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Chron •

Which Texas summer was worse: 2011 or 2023?

In Houston, this summer's grueling temperatures led to melting cars, melting roads, and melting restaurants. Thankfully, the season officially ends on Sept. 23, but 2023 is sure to be brought up years from now as a summer straight from hell.

Houstonians still talk about the last Terrible Texas Summer, 2011, also known as The Year of Fire. That summer, drought-fueled wildfires burned nearly 4 million acres in Bastrop County, the most destructive wildfire in Texas history, along with a fire near
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Houston marker commemorates man who fled slavery in 1864

A ceremony hosted by Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis to celebrate the Freedom Marker and the anniversary of Ben’s escape included a reading from Houston poet laureate Aris Kian Brown and comments from philanthropist Bill Perkins, who conceived the project. September is recognized as International Underground Railroad Month because abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman both escaped from slavery in that month (Douglass in 1838 and Tubman in 1849).

The marker will eventually
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New Houston Holocaust Museum exhibit highlights the Green Book

From the 1930s through the '60s, Black road-trippers in America depended on a series of travel guides to help them navigate safe spaces in the Jim Crow South and elsewhere. The best-known of these guides was The Negro Motorist Green Book, published by Harlem postal worker Victor Green from 1936 to 1966. The Green Book, as it was known, is now the subject of a traveling Smithsonian exhibition that opened Sept. 1 at the Holocaust Museum of Houston.

After World War I, Black Americans began to expe
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Audio exhibit tells the story of 1917 Camp Logan incident

A new installation debuting in Memorial Park's Eastern Glades will tell the story of the Camp Logan incident of 1917, a clash between the all-Black 24th Infantry Regiment and Houston police officers, through the words of the Black soldiers who were tried and convicted for what was described at the time as a race riot and mutiny.

The interactive installation will feature oral histories from descendants of Camp Logan soldiers reading letters, recounting stories, and sharing contemporary accounts
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Menil Collection says it never accepted Italian antiquities

The items, which were returned in a special ceremony in New York City and include Etruscan vases, ancient Roman coins and mosaics, are believed to be worth tens of millions of euros. Out of 266 Italian antiquities repatriated, 65 were part of a cache that was offered by a collector to the Menil, but never acquired.

A story published last week by the Associated Press erroneously reported that the artifacts were part of the museum's collection. Menil officials say the items were never accepted in
Chron •

For one night only, America's most iconic gay bar comes to Houston

When Adriana Maldonado was a young chef, freshly relocated to New York City, one of the first places she went was the Stonewall Inn. She'd never been to New York before at all, but she suspected she'd find community at the legendary gay bar where, in 1969, the Pride movement was born. And she was right. Sitting at the bar, Maldonado, who is queer, asked for recommendations for a lesbian hangout. "There's one right down the block," bartender Mel Albaladejo told her, directing her to the nearby Cu
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These artists turned Houston's natural beauty into a walking exhibit

Houston may seem like an urban art paradise, but just 40 minutes northeast, at the edge of the Sam Houston National Forest, is a massive 177-acre compound and gallery space founded by two of the city's most influential artists of the past 50 years.

That compound, known as the Locke-Surls Center for Art and Nature, just outside of Splendora, Texas, will host a massive, multidisciplinary outdoor sculpture exhibition co-organized by DiverseWorks, opening April 22 and 23 in honor of Earth Day.

Cal
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How Houston's historic Eldorado Ballroom was restored

In a town that's known for tearing down aging buildings as opposed to preserving them, the renovation of the Eldorado Ballroom feels like a miracle. The Third Ward nightclub, which hosted blues and jazz musicians for more than three decades during a time when Jim Crow laws kept Black performers and audiences segregated from white crowds, isn't just culturally significant. It's also architecturally unique—one of few Art Moderne buildings remaining in Houston.

After a $9.7 million project that in
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One of Houston's coolest museums reopens this weekend

After closing for nearly a year, The Printing Museum (TPM) in Houston will reopen April 1 in its new location, a smaller but more flexible space in Midtown Houston.

The museum, founded in 1979, is dedicated to championing the history and power of the printed word. It houses more than 10,000 objects relating to the industry and technology of printing, including antiquities dating back to 3000 BCE. The museum is also well-known for its workshops on papermaking, bookbinding, letterpress printing,
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Majestic ships will sail through Galveston again next month

In 2018, thousands of people from Texas and beyond lined the sidewalks and beaches of the Galveston Seawall, armed with binoculars, telephoto lenses, and telescopes. They came for an unprecedented sight: six historical sailing ships, moving at full mast in a parade up and down the Galveston coast.

That event, the Tall Ships Challenge, was such a success that the Galveston Historical Foundation has decided to host it again, from April 13-16, at the historic Galveston seaport. Four new ships will
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Why the Houston Rodeo changed its name

It all started as a marketing ploy. In the 1930s, Houston wasn't really known as a cowboy town. With the Port of Houston and several major rail lines converging in the city, it was already growing into a metropolis whose main industry was oil, cotton, and the transportation of goods. Though cattle were plentiful along the Gulf Coast, there was no major livestock market near the city, and cattle had to be shipped to other states to be sold.

That all changed in 1931, when ​​Port City Stockyards o
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Solange to honor Eldorado ballroom reopening with Brooklyn concert series

Songstress and Houston native Solange Knowles will honor the reopening of the legendary Third Ward nightclub Eldorado Ballroom with a series of musical performances in Brooklyn, New York beginning on March 30.

The event coincides with the reopening of the historically Black venue, which hosted blues and jazz musicians for more than three decades during a time when Jim Crow laws kept Black performers and audiences segregated from white crowds.
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How a '90s watch group kept Houston safe from gay bashers

The co-founder of an early '90s Houston gay rights organization has some advice for queer Houstonians and allies who want to fight against harassment and attacks like the one that happened last year in Colorado Springs.

Document everything, says Glenn Holt, one of the co-founders of Q-Patrol, a group that worked with Montrose bars and Houston Police throughout the 1990s to prevent gay-bashing incidents. "If there's anything going on anywhere, anytime, record video," says Holt, now 64. "Because
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How Numbers became the epicenter of Houston's gay scene

Nearly everywhere film director Marcus Pontello goes, they run into someone familiar with Numbers, the long-standing Montrose nightclub best known for its popular '80s night, Classic Numbers. A man at a New Orleans cafe who'd grown up in Dickenson. A Houstonian now living in Toronto who'd been a regular at the club. A woman in Nashville who worked as a coat check girl for the venue in the early '90s.

Pontello has been crisscrossing the country the past few months, screening their documentary ab
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No longer 'Reeking Regatta,' Buffalo Bayou race celebrates 50th running

In 1970, a group of hobby canoeists in Houston decided to organize a group paddle down Buffalo Bayou. At the time, the waterway was not yet lined by verdant parks, and conservationist Terry Hershey was still fighting the government's plans for channelization of the bayou.

The paddlers, who typically had to travel to the Hill Country or the Gulf Coast for what were considered "suitable" waterways, decided to take advantage of the resource in their own backyard and to help bring awareness to Hers
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George H.W. Bush's favorite 'Presidential bacon' is still on the menu at this Houston barbecue joint

Dozier's BBQ in Fulshear makes a style of bacon so special that former President George H.W. Bush once had it personally delivered to the White House on Air Force One.

In fact, it was so beloved by the elder Bush that Dozier's now markets it under the moniker "Presidential bacon."

Dozier's bacon is smoked and sliced in-house, and prepared with pecan wood instead of the hickory used for most commercially available bacon, says pitmaster Jim Buchanan. A whole slab of pork belly, about 30 inches l
Houstonia Magazine •

An "Outbreak" at the Health Museum

The Bubonic plague, also known as The Black Death, killed 30% of the population of Europe in the 14th Century by some estimates. At the time, medical knowledge was limited to miasma theory, or the belief that diseases were caused by an invisible foul-smelling vapor in the air. It wasn’t until 400 years later that germ theory was developed, along with the first vaccine.

But as quickly as human knowledge has evolved since then, so have the organisms that cause and spread disease. That delicate da

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