The Woodlands, Texas

The Woodlands is a master-planned community and census-designated place (CDP) in the U.S. state of Texas in the Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan area. According to The Woodlands Development Company, the population was 107,769 as of a January 2014 estimate, an increase of 93.7% over its population of 55,649 at the 2000 census.

It is 28 miles (45 km) north of Houston along Interstate 45. Though it began as a suburban development and a bedroom community, it has also attracted corporations and has several corporate campuses, most notably Chevron Phillips, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, Huntsman Corporation, Woodforest National Bank, Baker Hughes, CB&I, McKesson Corporation, Aon plc, Maersk Line, Safmarine, GeoSouthern Energy, and ExxonMobil. It won a Special Award for Excellence in 1994 from the Urban Land Institute.

History

The Woodlands was conceived after the oil industry investor George P. Mitchell attended a symposium by the Rouse Company subsidiary American City Corporation on how to develop HUD financed Title VII towns like Columbia, Maryland. It was dedicated by George P. Mitchell in 1974 and managed by The Woodlands Corporation as an extension of Mitchell Energy & Development. Mitchell, an oil businessman, planned to establish a conference center, hotels, office parks, retail malls, schools, large distribution centers, and golf courses. Houses would range from affordable to expensive and large. Bill Schadewald of the Houston Business Journal said that Mitchell wanted the development to "entice city slickers looking for far-flung suburban quality of life." Schadewald said that local sources stated that the HUD New Town program, a federally funded program, had a "low survival rate" and questioned whether The Woodlands would succeed.

The Woodlands

The Woodlands may refer to:

Canada

United States

(by state)

See also

The Woodlands (Philadelphia)

The Woodlands is a National Historic Landmark District on the west bank of the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. It includes a Federal-style mansion, a matching carriage house and stable, and a garden landscape that in 1840 was transformed into a Victorian rural cemetery with an arboretum of over 1,000 trees. More than 30,000 people are buried at the cemetery.

Hamilton estate (1735-1840)

The land that would become The Woodlands was originally a 250-acre (1.0 km²) tract in Blockley Township on the west bank of the Schuylkill River. It was purchased in 1735 by the famous Philadelphia lawyer Andrew Hamilton.

When Hamilton died in 1741, he willed his lands to his son, also named Andrew. The son survived his father by only six years, but in that time built up his landholdings enough to leave a 300-acre (1.2 km²) estate to his own son, William Hamilton (1745–1813), who acquired it at the age of twenty-one. William built a Georgian-style mansion with a grand, two-storied portico overlooking the river above Gray's Ferry. Following a trip to England after the American Revolution, Hamilton doubled the size of the dwelling, creating a 16-room manor with kitchens and service rooms in a windowed ground floor. The rebuilt Woodlands mansion became one of the greatest domestic American architectural achievements of the 18th century, recognized as a leading example of English taste and presaging architectural trends in the following century.

The Woodlands (race track)

The Woodlands was a greyhound racing (and later horse racing) track at 9700 Leavenworth Road, Kansas City, Kansas from 1989 until 2008.

History

In 1986 Kansas voters permitted parimutuel betting.

The track opened in 1989 with considerable expectation with Kansas claiming it was the home of greyhounds with the National Greyhound Association operating in Abilene, Kansas which is also the location for the National Greyhound Hall of Fame. It was the first legal gambling outlet in the Kansas City, Missouri area since the 1930s. However attendance spiked the second year with 1.7 million in 1990 and fell to less than 400,000 by 2000 as the track was subject to a series of scandals and competitive pressure.

In 1993 Missouri voters approved riverboat casinos and the boat casinos appeared on the Missouri side competing for the gambling market

In 1995 Jorge Anthony Hughes, operator of Hughes Kennels at the track, was charged with selling illegal steroids at the track. Further revelations showed the track was not adequately testing or monitoring for steroid use. In 1996 charges were made that employees were accepting illegal out of state bets from Florida.