Piano van, 1917
The San Jacinto Monument
A HOUSTON VADE MECUM
Houston, an inland port city of southeastern Texas, on the Gulf Coastal Plain, is joined by the Houston Ship Channel with the Gulf of Mexico, fifty miles distant, at Galveston. The ship channel joins the Port of Houston with the Intracoastal Canal.
Houston’s corporate limits of 349.4 square miles, including the 22 square miles of Lake Houston and a canal leading to it, surround fourteen of twenty-eight municipalities in its metropolitan area, Harris County, of which Houston is the county seat. The county’s total area is 1,747 square miles, of which the land area is 1,711 square miles.
The city’s lowest altitude is 25 feet; the highest is 75 feet. The county’s altitude runs from close to sea level to 310 feet near Tomball, on the north.
The annual normal rainfall is 45.3 inches.
The annual average temperature is 70.0° F.