Houston Sports Cathedrals: Astrodome, NRG & Minute Maid

In 1965 Houston built something the world had never seen: a giant air-conditioned dome where baseball could be played indoors, out of the Gulf Coast heat and rain. The Astrodome was hailed as the Eighth Wonder of the World, and it set Houston on a path to becoming one of America's great sports cities. This drive runs from that pioneering dome — now silent but preserved — past its towering successor, NRG Stadium, home of the Texans and the world's biggest rodeo, and on downtown to Minute Maid Park, where the Astros play beneath a retractable roof and the old Union Station lobby. Along the way it takes in the neighborhoods and figures woven into this southern stretch of the city. It's a tour of concrete, grass, roofs that open and close, and the outsized ambition that made Houston reach for the stars — and the World Series.