Anchor is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in central

Brazoria County, Texas Brazoria County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, the population of the county was 372,031. The county seat is Angleton. Brazoria County is included in the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land metropolitan statis ...

, United States. It is located within the

Greater Houston Greater Houston, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land, is the fifth-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the United States, encompassing nine counties along the Gulf Co ...

metropolitan area.

History

Anchor has a long and rich history. The Columbia Tap Railroad, which traveled from

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

to East Columbia, was built through this area sometime before 1852. The Houston and Brazos Valley Railroad then crossed this line at a point known as Chenango Junction in 1893. Its third line was built to

Sugar Land Sugar Land is the largest city in Fort Bend County, Texas, United States, located in the southwestern part of the metropolitan area. Located about southwest of downtown Houston, Sugar Land is a populous suburban municipality centered around ...

in 1908. These three railroads caused the community to have four passenger

train In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and Passenger train, transport people or Rail freight transport, freight. Trains are typically pul ...

s traveling through the community each day. The traffic increased after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. A depot was built in the 1890s to handle all railroad business from West Columbia and Brazoria. Some trains took people to several events, including the

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclist ...

in Houston, ship tours in

Galveston Galveston ( ) is a coastal resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of , with a population of 47,743 in 2010, is the county seat of surrounding Galvesto ...

, and

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

games in Velasco. The Anchor community was then established near the site of the former community of Fruitland, which was located at the intersection of the

International and Great Northern Railroad International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

and the Velasco Terminal. Jacob Whistler's family moved here in 1895. There were plots of land sold here, but when that failed, they expanded into Anchor. The Whistler family then built a hotel and a restaurant for locals. A post office was established at Anchor in 1897 and remained in operation until June 15, 1920, with George W. Richey as postmaster. Mail was then routed from Angleton. The community's business directory included two general stores, two

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...

s, a

cotton gin A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); a ...

, a

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...

shop, a cafe, a

frog leg Frog legs (French: ''Cuisses de grenouille'') are one of the better-known delicacies of French cuisine, where it has been considered as a national delicacy. The legs of edible frogs are also consumed in other parts of the world, including Vi ...

processing plant, two churches, and Western Union Railroad service. Anchor became a trading center for local farmers. Crops sold in the area included

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...

corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion ...

cabbage Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of ''Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.&nb ...

, and

tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...

es. Farmers raised

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult mal ...

, hogs, and

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult m ...

s, with the cattle eventually making

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digestion, digest solid food. Immune factors and immune ...

butter Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condiment ...

, and

meat Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chic ...

. A

canning Canning is a method of food preservation in which food is processed and sealed in an airtight container (jars like Mason jars, and steel and tin cans). Canning provides a shelf life that typically ranges from one to five years, although u ...

factory was used mostly for tomatoes and owned and operated by a man named Burchard. Several floods and storms hit the area once roads became navigable and automobile sales increased. Its population was 50 with two businesses in 1933, but the store closed in the 1940s due to

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Texas State Highway 288 State Highway 288 (SH 288) is a north–south highway in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Texas, between I-45 in downtown Houston and Freeport, where it terminates on FM 1495. The route was originally designated by 1939, r ...

bypassed the community when it was built, and an oilfield caused little growth. The town was no longer on the census in 1950. The only building that remained in the community was a two-story residence that used to be the Whistler Hotel in the 1980s. The community may have been named for a local

cattle brand Livestock branding is a technique for marking livestock so as to identify the owner. Originally, livestock branding only referred to hot branding large stock with a branding iron, though the term now includes alternative techniques. Other fo ...

; it may also have been named after Anchor, Illinois, the native home of an early settler. An episode of ''

The Dick Van Dyke Show ''The Dick Van Dyke Show'' is an American television sitcom created by Carl Reiner that initially aired on CBS from October 3, 1961 to June 1, 1966, with a total of 158 half-hour episodes spanning five seasons. It was produced by Calvada Product ...

'', number 146, entitled "Remember the Alimony", was set in Anchor. In the episode, the town was moved to very near the Mexican border and given an army base.Remember the Alimony
/ref>

Geography

Anchor is located at the intersection of

Farm to Market Road 521 A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...

and County Road 44, northwest of Angleton.

Education

Anchor once had its own school with Minnie McMillan-Holland as the teacher from 1914 to 1917. Today, the community is served by the

Angleton Independent School District Angleton ISD is a public school district in Angleton, Texas (USA), operating 5 levels of education. Established in 1897, AISD encompasses in Brazoria County, serving Angleton as well as the Village of Bonney, the Sandy Point census-designat ...

. Children in the area attend Rancho Isabella Elementary School, Angleton Junior High School, and

Angleton High School Angleton High School is a public high school located just outside the city of Angleton, Texas, United States in unincorporated Brazoria County. It is classified as a 5A school by the University Interscholastic League (UIL). It is a part of the A ...

in Angleton.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Brazoria County, Texas Unincorporated communities in Texas