This iconic statue of General Sam Houston has marked the entrance to Houston's Hermann Park since 1925. It was designed and constructed by Italian-born Texas sculptor Enrico Filberto Cerracchio for $75,000 in post World War I dollars.

A legacy is only as valuable as the care it receives from its recipients. So far, the 1914 gift of land for a park and medical center south of downtown Houston by early local philanthropist George H. Hermann seems to be surviving as valuable to the City of Houston beyond anyone’s earliest 20th century dreams.

Were it not for the 445-acre donation of land by Hermann, and the adjacent earlier donation of acreage and endowment funds to the contiguous west of the park for the start of Rice (Institute) University in 1912 from funds donated by another local giver, William Marsh Rice, the southern exposure of this city’s non-zoned real estate might have grown as nothing more than a hodge-podge of homes, business, and billboards, the way much of our city grew until we awoke from what we were doing. That kind of force for conservancy wasn’t necessary south and immediately west of General’s Sam’s statue. The gifts of Messrs. Hermann and Rice had set a legacy in motion that the people of 20th century Houston had gratefully accepted, developed, and improved.

The Texas Medical Center south of Hermann Park is now the arguably finest in the world. The art, civic, and science museum district immediately north of Hermann Park is now one of the finest in the nation, if not the entire world – and these all flow further north through the reviving mid-town redeveloping residential area and into the traditional downtown/uptown (depending on your point of view) business district that also now preserves classic structures like the iconic Gulf and Esperson Buildings, the ancient LaCarafe Building on Market Square, while also serving as the promotional environment for the growth of the classical performing arts, major league baseball, and professional basketball. Throw in downtown also as the home of the central branch in one of the finest library collections and systems in the nation.

Houston values culture. Houston has class. And the seeds of it all may have been the early donations of two men named Hermann and Rice. These gifts to the people just seemed to set in motion an appetite and an attitude about learning, preservation, beauty, and accomplishment that permeates the air of our community to this very early dawn in the 21st century.

The future of Houston is right over there, just beyond the dawn. All we have to do to make our best future most likely is to lean into tomorrow by living fully today and in total respect for the many personal and community gifts of our storied local past.

How long has it been since you’ve visited the zoo, attended a concert at Hermann Park, checked out the Science Museum, visited the Houston Museum of Fine Arts or one its many local exposition cousins, or simply taken a continuing education class through the Rice University Adult Studies program?

Well, maybe it’s time you did something along those lines. We keep the legacy alive through our personal participation in whatever’s available. And we’ve got a lot of worthwhile stuff filling our cups of opportunity to the brim here in Houston. It’s up to each of us to either use it or lose it.

Allen Parkway, 1960.

Allen Parkway, 2010.

You Houstonians already know these facts. Allen Parkway is a short, but important traffic artery leading into downtown Houston from the west at Shepherd Drive and ending 2.3 miles later at the I-45 section that skirts the immediate west bank of the tall buildings at Sam Houston Park near City Hall.

Through the 1950s, this busy, winding travel path to the south bank of Buffalo Bayou was known as Buffalo Drive. The name was changed to clear up confusion with another road in Houston near West University Place that is still called Buffalo Speedway. The name selected for the true bayou partner street fell quickly to “Allen Parkway” in honor of John Kirby Allen and Augustus Chapman Allen, the founders of Houston.

The towers of the 1960 vista are basically now covered by the monsters of the second. Houston has grown so much in the past fifty years – and it hasn’t been all physical. Thanks to the prevailing culture of can-do energy and adaptability, the city has survived wars, a number of economic crises, and important changes in the old culture that kept Houston spiritually small back in the days of racial segregation.

Houston was founded as an inland port and railroad transportation center. It grew as a rice, cotton, and cattle town. Then it leapt into prominence as the oil capital of the world. Now it builds on its still important energy center status as a growing international community manning an ever-diversifying economy in the world marketplace.

At the same time Houston changes, the forces that support our community’s memory and preservation of the area’s history are growing stronger by the day. It is important we adapt and change to both our needs for spiritual growth and the demands of the changing marketplace, but it is also important that we don’t give up connection to where we’ve come from. Our city’s history also contains some discriminatory values and practices in its past that we never want to forget or repeat. We will not forget those either.

For the city to embrace hope, there has to be hope and opportunity here for all law-abiding citizens.

As you’ve probably figured out by now, if you’ve been reading my columns for long, I’m a 100% Houston guy. This city has owned my heart forever and always will. We may not always be right, but we never stop working to get it right for the greater good of Houston, whatever that turns out to be..

Now, if we could just figure a way to dome the city for air conditioning in August each year, I might start believing that we could actually turn this town into the garden spot of the world. Have a nice Sunday, folks. I’m on my way to the take out service at Pappasito’s now. Nobody else around here wants to leave the house.