Great Storm of 1900 or the 1900 Storm, is the deadliest natural disaster in United States history and the third-d ...

, the inland Port of Houston was seen as a safer long-term option, and planning for a larger ship channel began. By the mid 1900s the Port of Houston had established itself as the leading port in Texas, eclipsing the natural harbors at

Galveston Galveston ( ) is a coastal resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of , with a population of 47,743 in 2010, is the county seat of surrounding Galvesto ...

and

Texas City Texas City is a city in Galveston County, Texas, Galveston County in the U.S. state of Texas. Located on the southwest shoreline of Galveston Bay, Texas City is a busy deepwater port on Texas's Gulf Coast, as well as a petroleum-refining and pe ...

. The Turning Basin terminal in Harrisburg (now part of Houston) became the port's largest shipping point. On January 10, 1910, residents of Harris County voted 16 to 1 to fund dredging the Houston ship channel to a depth of 25 feet for the amount of $1,250,000, which was then matched by federal funds. On June 14, 1914 the first deepwater ship,

steamship A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of steam-powered vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or paddlewheels. The first steamships ...

''Satilla'', arrived at the port of Houston, establishing steamboat service between

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and Houston. On November 10, 1914, President

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...

opened the Houston Ship Channel, part of the Port of Houston. The onset of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and the first mechanized war's thirst for oil greatly increased use of the ship channel. The

United States Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

increased the depth of the channel from 25 to 30 feet in 1922. In 1933, the

United States Department of War The United States Department of War, also called the War Department (and occasionally War Office in the early years), was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army, a ...

and the

United States House Committee on Rivers and Harbors The House Committee on Rivers and Harbors was a United States House of Representatives, U.S. House committee from 1883 until 1946. It was authorized early in the 48th United States Congress, 48th Congress in December 1883, when the committee was giv ...

approved a plan to increase the depth of the channel from 30 to 34 feet and widen the Galveston Bay section from 250 to 400 feet. The

Public Works Administration The Public Works Administration (PWA), part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. It was created by the National Industrial Recove ...

provided $2,800,000 dollars for the project, which was completed in late 1935. The proximity to Texas

oilfield A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presence ...

s led to the establishment of numerous petrochemical refineries along the waterway, such as the

ExxonMobil ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...

Baytown installation on the eastern bank of the San Jacinto River. Now the channel and surrounding area support the second-largest petrochemical complex in the world. While much of the Houston Ship Channel is associated with heavy industry, two icons of

Texas history The recorded history of Texas begins with the arrival of the first Spanish conquistadors in the region of North America now known as Texas in 1519, who found the region occupied by numerous Native American tribes. The name ''Texas'' derives ...

are also located along its length. The saw service during both world wars, and is the oldest remaining example of a

dreadnought The dreadnought (alternatively spelled dreadnaught) was the predominant type of battleship in the early 20th century. The first of the kind, the Royal Navy's , had such an impact when launched in 1906 that similar battleships built after her ...

-era battleship in existence. The nearby

San Jacinto Monument The San Jacinto Monument is a column located on the Houston Ship Channel in unincorporated Harris County, Texas, about 16 miles due east of downtown Houston. The monument is topped with a 220-ton star that commemorates the site of the Battle of ...

commemorates the

Battle of San Jacinto The Battle of San Jacinto ( es, Batalla de San Jacinto), fought on April 21, 1836, in present-day La Porte and Pasadena, Texas, was the final and decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. Led by General Samuel Houston, the Texan Army engaged ...

(1836) in which Texas won its independence from

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. The US Army's

San Jacinto Ordnance Depot The San Jacinto Ordnance Depot was a World War II facility built on an almost site located on the Houston Ship Channel, approximately southeast of downtown Houston, Texas. The job of the depot was to support the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy by storing ...

was located on the channel from 1941–1964. Currently, the channel is dredged to a depth of 43–45 feet. The channel was designated a National Civil Engineering Landmark by the

American Society of Civil Engineers American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

(ASCE) in 1987. The "Texas chicken" maneuver is known to mariners who regularly navigate large vessels on the Houston Ship Channel. As two vessels approach from opposite directions, both normally turn to

starboard Port and starboard are nautical terms for watercraft and aircraft, referring respectively to the left and right sides of the vessel, when aboard and facing the bow (front). Vessels with bilateral symmetry have left and right halves which are ...

to allow water displaced by their bows to move the ships away from each other and from the channel's centerline. After they pass, the suction of the displaced water flowing in behind the ships naturally pulls them back toward the center of the waterway.

Pollution

TexasFlagHoustonShipChannelTourBoat02Apr16

On December 25, 2007, the Houston Ship Channel was featured on the CNN Special, ''Planet in Peril'', as a potential polluter of nearby neighborhoods. That year, the University of Texas released a study suggesting that children living within of the Houston Ship Channel were 56% more likely to become sick with

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...

than the national average. On March 22, 2014, a barge carrying nearly a million gallons of marine fuel oil collided with another ship in the Houston Ship Channel, causing the contents of one of the barge's 168,000-gallon tanks to leak into Galveston Bay.

Gallery

File:Drawingofshipatport2.jpg, Drawing of ship at port 1859 File:Drawingofshipatport.jpg, Drawing of ship at port 1859 File:US Revenue Cutter Windom at Houston Ship Channel.jpg, The Houston Ship Channel during its first opening in 1915 File:Houston Ship Channel and foot of Main Street, Houston, Texas.jpg, Houston Ship Channel and foot of Main Street, Houston, Texas (postcard, ''circa'' 1910) File:Yachts in the Houston Turning Basin Houston Texas.jpg, Yachts in the Houston Turning Basin, Houston (postcard, ''circa'' 1911) File:Ship Turning Basin, Buffalo River, Houston, Texas.jpg, Ship Turning Basin, Buffalo River, Houston (postcard, ''circa'' 1914-1924) File:Cotton on the Ship Channel, Houston, Texas (1914).jpg, Cotton on the ship channel, Houston (''circa'', 1914) File:VisitorsCenterHoustonPortAuthority02April2016 cropped and straightened.jpg, Mosaic tile mural at the Houston Ship Channel Visitor's Center - 2016 File:Fireboat Howard T. Tellepsen in the Houston Channel -f.jpg, Fireboat Howard T. Tellepsen in the Houston Channel (2006) File:USS Texas and USCGC Manowar, in the Houston Ship Channel - 160803-G-CZ043-121.jpg, alt=, USS Texas museum is in the Houston Ship Channel

References

External links