Houston's Skyline: Esperson to the Glass Towers

You can read Houston's history in the height of its buildings. The city grew from a bayou trading post into a global energy capital, and each boom left a tower behind — the ornate 1920s skyscrapers of the cotton-and-oil money, the Art Deco banking palaces of the Jesse Jones era, and the glass giants that redefined the skyline once air conditioning and steel let architects reach higher. This walk threads the old commercial core of downtown, from a romantic Italian Renaissance tower a widow built as a monument to her husband, past Deco banks and grand hotels, to the ground where the modern glass city rises overhead. Bring a neck ready to crane; this is a walk about looking up.