Businessman owned large portion of land in Cy-Fair

For most of the 20th century, Houstonian Gus Wortham had an influence in many of the city's major events and organizations, ranging from the Houston Symphony to the Astrodome to the local cattle industry.

Although he and his wife Lyndall lived near Rice University, Wortham owned several tracts of land in Cy-Fair, including the areas where the master-planned communities of Copperfield and Fairfield sit today. Local neighborhood Wortham Estates—near FM 1960 and Hwy. 290—is named after the businessman.

Wortham co-owned the Nine Bar Ranch—the current site of Fairfield—where he bred Santa Gertrudis cattle and hosted annual cattle sales, which brought in guests from around the world. The ranch, which featured a private plane landing, was also open to visitors for tours, including a group of Swedish businessmen who came for a visit in 1958.

"Texas hospitality has never been shown in a finer manner, and when the Swedish visitors, accustomed to all varieties of fish and seafood, were introduced to some of Texas' hottest hot tamales, the reaction was worth watching," said a 1958 Houston Press article.

After college and before he became a fixture in Houston's business world, Wortham entered the insurance field with the Texas Fire Rating Board in 1912 and created the insurance firm John L. Wortham and Son with his father. Eleven years later, he helped form the American General Insurance Group, for which he served as chairman of the board and CEO for more than 50 years.

Aside from his work in the insurance business, Wortham was involved with several cultural organizations, including the Houston Symphony, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. Wortham was made chairman of the Houston Symphony board in May 1946 and was appointed one year later as general chairman of the orchestra's annual maintenance fund campaign.

In 1958, Judge Bob Casey appointed three civic leaders, including Wortham, to head up a campaign to drive public support for a $20 million revenue bond to construct a multipurpose stadium—the future Astrodome.

"This is one of the greatest projects Houston has undertaken, and I am proud to be a part of it," Wortham said in a 1958 Houston Chronicle article. "By putting together a stadium project and fat stock show, I think we can build something unique which will attract international attention."

The Wortham Foundation was formed in 1960, and a research project to explore reasons for sterility in cattle was the first project the foundation took on at Nine Bar Ranch in Cypress. Wortham hosted annual laboratory symposiums for the cause, which took place at Nine Bar and Cy-Fair High School. According to a Houston Chronicle article from 1962, the laboratory is one of the reasons the Houston area become one of the world's top cattle-producing centers.