This story begins in 1886, thousands of miles away in the Ukrainian town of Korostyshiv in the Russian Empire, when Leebe Shaikovich, like many others before and after him, left his family behind to immigrate to the United States. The result was a retail legacy that spanned nine decades.
Houston will become “ …beyond all doubt, the great interior commercial emporium of Texas.” Thus bragged the Allen brothers in an August 1836 advertisement. Thirteen months later rains from a hurricane in September 1837 flooded the city’s Main Street to a depth of four feet. This inundation did not deter the city from its predicted […]
By Jason W. Barrett, Douglas K. Boyd, and Louis F. Aulbach Houston is a dynamic city with an amazing history. The stories written about its past, however, generally focus on the important people and big events that transformed the wilderness along Buffalo Bayou into a modern metropolis. The Allen brothers, steamship and railroad commerce, […]
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