Galena Park
By Clint Skinner
Located in Harris
County, the city of Galena Park lies east of Houston,
north of Buffalo bayou, and south of Jacinto
City. Ezekiel Thomas moved to the area in 1824 after securing
a land grant from the Mexican government. The settlers from South
Carolina died in 1835 and a thousand acres of his property was sold
to Isaac Batterson. After settling on the land, Isaac called the
area Clinton. On April 19, 1836, General
Sam Houston arrived on the scene with his troops. He made a
stop at Batterson's house and obtained permission to make rafts
from the floorboards so his army could float down Buffalo Bayou.
When the task was completed, Sam
Houston used the property as a camp for the sick while the rest
of his men advance toward Santa Anna's forces at San
Jacinto.
the residence of Clinton heavily relied upon farming and ranching
for their financial income since the beginning. Charles Morgan,
the owner of the Morgan Steam Ship Company, changed all this with
his actions, starting in 1876. He emptied and cleaned out Buffalo
Bayou, then dug a canal near the town of Morgan's
Point. They result was a new channel for Houston's
port. Once this was accomplished, Charles established a railroad
line from Houston to
Sims and Buffalo Bayous. Cotton warehouses and compresses soon appeared
along this area. By the 1880s, Clinton was a major shipping center.
The oil industry came to Clinton during the early 1900s with the
construction of the first refinery by the Galena Signal Oil Company
of Texas. Owned by C. D. Keen and W. C. Woolf, another refinery
was built in the area and it provided some competition. The United
States Steel Company built a warehouse and corporate office in Clinton
during 1927, introducing the city to the steel industry.
On September 21, 1935, the city of Clinton was incorporated as Galena
Park. It had trying to register the post office s Clinton, but
the name was already taken. In response, the people decided to name
it after the company which provided its first oil refinery. The
matter was settled and Galena Park was born.
In 1936, the new city sported twelve businesses and a population
of 300. Four years later, the number of residents shot to 1,562
and bolted to 7,186 in 1950. As Houston continued to prosper, Galena
Park kept growing in size. The population reached an apex in 1960
with 10,852 people, but surpassed that number in 2014 when records
indicated that there were 11,148 citizens calling Galena Park home.
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