Historic Houston Streets

IMPERIAL: The Imperial Sugar Company (not its original name) has operated in the same location since 1843. In 1906 Isaac Kempner and William Eldridge began acquiring sugar plantations near what today is Sugar Land, Texas. By 1908 they had amassed considerable acreage, sugar mills and refineries and gave the business its present name. In the beginning Sugar Land was the classic company town with Imperial owning it lock, stock and barrel. (See Eldridge and Kempner.)²

INCH: Old hands at Planning and Development still laugh about how this street was named. The developer came in to file his plat. All of the streets except one were named. Since a plat must be complete to be recorded, the land developer measured the street with a handy ruler. Since it was an inch in length and was a cross street that would have no addresses (buyers get testy if the street they live on has a funny name) it was christened Inch.³

INGOLD: Southside Place developer Edward Crain originally called this street Ingram, honoring his favorite Hill Country town. It was probably misspelled on the plat. ⁴

INSTITUTE: Rice University was initially named Rice Institute. This shady lane recalls this venerable institution of higher learning’s name as given it by the estate of the founder, William Marsh Rice. (See Rice.)

INVERNESS: The Inverness Golf Club is located in the Scottish Highlands. This old course is famous for its extremely difficult 475-yard dogleg 14th hole. There is another possibility for this street. According to information from Robin Elverson Realtors, it was named for the Toledo, Ohio country club made famous for first allowing professional golfers to enter the front door of the facility, use the locker rooms and eat at the restaurants during the 1920 U.S. Open Golf Tournament. ⁶

INWOOD: The Inwood Country Club is located on Jamaica Bay in the New York town of Inwood. The course here hosted the 1921 PGA championship and the 1923 U.S. Open. The 10th hole, a 106-yard 3 par, is the shortest hole ever played in U.S. Open history. ⁷

IOWA SCHOOL: This road once led to the Iowa Colony School. Iowa Colony was founded in 1908 by the Immigration Land Company of Des Moines, Iowa. Two officers, G. I. Hoffman and Robert Beard, named the town. Originally it was rice farming country but by the 1970s developers turned it into a bedroom community of Houston. ⁸

IRONCLAD: This is an 18th century warship whose wooden infrastructure is covered with armored metal plates. A number of these ships fought in the War Between the States. The most famous were the Monitor and the Merrimack. (See Merrimack.)¹⁰

ISAACKS: Samuel – Born in Tennessee in 1804 he may be the first Jewish settler in Texas, arriving before Stephen F. Austin. He settled somewhere along the Brazos River. When Austin met Isaacks he was short of the full 300 families he promised would colonize Texas. Thus he talked Isaacks into joining the Old 300. In 1824 Austin awarded him a land grant across the Brazos from present day Rosenberg. Isaacks fought in the Texas Revolution. In 1855 he moved to Houston and finally to Seabrook where he died in 1878.¹¹

ISAACKS: This Humble, Texas street recalls a family who settled in the area in the late 1880s.¹²

ISABELLA: Frank J. DeMeritt was a real estate developer in Houston in the 1920s. Most of his projects were in what we call Midtown today, i.e. between downtown and Rice University. He named this street for his wife Isabella MacGregor DeMeritt. One of our city’s architectural jewels, Isabella Court (W. D. Bordeaux, 1929), is located on the northwest corner of Isabella and Main. ¹³

ISETTA: Italian motorcycle designer Renzo Rivolta of Iso Rivolta began manufacturing this tiny vehicle in 1952. Meaning “Little Iso” this car was truth in advertising as it measured only 90” by 54” and had a top speed of 53 MPH. BMW obtained a license to manufacture them in Germany and produced 160,000 between 1955 and 1962. (See Corvette.)¹⁴

ISOLDE: Named for the heroine of a medieval love story, Isolde the Fair is the lover of Sir Tristram. Following an estrangement, Tristram is wounded in battle. He sends for Isolde but dies of despair when he believes she is not coming. Of course Isolde arrives, finds Tristram dead and dies of a broken heart. ¹⁵

IVANHOE: He is a knight in Sir Walter Scott’s romantic novel of the same name set in 12th century England.

“BOULEVARD OF HUNDREDS OF BENEFITS”

During the 1990s as Houston’s Asian population increased dramatically, City Council voted to allow street signs in Chinese and Vietnamese to be placed on poles underneath the street’s English name. (For unknown reasons a 2001 proposal to allow Koreatown to do the same was denied.) The purpose was to assist this influx of immigrants to find their way around. The rule was the Asian word had to be close to either the meaning of the existing street name or phonetically sound like the English street. So if you are driving in Chinatown or Little Saigon look for these signs:

Bellaire – Bai Li – Boulevard of Hundreds of Benefits

Harwin – Hao Yun – Good Luck

Clarewood – Wu De – Martial Arts

Wilcrest – Wei Dao – Traditional Moral Principles

Milam – Nguyen Hue – Vietnamese king symbolizing patriotism

West Gray – Hai Ba Trung – Vietnamese queens, Trung sisters, who defeated the Chinese in the 1^st century A. D.

Anita – An Loc – Battlefield site during Viet Nam War

Elgin – Yen Do – Academic Excellence

Holman – Hung Vuong – First King of Viet Nam

Travis – Tu Do – Freedom ²⁹