“ Cottonseed oil and sugar are also exported, and a large general trade contributes to the city's prosperity. There are extensive railroad car and machine shops, cotton-compresses and oil-mills, planing-mills, foundries and machine-shops, rolling-mills, potteries, brick and tile works, flour-mills, carriage and wagon shops, etc. ”

“ Houston occupies an area of nine square miles. It has the Houston Lyceum and Carnegie libraries, the building of the latter costing $50,000. Other prominent structures include the high school ($155,000) , the United States Government building, the city hall, the court-house, the cotton exchange and market, and the Masonic Temple. The William M. Rice Polytechnical Institute, endowed with the estate of the founder, amounting to about $20,000,000, will be located in Houston. The city controls extensive commercial interests ”