In 1966, oilman George Mitchell and Terry Hershey
organized the Bayou Preservation Association in order to prevent the U.
S. Army Corps of Engineers from implementing their plan to channelize
Buffalo Bayou with concrete from Shepherd Drive to downtown. Mitchell
and Hershey enlisted the newly elected U.S. Representative George H. W.
Bush in their cause, and the three of them were instrumental in saving
Buffalo Bayou from the fate that befell the other bayous in Houston.
Yet, an earlier concrete channelization of Buffalo Bayou in the
downtown area goes unnoticed and is largely unknown today.
In 1927, the City began clearing and straightening Buffalo Bayou. Its
banks were graded so that bulkheads and retaining walls would keep the
bayou within its new course. The plan was to remove the sharp hairpin
curve between Texas Avenue and Smith Street, and re-direct the bayou in
a smoother bend as it flowed toward Main Street.
The original course, which curved to the east nearly half way through
the blocks between Texas Avenue and Preston Avenue, was filled
and a new channel was cut. Concrete retaining walls were installed
along both the south and the north banks. The retaining wall on the
north side from Preston Avenue to Smith Street started at fifteen feet
high. Then, as the bayou's course turned east at Franklin Avenue, the
retaining wall rose to a height of forty feet. The re-channelization
was completed in 1928.
The accompanying diagram shows how the re-channelization
permitted the City to recover property in City Blocks 40, 60 and 61 by
filling in the old channel of the bayou and the large gully that
extended to Smith Street in Blocks 60 and 61. The new Farmer's Market,
which opened on March 21, 1929, was constructed on these recovered City
blocks. The City also obtained the land in Block 38 through imminent
domain.
The Farmer's Market was demolished in 1958, and the Wortham Center
occupies the site today. The Tranquility Garage is located beneath the
Wortham Center. The devastating flooding of Tranquility Garage and the
adjacent underground areas in downtown during Tropical Storm
Allison in 2001 resulted from a breach in the retaining wall at
Tranquility Garage. One has to wonder of the bayou was simply seeking
its natural course, which the topography of the land has dictated, and
the full force of the flood waters sought to return to the old channel.
The retaining wall along the north side of the bayou has proved to be
much more enduring. Reaching a height of forty feet above the bayou,
this wall has provided a level base for the extension of Franklin
Avenue to Washington Avenue and a parking lot for the U. S. Post
Office, today, and Grand Central Station which occupied the site
previously.
At the corner Franklin Avenue and Brazos Street stands the George Bush
Monument. Ironically, the statue of the man who helped save Buffalo
Bayou from becoming a concrete drainage ditch from Shepherd Drive to
downtown overlooks the only section of Buffalo Bayou that has been
channelized with concrete.