HOUSTON, hfi'ston. A city and the county seat of Harris County. Tex.. 50 miles northwest of Galveston; on Buffalo Bayou, an arm of Gal veston Ray, at the head of navigation, and on the International and treat Northern, the Southern Pacific, the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, the Houston and Texas Central, and several other railroads (Map: Texas. 0 5). It is a railroad centre of great importance, and improvements by the Federal 0overnment have added to its trans portation facilities by giving direct water com munication with the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean: while local transit is facilitated by several bridges across the bayou. Houston occupies an area of nine square miles. It has the Houston Lyceum and Carnegie libraries, the building of the latter costing $50,000. Other prominent structures include the high school (8155.0001, the United States Government build ing, the city hall, the court-house. the cotton ex change and market, and the Masonic Temple. The William M. Rice Polyteehnical Institute, en dowed with the estate of the founder, amounting to about $20,000.000, will be located in Houston. The city controls extensive eommereial interests; it is one of the most important cotton markets in the United States, and in its lumber trade ranks with the leading cities of the Southwest. Cotton
seed nil and sugar arc also exported, and a large general trade contributes to the city's prosperity. There are extensive railroad car and machine shops, cotton-compresses and oil-mills, planing mills, foundries and machine-shops, rolling-mills, potteries, brick and tile works, flour-mills, car riage and wagon shops, etc. The government, un der a charter of 1897, is vested in a mayor, elected every two years, a municipal council, and administrative officials, who are chosen by popu lar vote. Houston spends annually in mainte nance and operation about $505.000, the principal items of expenditure being $14:000 for interest (al. debt, $100,000 for schools, $70.000 for street expenditures, $55,000 for the tire department, $50,000 for the police department (including amounts for courts, jails, reformatories, etc.), and $20,000 for the health department (includ ing amounts for charitable institutions). Hous ton was laid out and settled in 1836, was named in honor of General Sam Houston, and tempo rarily in 1837) was capital of the Republic of Texas. Population, in 1890, 27,557; in 1900, 44,033.