Westheimer Road
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Westheimer Road |
|
| From: | Bagby Street |
|---|---|
| Major junctions: |
 Interstate 610 Texas Beltway 8 State Highway 6 |
| To: |  Westpark Tollway |
| Counties: | Harris |
| Major cities: | Houston |
Westheimer Road is an arterial road in the western half of Houston, Texas, United States. It runs from Bagby Street west to the Westpark Tollway.
The portion spanning from Interstate 610 to the Westpark Tollway is designated as a part of Farm to Market Road 1093.
Westheimer Road is Texas's longest major thoroughfare.[1]
In 2007 Colliers International ranked Westheimer Road as the seventh most expensive retail streets in the United States by rent per square foot; the group calculated the rent per square foot as $120 United States dollars.[2]
In 2007 Mimi Swartz of Texas Monthly referred to a stretch of Westheimer between Claremont Lane and Kirby Drive as "the socialite’s sector" due to the stores catering to residents of River Oaks and other nearby wealthy communities; in the article she describes several places along the stretch of Westheimer.[3]
[edit] History
Westheimer Road was named after Michael Louis Westheimer, a prosperous German immigrant who had settled in Houston in 1859. He purchased a 640-acre farm west of Houston's city limits at the time, where Lamar High School and St. John's School are currently located. Having built a school on his land for his 16 children, other local children were invited to join the school, as a public school system was not established in the area. The road the lead to his property was known as "the road to Westheimer's place" and winded through what would later be Montrose and River Oaks.[4][1]
In 1895 Westheimer allowed Harris County to build a right-of-way for a road stretching from Columbus to Sealy; this road became Westheimer Road.[1]
[edit] References
|
||||||||||||||
