Accidental Blogger

On the eve of the 40^th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, Houston remembers how it was transformed from a regional oil town to the international space center – home of NASA. The fast developing space race of the 1960s quickly began to leave its mark on the city's broader culture. From Tranquility Park in downtown Houston to professional sports teams known as the Rockets and the Astros (who played their games in the first of its kind modernistic sports arena, the Astrodome), the city enthusiastically embraced its new image. Did you know that the first word spoken on the moon was Houston?

“Houston Gets $60 Million Space Lab for Research on Moon Shot” blared the Houston Chronicle headline on Sept. 19, 1961. The coup was big, big news, commanding nearly all the front page, relegating the city's usual preoccupations — oil, football, hurricanes and communism — to the forlorn bottom corners.

And why not? Project Apollo, “the quest for the moon,” was coming to town. A “spacious, self-contained research city” would be built 22 miles southeast of downtown, and the capsules “in which the moon voyagers will ride” would be designed here. Other cities might build the rockets or be home to the launch pad, but thanks to an exercise in raw political power, Houston would be the moon shots' command center — the boss.

Project Apollo broadened Houston: To the oilmen who dominated its civic psyche, the city added astronauts and engineers. Apollo fixed Houston's eyes on the future: After years of being part of the backwoods oil patch, it became Space City, USA, where engineers were designing the world of tomorrow. And Apollo cemented Houston's notion that it is a can-do place, able to git 'er done no matter how big the job.

During the heady race for the moon, backwoods, bumptious Houston suddenly felt like the center of the universe. When Kennedy talked of “The New Frontier,” he seemed to be talking about the young, barely tamed city itself. The Manned Space Center sprouted on land where cattle had grazed.

And bang: Just like that, Houston, home of the Fat Stock Show, suddenly, surprisingly, became the city from which humans reached for the stars.

Rest of the report here. (check out the related videos and links on the page)