Brazoria County ( ) is a

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

. As of the 2020 census, the population of the county was 372,031. The

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

is Angleton. Brazoria County is included in the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land metropolitan statistical area. It is located in the

Gulf Coast The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South or the South Coast, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Tex ...

region of Texas. Regionally, parts of the county are within the extreme southernmost fringe of the regions locally known as

Southeast Texas Southeast Texas is a cultural and geographic region in the U.S. state of Texas, bordering Southwest Louisiana and its greater Acadiana region to the east. Being a part of East Texas, the region is geographically centered on the Greater Houston a ...

. Brazoria County is among a number of counties that are part of the region known as the Texas Coastal Bend. Its county seat is Angleton, and its largest city is Pearland. Brazoria County, like Brazos County farther upriver, takes its name from the Brazos River. It served as the first settlement area for Anglo-Texas, when the Old Three Hundred emigrated from the United States in 1821. The county also includes what was once Columbia and Velasco, Texas, early capital cities of the

Republic of Texas The Republic of Texas (), or simply Texas, was a country in North America that existed for close to 10 years, from March 2, 1836, to February 19, 1846. Texas shared borders with Centralist Republic of Mexico, the Republic of the Rio Grande, an ...

. The highest point in Brazoria County is Shelton's Shack, located near the Dow Chemical Plant B Truck Control Center, measuring 342 ft above sea level.

History

Brazoria County takes its name from the Brazos River, which flows through it. Anglo-Texas began in Brazoria County when the first of Stephen F. Austin's authorized 300 American settlers arrived at the mouth of the Brazos in 1821. Many of the events leading to the

Texas Revolution The Texas Revolution (October 2, 1835 – April 21, 1836) was a rebellion of colonists from the United States and Tejanos (Hispanic Texans) against the Centralist Republic of Mexico, centralist government of Mexico in the Mexican state of ...

developed in Brazoria County. In 1832, Brazoria was organized as a separate municipal district by the Mexican government, so became one of Texas original counties at independence in 1836. An early resident of Brazoria County, Joel Walter Robison, fought in the Texas Revolution and later represented Fayette County in the

Texas House of Representatives The Texas House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Texas Legislature. It consists of 150 members who are elected from single-member districts for two-year terms. There are no Term limits in the United States, term limits. The ...

. Stephen F. Austin's original burial place is located at a church cemetery, Gulf Prairie Cemetery, in the town of Jones Creek, on what was his brother-in-law's Peach Point Plantation. His remains were exhumed in 1910 and brought to be reinterred at the state capital in

Austin Austin refers to: Common meanings * Austin, Texas, United States, a city * Austin (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin Motor Company, a British car manufac ...

. The town of West Columbia served as the first capital of Texas, dating back to prerevolutionary days. Men in Work Clothes

The Hastings Oil Field was discovered by the Stanolind Oil and Gas Company in 1934. Production was from a depth of , associated with a

salt dome A salt dome is a type of structural dome formed when salt (or other evaporite minerals) intrudes into overlying rocks in a process known as diapirism. Salt domes can have unique surface and subsurface structures, and they can be discovered us ...

structure. Total production by 1954 was about 242 million barrels. Lake Jackson is a community developed beginning in the early 1940s to provide housing to workers at a new

Dow Chemical Company The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company was among the three largest chemical producers in the world in 2021. It is the operating subsidiary of Dow Inc., ...

plant in nearby Freeport. The county has elements of both

rural In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry are typically desc ...

and

suburban A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

communities, as it is part of

greater Houston Greater Houston, designated by the Office of Management and Budget, United States Office of Management and Budget as Houston–Pasadena–The Woodlands, is the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fifth-most populous metropolitan statistical ...

On June 2, 2016, the

flooding A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant concern in agriculture, civi ...

of the Brazos River required evacuations for portions of Brazoria County.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which are land and (16%) are covered by water.

Adjacent counties

* Harris County (north) * Galveston County (northeast) *

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

(southeast) * Matagorda County (southwest) * Wharton County (west) * Fort Bend County (northwest)

National protected areas

* Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge * San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge (part)

Communities

Cities

* Alvin * Angleton (county seat) * Brazoria * Brookside Village * Clute * Danbury * Freeport * Iowa Colony * Lake Jackson *

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

* Manvel * Oyster Creek * Pearland (small parts in Harris and Fort Bend counties) * Richwood * Sandy Point * Surfside Beach * Sweeny * West Columbia

Towns

* Holiday Lakes * Quintana

Villages

* Bailey's Prairie * Bonney * Hillcrest * Jones Creek

Census-designated places

* Damon * East Columbia * Rosharon * Ryan Acres * Wild Peach Village

Unincorporated communities

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

Anchor An anchor is a device, normally made of metal, used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ', which itself comes from the Greek (). Anch ...

* Brazosport * Bryan Beach * Chenango * China Grove * Chocolate Bayou * Danciger * English *

Four Corners Four Corners is a region of the Southwestern United States consisting of the southwestern corner of Colorado, southeastern corner of Utah, northeastern corner of Arizona, and northwestern corner of New Mexico. Most of the Four Corners regio ...

* Hinkle's Ferry * Lochridge * Old Ocean * Otey * Silverlake * Snipe * Turtle Cove

Ghost towns

* Hasima *

Hastings Hastings ( ) is a seaside town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to th ...

* Lake Barbara * Mims *

Oakland Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...

* Perry's Landing * Velasco

Demographics

As of the

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 2000, 241,767 people, 81,954 households, and 63,104 families resided in the county. The

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...

was . The 90,628 housing units averaged . According to the 2010 United States census, 313,166 people were living in the county; by 2020, its population grew to 372,031. Of the 81,955 households in 2000, 40.80% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 62.20% were married couples living together, 10.40% had a female householder with no husband present, and 23.00% were not families. About 19.10% of all households were made up of individuals, and 6.40% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.82, and the average family size was 3.23. In the county, the age distribution as 28.60% under 18, 8.60% from 18 to 24, 32.40% from 25 to 44, 21.50% from 45 to 64, and 8.80% who were 65 or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females, there were 107 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 107.4 males. The median income for a household in the county was $48,632, and for a family was $55,282. Males had a median income of $42,193 versus $27,728 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...

for the county was $20,021. About 8.1% of families and 10.2% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

, including 12.6% of those under age 18 and 8.7% of those age 65 or over.

Race and ethnicity

In the late 1800s, the county was majority black as many were former slaves who had worked on plantations in the county. In 1882, it had 8,219 black people and 3,642 white people. However, after

Jim Crow laws The Jim Crow laws were U.S. state, state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, "Jim Crow (character), Ji ...

were cemented, many African-Americans moved to Houston and the county became majority white. By 2022, due to the growth of ethnic minorities in Pearland, non-Hispanic white people were now a plurality and not a majority in the county as a whole. In 2000, the racial makeup of the county was 77.09% White, 8.50% Black or African American, 0.53% Native American, 2.00% Asian, 9.66% from other races, and 2.22% from two or more races. About 22.78% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. About 12.1% were of German, 11.2% American, and 7.2% English ancestry according to 2000's census; about 79.0% spoke only English at home, while 18.1% spoke Spanish. By 2010, 70.1% were

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 12.1%

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 5.5% Asian, 0.6% Native American, 9.2% of some other race, and 2.6% of more than one race; about 27.7% were Hispanic or Latino (of any race).

Government and politics

Elected officials

Nathan Haller, a black man, was the elected representative for the county from 1892 to 1897. After Jim Crow laws were imposed, black residents were suppressed politically until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In 2022 most major government officials were white.

United States Congress

Texas Legislature

Texas Senate

Texas House of Representatives

Pearland native Kyle Kacal, a Republican from College Station, holds the District 12 state House seat based in Brazos and four neighboring counties.

Law enforcement and jails

The Brazoria County Sheriff's Office is the oldest law enforcement agency in the State of Texas, established by the Republic of Texas in March 1836. Among its duties include running the Brazoria County Jail, located at 3602 County Road 45 in unincorporated central Brazoria County, north of Angleton. ClemensUnitBrazoriaCoTX

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) operates six state prisons for men and its Region III office in unincorporated Brazoria County. As of 2007,1,495 full-time correctional job positions were in the county.Lowman, John.
Talk of prison move preliminary
" '' Brazosport Facts''. Wednesday June 6, 2007. Retrieved on May 9, 2010. In 1995, of the counties in Texas, Brazoria had the second-highest number of state prisons and jails, after Walker County.Horswell, Cindy.
For hard-hit economy of Liberty County, crime officially pays
" ''

Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. ...

''. Thursday June 29, 1995. A30. Retrieved on July 23, 2010. In 2003, a total of 2,572 employees were employed at the six TDCJ facilities.Isensee, Bridie
"TDCJ makes overtime changes"
'' Brazosport Facts'', August 13, 2003, Retrieved May 9, 2010. The TDCJ units are: * Clemens Unit, nearBrazoriaStaff and Wire Reports.
Parts of Houston join evacuation
" ''

'', September 21, 2005, Retrieved on May 10, 2010. * Memorial Unit (formerly Darrington Unit), near Rosharon - The Windham School District Region III office is within the unit. (The following 3 are co-located in Otey, near Rosharon.) * Ramsey Unit - The unit is co-located with Stringfellow and Terrell. The TDCJ Region III Maintenance Headquarters is within this unit. * Stringfellow Unit, near Rosharon - The unit is co-located with Ramsey and Terrell. The unit was originally named Ramsey II Prison Unit. * C. T. Terrell Unit - The unit is co-located with Ramsey and Stringfellow. It was originally known as the Ramsey III Unit. In 2007, TDCJ officials said discussions to move the Central Unit from Sugar Land to Brazoria County were preliminary. Former units: * Retrieve Unit (later Wayne Scott Unit), near Angleton. - Main prison closed in 2020

Education

A variety of school districts serve Brazoria County students. They include: * Alvin ISD * Angleton ISD * Brazosport ISD * Columbia-Brazoria ISD * Danbury ISD * Damon ISD * Friendswood ISD * Pearland ISD * Sweeny ISD Alvin Community College and

Brazosport College Brazosport College (BC) is a public community college in Lake Jackson, Texas. The college opened in 1968 and offers primarily associate degrees and some bachelor's degrees. The campus features The Clarion, a regional musical performance venue, ...

serve as

higher education Tertiary education (higher education, or post-secondary education) is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank defines tertiary education as including universities, colleges, and vocational schools ...

facilities. Alvin CC serves areas in Alvin, Danbury, and Pearland ISDs as well as portions of the Angleton ISD that Alvin CC had annexed prior to September 1, 1995. Brazosport College serves the remainder of Angleton ISD and the Brazosport, Columbia-Brazoria, Damon, and Sweeny ISD areas. The Brazoria County Library System has branches in Alvin, Angleton, Brazoria, Clute, Danbury, Freeport, Lake Jackson, Manvel, Pearland, Sweeny and West Columbia, and runs the Brazoria County Historical Museum.

Transportation

Major highways

* State Highway 6 * State Highway 35 * State Highway 36 * State Highway 99 a.k.a. - Grand Parkway Toll Road (Under Construction) * State Highway 288 * State Highway 332

Airports

The Texas Gulf Coast Regional Airport, in central unincorporated Brazoria County, is the county's sole publicly owned airport. The following airports, located in the county, are privately owned and for public use: *Flyin' B Airport in western unincorporated Brazoria County * Skyway Manor Airport in Pearland * Pearland Regional Airport in eastern unincorporated Brazoria County south of the Pearland city limits The closest airport with regularly scheduled commercial service is Houston's William P. Hobby Airport, located in southern

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

in adjacent Harris County. The

Houston Airport System Houston Airport System (HAS) is a department of the Houston, City of Houston, Texas, United States that manages city airports. Its administrative offices are on the property of George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

has stated that Brazoria County is within the primary service area of

George Bush Intercontinental Airport George Bush Intercontinental Airport is an international airport in Houston, Texas, United States, serving the Greater Houston metropolitan area. Initially named Houston Intercontinental Airport upon its opening in 1969, it was renamed in ho ...

, an international airport in Houston in Harris County.

Toll roads

The Brazoria County Toll Road Authority operates toll lanes on TX 288 inside Brazoria County. They connect to the SH 288 Express Toll Lanes in Harris County operated by the

Texas Department of Transportation The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT ) is a Texas state government agency responsible for construction and maintenance of the state's immense Texas state highway system, state highway system and the support of the state's maritime trans ...

History

BCTRA came into existence in December 2003 when it saw that the

area needed more roadways and wanted to have a say so about any roads that come into Brazoria County.

Roadway system

The only toll road BCTRA has in operation at this time is the Brazoria County Expressway. Located within the media of SH 288, the expressway begins at County Road 58 in Manvel and is maintained by BCTRA for five miles up to the Harris County line at Clear Creek. The 288 Toll Lanes continue into Harris County (maintained by

TxDOT The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT ) is a Texas state government agency responsible for construction and maintenance of the state's immense Texas state highway system, state highway system and the support of the state's maritime trans ...

) for ten miles up to

I-69 Interstate 69 (I-69) is an Interstate Highway in the United States currently consisting of eight unconnected segments. The longest segment runs from Evansville, Indiana, northeast to the Canada–United States border, Canadian border in Po ...

/ US 59 in

. Construction began on the Brazoria County Expressway in late 2016 and was completed on November 16, 2020. Tolls are collected electronically and an EZ Tag, TxTag or TollTag is required for passage.Fresh drive: This is what the new 288 toll road looks like for one of the first drivers
Click2Houston.com (KPRC-TV) Published on November 12, 2020, and updated on November 16, 2020 (Retrieved November 22, 2020)

History

Geography

Adjacent counties

National protected areas

Communities

Cities

Towns

Villages

Census-designated places

Unincorporated communities

Ghost towns

Demographics

Race and ethnicity

Government and politics

Elected officials

United States Congress

Texas Legislature

Texas Senate

Texas House of Representatives

Law enforcement and jails

Education

Transportation

Major highways

Airports

Toll roads

History

Roadway system

See also

References

External links