Geological Survey Bulletin 845 Guidebook of the Western United States: Part F. Southern Pacific Lines

SHEET No. 6 (click in image for an enlargement in a new window)

From Dayton the railroad goes nearly due southwest to Houston. That the Coastal Plain is gradually rising in elevation is shown by the increasing depth of the trenches cut by rivers and creeks. On the broad prairie uplands considerable pine timber remains, and there are numerous farms, mostly of small size. About 7 miles northwest of Dayton is the small North Dayton oil field, discovered in 1905 and yielding 406,000 barrels of petroleum in 1930 and 1,605,100 barrels in all. The field occupies an area of about 300 acres and has salt at depths below 300 feet. The derricks of this field are visible north of Stilson siding.

About 6 miles southwest of Dayton is the Esperton (or Sheeks) dome, discovered by a torsion-balance survey made late in 1928. This dome lies deep under the sands and clays of the Coastal Plain, and the oil was found at a depth of about 3,300 feet. Wells nearly 6,000 feet deep penetrated the Jackson (Eocene) beds. (Bowman.) One test hole 7,836 feet deep did not reach salt. According to the Texas Gulf Oil Scouts Association, the production in 1930 was 846,486 barrels from 27 wells.

About 2 miles west of Crosby the San Jacinto River is crossed, flowing in a wide, deep trench in the smooth Coastal Plain. About 10 miles below this crossing the river is joined by Buffalo Bayou, which has been deepened into the Houston Ship Canal. It was on a rounded ridge just south of the junction of these two streams that the Battle of San Jacinto, which gave Texas her independence from Mexico, was fought April 21, 1836. This battlefield has been laid out as a handsome park reached by a highway from Houston, 20 miles west. In this battle the Texas army of 783 men under Gen. Sam Houston routed the Mexican army of about 1,550 men under Gen. Antonio de Santa Ana six weeks after the fall of the Alamo (ah'la-mo) in San Antonio. Houston's men were inspired by the battle cry, "Remember the Alamo." There was one swift charge of 15 minutes in which the stampeding Mexicans lost 630 killed, 208 wounded, and 522 prisoners, while the Texans, raw farmers with poor equipment and only 50 horses, lost only 6 killed and 23 wounded. Santa Ana was captured the next day, and after an imprisonment of eight months was sent back to Mexico, where, from 1832 to his death in 1876, he continued to be alternately revolutionist, President of Mexico, and exile.

From the west bank of the San Jacinto River near Sheldon siding the railroad follows a straight course southwestward over the level plain of Beaumont clay to Houston. In the interval there are several bayous or creeks which cut steep-sided trenches; pine woods are on all sides, and in places a few palmettos are growing. South of the railroad near Houston is a large creosoting plant for the treatment of ties and other timber for railroad use.

Houston, the largest city in Texas, is built on the wide, level plains adjoining Buffalo Bayou. Its population increased slightly more than 111 per cent from 1920 to 1930. It is named for Sam Houston, renowned soldier, governor, and Member of Congress, who was elected the first constitutional President of Texas after it achieved independence through his victory over the Mexicans at San Jacinto. Once the capital of the Republic, long an important railroad center, Houston has added greatly to its commerce by a ship channel opened in 1920 from Galveston Bay to a great basin excavated on the eastern edge of the city, which has berths for 50 ocean liners. This waterway cost $20,000,000. According to the Houston Chamber of Commerce, nearly 15,000,000 tons of freight was handled on this waterway in 1930, including nearly 2,000,000 bales of cotton and a large amount of rice and lumber. It is visited by vessels from all parts of the world. Houston claims to be the greatest spot-cotton market in the world and to rank second in cotton export. It exports grain from Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska and receives oil by pipe lines from all parts of the south-central United States.

The city has many fine avenues, handsome residences, large modern office buildings, and numerous shade trees, parks, and gardens. Rice Institute, with an endowment of $10,000,000 and assets of $14,000,000, is a great educational establishment. Railroad lines connect Houston with the city and port of Galveston (population 52,938), on the Gulf of Mexico, 50 miles to the southeast. (See pls. 5, B, and 6, A.) Houston experienced its first railroad activity as early as 1853 and was connected with neighboring towns long before 1881, when the first train arrived from New Orleans.

The first settlement at Houston was made early in 1836, when it was the head of navigation for small boats on Buffalo Bayou. It was the capital of the Republic until 1840, when a new capital was ordered established at Austin.

On the southern outskirts of Houston, at Pierce Junction, there is a salt dome that produces a large amount of petroleum. Originally the place was marked by a slight mound on which gas was found in shallow borings. Considerable drilling was required to develop the field, the first 54 holes being unsuccessful. From 1901 to 1930 a total of 19,637,240 barrels was produced from 86 wells, and the production in 1930, at about 10,000 barrels a day, amounted to 3,847,000 barrels. The oil comes in greater part from depths of 3,500 to 4,600 feet, from strata of lower Miocene, Oligocene(?), and Eocene age on the flanks of the uplift, where the beds are tilted up against the salt core. The top of the salt here is about 630 feet below the surface. One later hole 5,260 feet deep is a producer. From 1,300 feet to about 4,000 feet are pink and other colored clays interbedded with sand and gravel. Gray and blue clays below 4,000 feet are regarded as probably Oligocene. The basal Miocene appears to lie 3,500 to 3,600 feet below the surface near the dome and 3,800 to 3,900 feet below farther away from the uplift. (Bowman.)

From the Sabine River westward nearly to Columbus, eastern Texas presents a plain with wide areas of level lands and low terraces trenched slightly by valleys of the larger drainageways. The elevation of this plain, which is near 15 feet at the east, rises to 50 feet near Houston, to 100 feet beyond Richmond, and to 225 feet on the divide between the San Bernard and Colorado Rivers. To the north it extends to the Hockley scarp, at which there is a distinct rise. The lower part of the plain is mantled by a deposit of clay and silt known as the Beaumont clay, and the upper terraces to the north and west are covered by a sheet of sand and gravel known as the Lissie formation, both regarded as of Pleistocene age. The boundary between these two formations has not been mapped exactly, and only the general outline of their history is known. Underneath is the eastward-dipping succession of Coastal Plain formations, including a great thickness of strata of Tertiary age which have been penetrated by many deep borings. They are listed on page 50. Some of them yield artesian waters which supply flowing wells. The Lissie sand contains bones of animals of Pleistocene age, including the mastodon and mammoth, which have been found in gravel pits near Columbus.

It is interesting to picture the assemblage of animals which ranged over this country a short time ago, in a geologic sense, and which are now entirely extinct. Many of them were very different from the animals of to-day, but were similar to animals found on other continents. Notable among these were the large elephantlike mastodons and mammoths. The former (Mammut americanus), which was covered with long, coarse hair, ranged over a wide area, especially in the forested tracts. There were also mammoths of several species, notably Elephas columbi, which attained an average height of about 11 feet, and Elephas imperator, which was considerably larger. They had huge curved tusks and teeth like those of modern elephants, with large grinding surfaces; apparently they lived on the open plains. Horses of several kinds and sizes were abundant, apparently ranging in immense herds over the wide interior plains, but after having persisted from a very remote period geologically they became entirely extinct here long before the coming of the Europeans with the modern horse. Tapirs were abundant in the south-central areas, and camels, wild hogs, and llamas were widely distributed. Deer and bison (buffalo) were plentiful, and some species of these have continued into the present era. The carnivores were varied and numerous, including the saber-toothed tiger, and some of these may have been contemporaneous with primitive man. Among the more curious-looking animals were the ground sloths, large unwieldy creatures covered with long hair and moving slowly, walking on the outer edge of their feet. Their enormous claws may have served for defense, but were very useful in dragging down branches of trees and digging roots and tubers. The Megalonyx, one variety of the sloth, was discovered and named by Thomas Jefferson, who was greatly interested in natural history. Another genus was Megatherium, which had a body as large as that of an elephant and much shorter legs. The genus Mylodon, smaller and lighter than the other genera, was common in part of the plains region. Giant armadillos existed in some parts of the region, and there was a great variety of rodents, reptiles, birds, and other animals, which have been replaced in large part by different genera and species. The modern armadillo, which abounds in part of central Texas, is shown in Plate 9, A.

Three miles south of Missouri City is the Blue Ridge salt dome and oil field, with numerous derricks on and near two hills that rise a few feet above the general plain. There is also a shaft sunk for the salt that constitutes the core of the uplift below a depth of 450 feet and is at least 850 feet thick. It is estimated that 250,000,000 tons of salt is available. Development of the petroleum began in 1903, but there was little production prior to 1919, when several good strikes were made that gave a production of 326,000 barrels in 1921 and a peak production of 2,205,000 barrels in 1928. In 1930 the production was 644,000 barrels. In structure this mound is very similar to the one at Pierce Junction and other places—a stocklike core of salt with anhydrite cap, with the older strata considerably uplifted on its flanks. The dips on the east side are reported as 35° to 45°, and those on the west side seem to be greater. An oil sand at 3,900 feet is probably in the top of the Oligocene, and this apparently is the source of the oil in most of the successful wells. In one well the base of this division is placed at 3,410 feet, and a sample at 3,662 feet yielded fossils classed as "low in the Jackson" (upper Eocene). (Hager and Stiles.)

The smooth plain of the Houston region extends widely with its thick cover of clay and loam. Much land is under cultivation with large fields of cotton and other crops. Many figs are raised, an industry which is growing rapidly. A few scattered oaks are noticeable, and Spanish moss is present on trees in some of the ill-drained areas. A short distance west of Stafford, north of the tracks, is the radio broadcasting station KPRC.

Sugar Land lies in the bottom lands of the Brazos River in the midst of a 17,500-acre plantation on which large amounts of cotton and garden truck are raised. Here the dark soil of the Lake Charles type gives place to chocolate-brown soils deposited by the overflow of the Brazos River. Sugar Land is a center of various industries. Its most conspicuous feature is a refinery which handles raw sugar imported through Galveston and has a capacity of 1,500,000 pounds a day. In this section artesian wells afford excellent water from the deposits that underlie the Coastal Plain.

Four miles southwest of Sugar Land is the De Walt oil field, in a salt dome of small extent discovered by geophysical methods and proving to be rich and productive. It is controlled by one oil company and had a production of 4,274,000 barrels in 1930. The derricks are plainly visible from the train. The oil comes from sands overlying the salt, which is at a depth of about 4,300 feet.

West of Sugar Land are the extensive cotton and corn fields of the State farm "Sartartia," and half a mile to the north is a canning factory in which the State preserves vegetables of many kinds for use in State institutions.

On approaching Richmond the railroad crosses the Brazos River, one of the largest streams in eastern Texas. It is more than 900 miles long and drains a wide area in the central part of the State. Its headwaters are the Salt and Double Mountain Forks, which rise in the Llano Estacado. Its deposits are of pronounced reddish tint, owing to material derived from red beds far to the northwest, a feature which causes the marked change of soil that is observed just east of Sugar Land. The banks of this river are from 20 to 30 feet high at Richmond, revealing the sand and clay that underlie the adjoining plains. West of Richmond the river water is pumped to the top of the bank into a canal to supply water for irrigating rice fields lying to the southeast. In Richmond, where he died in 1837, is a statue erected by the State to the memory of Erastus (Deaf) Smith, one of the patriots active in the campaign that culminated in the Battle of San Jacinto.

From this place a railroad to Corpus Christi passes through Goliad, about 120 miles to the southwest, near which is the ancient presidio of La Bahia (bah-ee'ah), located here in 1749. At Goliad on March 27, 1836, three weeks after the fall of the Alamo, the entire garrison of 400, mainly Anglo-American volunteers, were slaughtered by order of the Mexican General Santa Ana.

Goliad, one of the oldest of the Spanish settlements in Texas and an important post throughout colonial and Revolutionary times, is now one of the shrines of the State. Here the first pronouncement of Texas independence was made by 91 citizens on December 20, 1835. The formal declaration by the convention on March 2, 1836, was made in the town of Washington, on the Brazos, some 50 miles north-northwest of Richmond. Halfway to Washington on the Brazos is San Felipe (fay-lee'pay) at the site of San Felipe de Austin, the colony organized by Stephen F. Austin in 1821, which was the predominant Anglo-American settlement until the revolution of 1836. Here in 1832 was held the first convention of the people of Texas, which established the committee of vigilance and safety that had charge of the earlier endeavors to preserve the constitutional rights of Texas as a department of a Mexican State. It was superseded as the capital by the younger city of Houston and later by the purposely founded city of Austin, on the Colorado River, (Turn to sheet 7.)