Texas City is a city in Chambers and Galveston counties in the U.S. state of Texas. The population was 41,521 at the 2000 census. It is a part of the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown, Texas Metropolitan Statistical Area.
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Texas City is a city in Chambers and Galveston counties in the U.S. state of Texas. The population was 41,521 at the 2000 census. It is a part of the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown, Texas Metropolitan Statistical Area.
History
Located on the southwest shoreline of Galveston Bay, Texas City is a busy deepwater port on Texas' Gulf Coast. In 1891 while on a duck-hunting trip in the marshlands near a small community known as Shoal Point, three brothers from Duluth, Minnesota , Jacob, Benjamin and Henry Meyers, decided that the area had great potential as a major port. Other Duluth shippers joined in the project and the Meyers brothers purchased 10,000 acres of Galveston Bay frontage, including the community of Shoal Point, and renamed the area Texas City. On May 17, 1893, the Texas City Improvement Company filed the first townsite plat, and a post office was established. In 1893, the federal government gave the new company permission to dredge an 8-foot deep channel, and in September, 1894, the first shipment using the channel was handled.
The community established the Texas City Independent School District on July 11, 1905. By 1911 the number of inhabitants had grown to 1,169, and on September 16, 1911, the city incorporated under the commission form of government with William P. Tarpey, state representative for Galveston County in 1901, as mayor. H. M. Coats and Frank B. Davison were the first commissioners. Davison also served as the town's first Postmaster, first bank director, and owned the first grocery store and telephone in Texas City.
By 1925, Texas City had an estimated population of 3,500 and was a thriving community with two refineries producing gasoline, the Texas City Sugar Refinery, two cotton compressing facilities, and even passenger bus service. However, The Great Depression and the strong competition from Imperial Sugar Industries caused the sugar refinery to fail by 1930. Many of the stores in the business district closed, and those that remained struggled to survive. But the continued development of the oil industry contributed to economic recovery.
By 1939 the population of Texas City had increased to 5,200. The United States commitment to the war in 1941 furthered the boom in Texas City, propelling it into fourth position among Texas ports. During the war, Texas City experienced remarkable growth. Since the Axis threatened England and Holland , the only two sources of tin smelting in the world, the Defense Plant Corporation under Jesse H. Jones decided in 1940 to build a tin smelter in the United States. On a site donated by the Texas City Terminal Railway Company, the Tin Processing Corporation began operation of the only smelter in the western hemisphere. The Longhorn Tin Smelting Company supplied all the industrial and military needs of the free world. By 1950 the population of Texas City was estimated at 16,620.
The post-war prosperity was postponed on April 16, 1947, when the freightors Grandecamp, High Flyer, and Wilson B. Keene, docked in the Port of Texas City, exploded in what is generally regarded as the worst industrial accident in U.S. history, the Texas City Disaster. It is believed that the initial explosion was the result of a smoldering fire started by a cigarette tossed by a careless longshoreman in the hold of the Grandecamp, which was carrying a load of ammonium nitrate that had recently arrived in port from Houston. The explosion aboard the Grandecamp ignited fires aboard the other two vessels, both of which exploded later that morning. In all, the explosions killed 581 and injured over 5000 people. The explosions were so powerful and intense that many of the bodies of the townspeople and emergency workers who responded to the initial explosion were never accounted for. The city ultimately recovered quite well from the accident and numerous petro-chemical refineries are still located in the same port area of Texas City. The city has often referred to itself as "the town that would not die," a moniker whose accuracy would be tested once again in the days surrounding Hurricane Ike's assault on the region early on September 13, 2008.
