Happy Belated Birthday, Houston, You Lovable, Misidentified Swamp

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, HOUSTON, YOU LOVABLE, MISIDENTIFIED SWAMP Possibly overlooked amid the Harvey hubbub: Yesterday was the City of Houston’s 181st birthday — or more accurately, the 181st anniversary of the launch of an advertising campaign announcing its establishment, pursued by the soon-to-be-city’s founding real-estate hucksters. “It is handsome and beautifully elevated,” the Allen Brothers wrote of the Houston they imagined in that ad, “salubrious and well watered, and now in the very heart or centre of population, and will be so for a length of time to come.” [Previously on Swamplot] Image: Houstorian