Author: /u/Physicsacidguy

•February 18, 1956: The monorail made its debut in Houston. The monorail had one fifty-five passenger car called the Trailblazer which made short trips on the 1600-foot monorail line, or Skyway. The cost of the model system was about one hundred thousand dollars in 1956 – or about nine hundred grand today. Those lucky enough to go for a ride, where whisked along the track at a blazing TEN miles per hour. The short-lived and short-tracked Houston monorail test ended seven months later in September of 1956.

•From 1911 – 1936 there was an electric train called the Interurban that hauled passengers and freight from downtown Houston to Galveston. It was built in just one year, and that included laying the tracks and building the large plants that generated the electricity that fueled it. The cars, much like trolleys, ran down a single track for just over 50 miles, and at a speed of 60 miles per hour.

•The Houston area is on land that was home to the Karankawa and the Atakapa indigenous peoples for at least 2,000 years before the first known settlers arrived.

•The first traditional Hindu Mandir in the nation was built in Houston. The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir was assembled in Houston like a puzzle. Consisting of 33,000 pieces of Italian marble and Turkish limestone, the temple was carved by hand and took 28 months to build. Not only is it the first temple built in the nation but also the largest of its kind in Texas.

•Built in 1924, Elder Street Artists’ Lofts used to be a hospital, named after the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, to appease the families of the thousands of Confederate soldiers who had been buried in the Houston City Cemetery underneath the hospital. When excavation first took place, human remains had been dug up, thus, the building’s basement was actually built on top of the ground rather than below it to leave the graves undisturbed. Actually, the old hospital served many purposes such as a psychiatric hospital, and a records storage center for Harris County. But becoming one of the most haunted places in Houston.