“…the most miserable place in the world.”
“Early reports from Houston said that when people came out on any given morning you could find as many as four bodies lying dead in the streets, victims of the previous night’s mayhem.”
You’d be forgiven if you thought this was the Houston of today. But actually this is Houston in the 1830s.
Houston Arts and Media has produced a new, feature-length documentary that looks at the early days of the city and its time as the capital of the Republic of Texas.
Hosted by author and historian Stephen Hardin, Houston: A Nation’s Capitol features interviews with other historians, snippets of contemporary journals, photographs and maps that detail early life here.
The nonprofit’s hope is that this will be part of a series of videos that explore the birth of Texas. More information on how to purchase the DVD can be found here. (Full disclosure: I am a Houston Arts and Media board member.)