Firefighters rush to the scene of an explosion. On October 19, 1971, a Missouri Pacific Railroad train entered the yard and derailed on a track undergoing repairs. A tank car carrying vinyl chloride subsequently exploded. As firefighters fought the blaze, a second car—this one containing butadiene—exploded. One firefighter, Truxton Hathaway died on the scene. Soon after the Mykana Road fire, the Houston Fire Department established its hazardous materials unit.
“Mama, I killed Dean,” confesses Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. “Dean” refers to serial killer Dean Corll, who murdered at least 28 teenage boys in Houston between 1970 and 1973. As Corll’s accomplice, Henley lured victims to Corll’s home and participated in several murders. Henley fatally shot Corll on August 8, 1973. He then called 911 to confess. In this footage, KPRC’s Jack Cato follows Henley and police to the storage shed where Corll buried several victims. At the scene, Henley uses the radio telephone in Cato’s car to call his mother. Cato’s footage of the conversation was picked up by NBC Nightly News that evening. Henley was convicted of six murders and sentenced to six consecutive life terms. The series of crimes became known as the Houston Mass Murders.
Hurricane Celia ravages the Texas coast. The Category 3 hurricane made landfall near Corpus Christi on August 3. Celia destroyed nearly half of all structures in the Corpus Christi area, making it the costliest tropical cyclone in Texas history until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.
Using the Big 2 Instant News Camera to provide on-the-scene coverage of Hurricane Caroline from Galveston and South Padre Island
Multi-camera coverage of the return of the Apollo crew following the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
Spot police news combines film, videotape, and live reporting
Gordie Howe scores his 2000th point at the Sam Houston Coliseum. Howe played for the Houston Aeros from 1973 to 1977.
Mickey Mantle comes out of retirement to play in a baseball game celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Astrodome
Ron Stone broadcasts live from an air show by the Confederate Air Force. Now known as the Commemorative Air Force, the Dallas-based organization collects and restores World War II aircraft.
Inside the KPRC newsroom and editing room
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This 1975 promotional tape for Houston’s KPRC-TV introduces the Big 2 Instant News Camera. Larry Weidman produced and narrated the production to accompany KPRC News Director Ray Miller’s appearance on an electric news gathering panel during the 1975 Radio-Television News Directors Association annual meeting. To demonstrate the growing role of electronic news gathering and the Big 2 Instant News Camera to KPRC, Weidman features examples such as storm-watch reporting of Hurricane Caroline, multi-camera coverage of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project astronauts, spot police news, sports games, and live programming. Signing on the air on January 1, 1949, KPRC-TV is the oldest television station in Houston and the second-oldest station in the state. (At the time of its first broadcast, the station was known as KLEE-TV. It changed its call letters in 1950 upon its purchase by the Hobby family.)
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