The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 56, July 1952 - April, 1953 Page: 38
641 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
open sewers; the drainage of the prairies has been remarkably
improved; bends and curves in Buffalo Bayou and San Jacinto
River have been cut by natural overflow and by dredging; and
in recent years reservoirs have been built on both bayou and
river to provide flood control and industrial water. All of these
changes, however, are relatively insignificant so far as geography
is concerned. Then as now the area was divided between prairie
and timber. The bottoms of the waterways were forested with
both hardwood and coniferous trees, and the remaining lands
were prairie.
Both the flora and fauna of the municipality were richer than
the flora and fauna of Harris County. Where, for example, can
one find in the present county canebrakes covering many acres
with the canes reaching a height of twenty feet?10 What have
become of the herds of mustangs that once stirred the dust of
near-by prairies, the flamingoes that stood on rose-colored legs,
the swans that arched their graceful necks on the waters of Gal-
veston Bay, " and the bears that crashed and lumbered through
the underbrush of the San Jacinto bottoms? At this date it is
almost impossible to conceive of the number of deer which
frequented the limits of the present metropolitan area of Hous-
ton. As late as the 1850's a deer hunter named Myers killed six
thousand deer within nine years in what is now Houston.'12 Bison
appear not to have frequented the area, despite the name of
Buffalo Bayou. According to Mrs. Mary Hayes Ewing Charwane
who was born in Houston in 1857,13 the name of the bayou was
derived from the fish, buffalo, which abounded in the stream
and not from the mammal. One animal which was conspicuously
absent, or if not absent was at least unobtrusive, was the Indian.
To the best of the writer's knowledge there were never any
Indian raids, battles, or massacres in the present area during
historic time. Certainly there were Indians, for as late as 1846,
loA Visit to Texas: Being the Journal of a Traveller Through Those Parts Most
Interesting to American Settlers, with Descriptions of Scenery, Habits .. (New
York, 1834), 192.
11Ibid., 189; "J. C. Clooper's Journal and Book of Memoranda for 1828," Quar-
terly of the Texas State Historical Association, XIII, 57, 61.
12Houston Weekly Telegraph, September 18, 186o.
13Mary Hayes (Ewing) Charwane (March 9, 1857-February 22, 1932) was the
writer's grandmother.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 56, July 1952 - April, 1953, periodical, 1953; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101145/m1/56/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.