Port Of Houston Barbours Cut Terminal

La Porte's photo album: New book reveals city's rich history

When a group of men from Nebraska came to Texas in 1892, they named an area they felt was at the end of their rainbow “La Porte,”,a French “Door to Opportunity.”

For most of those men, it never lived up to that lofty goal of unbridled prosperity.

La Porte did become well-known for other reasons, as shown in the “Images of America” series book titled, “Around La Porte” by Ann Uloth Malone and Dan Becker.

“People had plans to make it the largest seaport in the world,” Malone said.

She worked with Becker for 18 months to put together the book, much of which comes from the collections of the La Porte Bay Area Heritage Society.

“Our biggest problem going in was knowing that we couldn’t put everything and everyone that we would like to put in, into the book,” Becker said. Without a deadline, he said they might still be working on it.

Doing the amount of research that it takes to assemble the photos and information, Becker learned some remarkable new facts. “I was surprised by how many Texas pioneers had called La Porte ‘home’ or spent a considerable amount of time in La Porte fairly early in the Republic,” he said. “I knew it had a rich history. I just didn’t know how rich.”

Malone has lived in La Porte since the mid-1950’s. The La Porte movie theater, she said, was the best place to see first run movies (and socialize) without going to downtown Houston.

Houstonians flocked to La Porte’s Sylvan Beach in the 1920’s and ‘30’s. It had dance halls, family-friendly rides and of course, the water. The La Porte train depot was built downtown in 1985. Years later, the whole building was moved three miles, from downtown to Sylvan Beach to handle the crowds.

Something unique about La Porte, the depot was moved once again. “So many of the buildings around La Porte have been picked up and moved over the years from one location to another,” Becker learned from researching the area.

Port Commission to Meet on Tuesday, August 23

HOUSTON, Aug. 22, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Port Commission of the Port of Houston Authority will convene at its regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, August 23, beginning at 9 a.m. in the boardroom of the Port Authority Executive Building , 111 East Loop North (Exit 29 off Loop 610) in Houston. The meeting agenda is available on the Port of Houston Authority website, www.portofhouston.com .

In a special called meeting on August 16, Port Commissioners authorized the awarding of a construction contract for an optical character recognition (OCR) canopy at Bayport Container Terminal and approved a list of attorneys and underwriters to manage the issuance of $52.1 million in refunding bonds in the two agenda items of the meeting.

(Agenda D1) Port Commissioners authorized awarding of a $265,989 contract to LS&A Group Inc. to construct the Phase 3 Entry Gate OCR canopy at Bayport Container Terminal. The canopy - which will span six lanes of OCR equipment - is needed in order to shield the equipment from the effects of direct sunlight.

(Agenda D2) The Commission approved the selection of law firms and investment banking companies to assist in the refinancing of $52.1 million in bonds issued in 2001. Refinancing of the bonds is expected to save Harris County taxpayers between $5 million and $6 million.

About the Port of Houston Authority

The Port of Houston Authority owns and operates the public facilities located along the Port of Houston, the 25-mile-long complex of diversified public and private facilities designed for handling general cargo, containers, grain and other dry bulk materials, project and heavy lift cargo, and other types of cargo. Each year, there are more than 7,700 vessel calls at the port, which ranks first in the U.S. in foreign waterborne tonnage and second in overall total tonnage. The port authority plays a vital role in ensuring navigational safety along the Houston Ship Channel, which has been instrumental in Houston's development as a center of international trade. The Barbours Cut Container Terminal and Central Maintenance Facility are the first of any U.S. port facilities to develop and implement an innovative Environmental Management System that meets the rigorous standards of ISO 14001. The second recertification of those facilities in 2009 included an extension for the state-of-the-art Bayport Container Terminal. The port authority is the first port authority in the world to receive ISO 28000:2007 certification for its port police and the perimeter security operations at both the Barbours Cut and Bayport Terminals. Additionally, the port is an approved delivery point for Coffee "C" futures contracts traded on the New York Board of Trade's Coffee, Sugar & Cocoa Exchange. For more information, please visit www.portofhouston.