Gone Coal Podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter. Listener discretion is advised.

The 1970s were a transformative time for Houston, Texas. Other cities and states were struggling with high

inflation and high unemployment, triggered by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

or OPEC orchestrating high oil prices in response to the Yom Kippur War.

Houston's existing oil and petrochemical infrastructure became a primary focus of production,

expansion, and exploration.

The Arab oil embargo of 1973 solidified the city's position in the energy sector,

which kicked off a series of circumstances that would change it forever.

Because of the creation of new jobs, folks flocked to the area and greater Houston's

population surged, the city gaining more than three quarters of a million residents in the decade.

The oil boom and population growth led to a building boom, the success of the contemporary arts museum, along with

places like the Dean Goss Dinner Theater, and the Alley Theater, illustrated Houston's arts

culture boom as well. A new age of increased political activism and cultural expression by the city's

Hispanic population was ushered in.

As the rest of the country fought to stay afloat during the recessive, uncertain times,

Houston was thriving, in both the best ways and the worst.

In the early 70s, one of the most notorious cases that ever came out of Houston emerged, as the bodies of 27 teenage boys were dug up in the city's southwest. The murderous mastermind, the so-called Candyman or Pied Piper, Dean Arnold Coral, was killed by one of his

teenage accomplices, Elmer Wayne Henley, who, along with David Owen Brooks, were later convicted

for their roles in the rape and torture-motivated crimes, which quickly became known as the

Houston mass murders.

Though most other homicide cases would pale in comparison to the sheer number of the dead

in that case, and the sensational press coverage, the deaths were hardly the first or last

...