African American Methodists Report Boom in Houston, Decline in Rural Areas December 17, 1914 The Texas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church met in Clarksville, convening on December 17, 1914. The report of the Houston District Superintendent revealed huge disparities between the Houston churches and the rural ones of the district. Houston was booming!. The Houston Ship Channel had been opened earlier that year as President Woodrow Wilson pressed a key in the White House that set off a cannon in Houston to official open the huge driver of Houston economic growth. With the almost simultaneous opening of the Panama Canal, Houston was in a good position to assume its position as the dominant port on the Gulf Coast. It eventually replaced New Orleans for that honor even though the Crescent City had huge natural geographic advantages. The Port of Houston’s ascendancy was due mostly to human ambitions rather than advantages of geography. The discovery of petroleum resources near Houston spurring a population explosion that continues more than 100 years later. The boom was reflected in the reports of the Houston churches. On the other hand, 1914 also saw devastating floods on the coastal plain. The Houston District included churches in three river basins, the Brazos, Trinity, and San Jacinto, and all of them flooded in 1914. The churches in Liberty, Columbia, Sweeney, Richmond, Rosenburg, Angleton, Wallisville, Thompson’s, and Kendleton were all on circuits consisting of country churches in addition to the church named as “head of circuit.” Many Methodists in those appointments depended upon livestock and farming and wee devastated by the floods. By contrast most of the Houston appointments were stations instead of circuits. Those churches including Trinity, Sloan Memorial, Mount Vernon, Boynton Chapel, Calvary, and Mallalieu were all prosperous enough to have a full time preacher rather than sharing one on a circuit. The District was also strong enough to start new churches to serve the growing population coming to the boom town. New churches appear at Audubon Place, Dowling Addition, Dyerdale, Cloverleaf. Houston residents will recognize these locations as concentrated in the eastern side of Houston, close to the Port of Houston. District Superintendent W. H. Logan thus had his hands full on the Houston District. He had to deal with destruction in his rural churches and explosive growth in his urban ones.