The Houston Ship Channel, in Houston, Texas, 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 law, maritime facility comprising one or more Wharf, wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge Affreightment, cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can a ...

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 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 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 the United S ...

, 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 d ...

Buffalo Bayou and Galveston Bay. The channel's upstream terminus lies about four miles east of downtown Houston, at the Turning Basin, with its downstream terminus at a gateway to the Gulf of Mexico, between Galveston Island and the Bolivar Peninsula. 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 ...

s and Midwestern

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 legu ...

, 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 Th ...

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 domin ...

es and bird islands are part of the Houston Port Authority's beneficial use and

environmental mitigation Environmental mitigation, compensatory mitigation, or mitigation banking, are terms used primarily by the United States government and the related environmental industry to describe projects or programs intended to offset known impacts to an exist ...

responsibilities. The channel has five vehicle crossings: Washburn Tunnel, Sidney Sherman Bridge, Sam Houston Ship Channel Bridge, popularly known as the Beltway 8 Bridge. Two Dollar bridge is another local nickname;

Fred Hartman Bridge The Fred Hartman Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge in the U.S. state of Texas spanning the Houston Ship Channel. The bridge carries of State Highway 146 (SH 146), between the cities of Baytown and La Porte (east of Houston). The bridge is al ...

connecting La Porte and Baytown, Texas; and Lynchburg Ferry.

History

John Richardson Harris John Richardson Harris (October 22, 1790 – August 21, 1829) was an early settler of Mexican Texas and the namesake of Harris County, Texas. He founded the town of Harrisburg, Texas and Harris County, Texas is named in his honor. Family life ...

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 bea ...

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 Ba ...

on Buffalo Bayou at the mouth of Brays Bayou in 1826. He established a steam mill there, while making Harrisburg into a logistical center for the Austin's Colony. 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 and about 40 miles from

San Felipe de Austin, Texas San Felipe ( ), also known as San Felipe de Austin, is a town in Austin County, Texas, United States. The town was the social, economic, and political center of the early Stephen F. Austin colony. The population was 747 at the 2010 census. History ...

. Travelling the Brazos River 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 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 Gal ...

and Texas City. 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 ''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 most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

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 P ...

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 List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

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, ...

and the

United States House Committee on Rivers and Harbors The House Committee on Rivers and Harbors was a U.S. House committee from 1883 until 1946. It was authorized early in the 48th Congress in December 1883, when the committee was given jurisdiction over subjects relating to the improvements of rivers ...

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 Reco ...

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

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 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 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 engage ...

(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 Guate ...

. The US Army's San Jacinto Ordnance Depot 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, p ...

(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 a ...

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 Four warships of the U.S. Navy have been named the USS ''Texas'' for the State of Texas: * was a pre-dreadnought battleship that was in commission from 1895 to 1911. * is a dreadnought battleship that was in commission from 1914 to 1948. In 194 ...

museum is in the Houston Ship Channel

References

External links