Where is the John Austin Survey?
by Louis Aulbach and Linda Gorski
Nearly every history of the City of Houston begins with the story that after the Battle of San Jacinto, the Allen brothers purchased the grant of land that had been made to John Austin and laid out the town of Houston there. John Austin was a close friend of Stephen F. Austin and they themselves believed that they were distant cousins although that could not be proven conclusively. Perhaps because of this association, in 1824, John Austin received a grant of two leagues of land, about 8,856 acres, more than most of the grants given to others at the time. John Austin died in 1833 during the cholera epidemic, and his wife and his estate were willing to sell the land to Augustus and John Allen in 1836.
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The feature of the Austin tract that most historians mention is its location at the junction of Buffalo Bayou and White Oak Bayou. This spot was the place the Allen brothers selected for their town.
What is often not mentioned is this: what is the extent of the John Austin Survey? Where exactly are the boundary lines? A piece of land of that size, nearly 9,000 acres, covers a lot of ground. What part of modern day Houston would be in this survey?
The two maps presented here will help you visualize the John Austin Survey. One is a map made in 1824 by Stephen F. Austin's surveyor, and the other shows the survey as an overlay on a recent Houston street map.
The survey point, or the point of beginning, for the John Austin Survey is located east of Minute Maid Park at a point that is about 150 feet east of the intersection of Commerce Avenue and St. Emanuel Street in northeast corner of Lot 7, Block 190 of the City of Houston. From there, the southern boundary of the John Austin Survey goes due west. It cuts across the center field bleachers of Minute Maid Park and extends diagonally across the modern central business district to the intersection of West Dallas Avenue and Bagby Street in front of Three Allen Center.
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In the nineteenth century, West Dallas Avenue was the San Felipe Road. It is probably not mere coincidence that the road and the survey boundary are the same. The survey line follows closely the route of West Dallas along the south bank of Buffalo Bayou until it reaches Shepherd Drive. Beyond Shepherd Drive, the boundary line slices into the curving lanes of River Oaks to the survey's southwest corner on Troon Road. The southwest corner of the John Austin Survey is about 90 feet southwest of the southwest corner of Troon Road and Denman Road, on the property at 2211 Troon Road.
From its southwest corner, the western boundary of the survey goes north to Buffalo Bayou, which it follows for about a quarter of a mile before crossing Memorial Drive. If you are in your canoe, you can paddle along the survey line in the long straight section that approaches Memorial Drive with the former Bayou on the Bend Apartments on your left.
As the bayou turns east toward Shepherd Drive, the survey continues north, crossing Memorial Drive and aligning itself with Reinerman Street. Reinerman Street, a road built later in the 19th century on the dividing line between the John Austin Survey and the John Reinermann Survey, is the western boundary as far as White Oak Bayou.
As was the case with the other settlers who received grants of land on Buffalo Bayou from Stephen F. Austin, John Austin recognized the value of the natural resource on the land that could make his fortune -- timber. The land north of Buffalo Bayou and west of the junction with White Oak Bayou was a heavily forested extension of the East Texas piney woods. Each of the grantees of land to the west of White Oak Bayou established sawmills on their land. The Allen brothers were no exception.
The bulk of the Austin Survey lay north of Buffalo Bayou and it seemed to hold an inexhaustible supply of lumber for building materials. The first plat of town of Houston showed a parcel of land set aside for a steam sawmill on the north side of Buffalo Bayou at the modern intersection of North San Jacinto Street and Wood Street.
The western boundary of the John Austin Survey goes north from White Oak Bayou, through modern subdivisions whose names reflect the timber lands in which they were built: Shady Acres, Shepherd Forest, Timbergrove and Garden Oaks. The northwest corner of the John Austin Survey is near the intersection of Loop 610, the North Loop, and a utility easement that is about 140 feet east of Attridge Street. From the northwest corner, the northern boundary follows the course of the North Loop. Heading east on the north side frontage road until Arlington Street, the boundary switches to the south side frontage road, goes through the I-45 interchange, and then proceeds down the center of Loop 610 until it reaches its northeast corner at the Missouri Pacific Railroad tracks on the east side of the Hardy Toll Road interchange, about 200 feet west of the intersection of Gold Street and Linder Street.
If you are driving east on the North Loop, the freeway becomes elevated near the Hardy Toll Road. From this vantage point, it is possible to see the skyscrapers of downtown far to the south. As you peer across the tree tops, it is not difficult to imagine the expanse of timber which appeared to be a source of immense wealth to our City's founders.
From the northeast corner, the eastern boundary goes south, back to the east side of downtown. Roughly paralleling the route of Elysian Street, the survey line crosses Buffalo Bayou once again about 600 feet east of the McKee Street bridge in the historic Frostown district. Running along the eastern edge of the Settegast tract, the boundary of the John Austin Survey returns to its origin.