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This article comments on some of the conclusions drawn by Riley E. Baker in respect to significant causative factors in the economic development of the Great Plains area. The economy of, and the techniques employed within, an area are a part of the aggregate economy, not isolated from it. This situation derives largely from the composite of technological developments associated with improved transportation and increased tendencies toward both individual producer and area specialization. The network of interrelationships is not an easy one to explain. Nevertheless, this difficulty does not warrant simplification merely for ease of explanation. Some passages in Baker's paper explicitly, and others by implication, indicate that he leans toward undue simplification, intentional or otherwise. There has appeared a tendency in recent years to interpret the implications of a vastly expanding technological front in terms of the impacts of a few selected techniques lifted from their functional relationships within the integrated whole. This tendency is probably the inevitable result of preliminary observations of the influences of wide technological advances upon the entire structure of an economy.

The economic development of regions in the United States usually results from market forces, which are national or international in their ramifications. Regional growth may be accelerated, however, by the presence of a single factor, a raw material, a fuel supply, location, or a major transportation facility. To support this thesis, the presence of the Houston Ship Channel in Texas is cited as being a unique element stimulating economic activity and contributing to the dynamic nature of the Texas Gulf Coast economy. The specific objectives of this article are to measure the direct and secondary employment, income, investment, consumption, and tax effects derived from this installation for the years 1959-1963. The information is derived from 200 questionnaires returned by industrial, commercial, and government entities. In addition, personal interviews and government economic indicators are utilized. Result supports the conclusion that the Houston Ship Channel occupies an extremely pervasive position in matters involving investment, employment, income, taxes, and trade. The rapid industrialization and economic growth of Houston, Texas was facilitated greatly by waterborne commerce, and with the exception of basic resources, the Ship Channel stimulated the local economy more than any other single force.

Within the ante-bellum South were two distinct economic regions 1) the Lower South, composed of states fronting on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, an area dominated by the slave-cotton system, and 2) the Upper South, represented by inland states like Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Missouri, where slaveless yeoman farmers were dominant and cotton was scarce. The position of Texas in this southern dichotomy has never been adequately investigated, a deficiency which prompted the present study. It was found that the state of Texas, by 1860, was divided, like the South as a whole, into two clearly defined areas, one of which was typically lower southern in its economy and society, the other of which bore the unmistakable imprint of the Upper South. The recognition of this fundamental division is a major aid to the understanding of the geography of nineteenth-century Texas.