The deed to Johnson Space Center (Does Rice Univ. own the site where JSC stands?)

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Author	Topic: The deed to Johnson Space Center (Does Rice Univ. own the site where JSC stands?)
Robert Pearlman Editor Posts: 15393 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999	posted May 19, 2008 02:19 PM Who owns the land on which Johnson Space Center now stands? By some accounts, the land was donated by Rice University. By others, the university still owns the property and rents it to the government at a rate of $1 per year. In the NASA publication "Suddenly Tomorrow Came... A History of Johnson Space Center," Henry Dethloff wrote in 1993: On Sept. 19, 1961, NASA announced that the $60 million manned space flight laboratory would be located in Houston on 1,000 acres of land to be made available to the government by Rice University. The land was owned by Humble Oil Co. [now Exxon] and given to Rice to give to the government. In addition to acquiring title to this donation from Rice, the federal government subsequently purchased an additional 600 acres needed to give the site frontage on the highway. A 20-acre reserve-drilling site fell within NASA's total 1,620-acre site. But what does "made available" and "acquire title" exactly mean in this case? Recently, this question was raised by several people at JSC as the result of a NASA History briefing during which the topic was mentioned. Sy Liebergot (former Apollo EECOM, author and cS member) was copied on the resulting research, which he very kindly shared with collectSPACE. As it turns out, Rice neither donated the land nor does it still own (and rent) it. Instead, it sold the land to the government in September 1962 for a total of $20 ($10 for 1020 acres [PDF, 2.0mb], and $10 more for 600 acres [PDF, 1.8mb]), as the deed [PDF, 458k] clearly states ("granted, sold and conveyed"). (The copies of the deeds are from JSC History Collection at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, courtesy JSC Historian Jennifer Ross-Nazzal, Ph.D.) The myth of the donation/lease is widespread, from NASA to Rice to independent sources. So, now you know...
4allmankind Member Posts: 475 From: NJ Registered: Jan 2004	posted May 21, 2008 04:09 PM Interesting Robert, Also of note is that on page 150 of Chris Kraft's book "Flight" he states that "an oil company donated a lot of land to Rice University, which then deeded much of it (but not all) to NASA free and clear". Jay
kr4mula Member Posts: 265 From: Cinci, OH Registered: Mar 2006	posted May 22, 2008 11:43 AM From what I read/heard (can't recall where), the donation wasn't altruistic. Humble Oil, or at least its owner, retained a significant amount of otherwise almost worthless land in the area. He knew that if NASA built a center there, he could make a fortune selling land to developers or developing it himself. I don't remember hearing how that worked out. Given the difference between the area then and now, someone certainly made some money! Cheers, Kevin
MCroft04 Member Posts: 674 From: Smithfield, Me, USA Registered: Mar 2005	posted May 27, 2008 10:09 PM quote: Originally posted by kr4mula: Given the difference between the area then and now, someone certainly made some money! How about some of LBJ's friends; and I'm an LBJ supporter. Just politics.
Peg Purser Member Posts: 10 From: Humble, TX USA Registered: Dec 2006	posted January 17, 2009 04:20 PM This is several months late -- haven't been checking cS lately. But, the comment about Exxon and its land near JSC -- Exxon had/has a development company called Friendswood Development and they developed Clear Lake City which has over 10,000 homes and massive commercial properties. The City of Houston annexed them in the early 1970s. They also developed Kingwood up Northeast of Houston and Bush Intercontinental Airport -- it is now part of the City. They have other major developments and planned communities. So, yes, Exxon was very wise to give the land to Rice so that it could pass it on to NASA. Virtually all the original MSC/JSC staff lived in this new Clear Lake City area so worthless undeveloped flat land not near anything turned into a boon for Exxon.

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