City Rebuilt

No U.S. city knows more about death & destruction than bustling little (pop. 25,000) Texas City, Texas. When two nitrate-laden freighters exploded on its waterfront one sunshiny April day in 1947, most of Texas City's oil refineries and chemical plants were left a mass of twisted ruins; more than 1,000 houses were damaged; 512 persons were killed, 8,000 injured.

Last week Texas City could boast that it was bigger & better than ever. To symbolize the fact, city fathers gathered to dedicate a brand-new 55-acre park with a $200,000 swimming pool. In the course of the dedication, they pointed out that in the last four years they had built 18 miles of new city streets, $1,500,000 worth of schools, 1,100 new houses, two new fire stations, a new police station and a health clinic.

Texas City's industries are keeping pace. The giant Monsanto Chemical plant, a blackened ruin after the 1947 disaster, has been rebuilt (total cost: $50 million). Other industries have spent $28,500,000 on new buildings, plan to put up another $44 million worth.

With his civic pride outrunning his grammar, Texas City's Mayor Lee Robinson said last week: "People would tell me that Texas City was done for and I'd always say: Just because you get hit hard in the stomach don't mean you're going to lay down and die."

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