A Life magazine photographer's trip to Houston in 1946

Texan Roy Hofheinz (CR) sitting with his family at home. Texan Roy Hofheinz (CR) sitting with his family at home. Photo: Dmitri Kessel, Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image Photo: Dmitri Kessel, Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image Image 1 of / 123 Caption Close A Life magazine photographer's trip to Houston in 1946 1 / 123 Back to Gallery

When you hear the names Cullen, Hofheinz and Hobby, do you think of a street, a pavilion and an airport? Or do you think of a an oil man and great philanthropist, a Houston baseball pioneer and a newspaper man who became governor?

I've found myself thinking about the faces behind those big names after taking a look at the work of photographer Dmitri Kessel, a photo essayist for Life magazine who died in 1995. Kessel got an inside look at the private lives of Houston's movers and shakers in the mid-1940s.

It's not clear from the photo captions, all dated October 1946, why Kessel came to Houston. But his images are fascinating.

In addition to the three famous Houstonians mentioned above, Kessel's portraits include First City National Bank founder James Elkins, oil tycoon Glenn McCarthy and Alice Hogg, wife of Mike Hogg and sister-in-law to the more famous Ima.

Kessel also captures lounging ladies at the ultra-exclusive Bayou Club, the requisite longhorns and horseback riders and the construction of the Foleys building on Main Street, along with various views of the city and even some really bad Houston traffic (more evidence that nothing can ever improve Houston traffic).