Houston,

Houston, capital of Harris county, Texas, on the navigable Buffalo Bayou, 49 miles by rail N.W. of Galveston, with which it is connected also by steamboats. It is the great railway centre of the state, stands in the midst of a fertile country, and ships large quantities of cotton, grain, and cattle, besides the products of the great pine-forests, which are prepared here. The other manufactures include machinery, iron-castings, railway carriages, farming implements, fertilisers, cotton-seed oil, &c. Pop. (1870) 9382; (1880) 18,646; (1890) 27,557.