Bayou City is a popular nickname for the city of Houston, Texas, founded at the confluence of White Oak and Buffalo Bayous by the Allen Brothers in the early nineteenth century. Since that time, the ubiquitous namesake streams have played a major role in the city's development, both as provider of economic bounty in the eventual development of the Houston Ship Channel and protector in the form of vital floodwater runoff channels for this flat and low-lying metropolis.
Within the general vicinity of the Houston, and mostly within its corporate limits, are at least nineteen natural streams with the designation 'Bayou' in their names: Armand Bayou, Brays Bayou, Brickhouse Bayou, Buffalo Bayou, Carpenters Bayou, Cedar Bayou, Chocolate Bayou, Garner Bayou, Greens Bayou, Halls Bayou, Horsepen Bayou, Hunting Bayou, Jackson Bayou, Keegans Bayou, Luce Bayou, Reinhardt Bayou, Sims Bayou, Vince Bayou, and White Oak Bayou.
Bayou City may also make reference to any of the following:
- Bayou City Art Festival - an arts festival held biannually (spring and fall) in Houston, Texas.
- C.S. Bayou City - a Confederate States Navy gunboat during the American Civil War.
Famous quotes containing the word city:
“In this absence of nine years I find a great improvement in the city of New York.... Some say it has improved because I have been away. Others, and I agree with them, say it has improved because I have come back.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)