When a group of business owners and residents formed the Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce in 1974, Northwest Houston was still largely a rural area, where farm-to-market roads traversed undeveloped land and bore names such as Jackrabbit Road—a bustling artery now known as FM 1960.

Janet Rolston, HNWCC historian and longtime volunteer, gathered the story of the chamber’s beginnings from the people who had been involved in its formative years in the 1970s for her self-published book, “The Beginning of the Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce.”

Chambers of commerce in Northwest Houston helped forge a community from a patchwork of farmland and scattered home and business development, Rolston said.

Lacking a centralized local government such as a city council, Northwest Houston is an “edge city,” Rolston said—an area with all of the amenities of a city but lacking the benefits of incorporation.

“We knew growth was coming,” HNWCC President Barbara Thomason said. “It was a desirable area.”

Rolston said security, roads, mobility and education were identified as key needs at early chamber meetings.

“Many of the roads and highways we have today were ones that we created out of the chamber’s lobbying,” said Glenn Wilkerson, a former HNWCC chairman and Cypress Creek Christian Church minister, in an interview in the book.

HNWCC began with a budget of $30,000 in its first year and grew to 314 members by 1976, Rolston said. Its transportation and governmental affairs committees worked with county government on issues like law enforcement, road construction and flood mitigation.

“The vision was that area business owners and residents would come to look upon ‘The Chamber’ as a town hall and as a united voice to speak for the needs and challenges facing the community,” Rolston wrote.

At the same time that the chamber was forming, community institutions like the Cypress Creek Christian Community Center on Cypresswood Drive were taking shape. The chamber helped to launch fundraising efforts for that center, Wilkerson said in an interview in the book.

“People think that [community] just comes up like mushrooms, and actually it needs leaders,” Rolston said.

Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce

3920 FM 1960 W., Houston www.houstonnwchamber.org