Crabb is a small
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
Fort Bend County
Fort Bend County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. The county was founded in 1837 and organized the next year. It is named for a blockhouse at a bend of the Brazos River. The community developed around the fort in early days.
Th ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
, United States. Crabb is located along
Farm to Market Road 762
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 ...
and the
BNSF Railroad
BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...
southeast of
Richmond, Texas
Richmond is a city in and the county seat of Fort Bend County, Texas, Fort Bend County, Texas, United States. The city is located within the metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city population was 11,627. It is home to the founder ...
. The Crabb road sign is located west of the intersection of Crabb River Road and
Farm to Market Road 2759 and FM 762. The Zion Hill Baptist Church, a Fort Bend County Road and Bridge facility, the Brazos Village and Brazos Gardens subdivisions, several businesses and an abandoned grain elevator are in the area.
History
Old Three Hundred
The "Old Three Hundred" were 297 grantees who purchased 307 parcels of land from Stephen Fuller Austin in Mexican Texas. Each grantee was head of a household, or, in some cases, a partnership of married men. Austin was an American approved in 18 ...
colonists Abner and Joseph Kuykendall were granted ownership of the land around Crabb. Joseph died sometime in the 1870s and his widow Eliza Jane married John C. Crabb. When the
Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway
The Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway was a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. From its starting point in Galveston, Texas, the railroad eventually extended northwestwards across the state to Sweetwater and northwards via ...
laid track through the area in 1879, it bought the land from Eliza Jane Crabb. Hence the community was named Crabb or Crabb Switch. In 1894 the settlement was served by a post office. By 1896 there were 400 people living in the community, which had a cotton gin, a school, two doctors, two orchards, and a Methodist church. A separate school for black children opened the following year. The post office was closed in 1900. The population shrank in size until it fell to 100 in 1933. Three years later there were two churches, one business, and a few houses in Crabb. The number of inhabitants shrank to 50 in 1953 and to 40 from the 1960s to the 1980s. In the late 1980s the population increased to 125 and remained steady through 2000.
The town was made notable when an 11-year-old named
Brian Zimmerman won an unofficial election for mayor in 1983. He worked to incorporate the small town, which had a population of under 200 when he was elected. This threatened his mayorship because of Texas state law prohibiting minors from serving as mayor. His story was made into a movie called ''
Lone Star Kid''. While his bid lost, he was reelected mayor again after the referendum.
Government and infrastructure
Fort Bend County does not have a
hospital district
Hospital is a district of the San José canton, in the San José province of Costa Rica. It is one of the four administrative units that form San José downtown properly. The district houses, along with Merced district, the main commercial ac ...
.
OakBend Medical Center serves as the county's
charity hospital
Charity may refer to:
Giving
* Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons
* Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sharing
* Ch ...
which the county contracts with.
Education
Crabb is zoned to schools in the
Lamar Consolidated Independent School District
Lamar Consolidated Independent School District, also Lamar Consolidated ISD, Lamar CISD or LCISD, is a public school district in the U.S. state of Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Metropolitan Area.
Lamar CISD includes almo ...
.
Zoned schools include:
* Williams Elementary School (North of
FM 762)
* Polly Ryon Middle School
* Antoinette Reading Junior High
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Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia Computing platform, software platform used for production of Flash animation, animations, rich web applications, application software, desktop applications, mobile apps, mo ...
document
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* George Ranch High School
George Ranch High School is a secondary school located in unincorporated Fort Bend County, Texas, United States, south of Richmond.
The school is part of the Lamar Consolidated Independent School District. The school was established in fall 2010 ...
; Former zoning
* Navarro Middle School
* B.F. Terry High School
B. F. Terry High School is located in Rosenberg, Texas, United States, and is part of the Lamar Consolidated Independent School District.
Terry serves all of Beasley, and serves parts of Rosenberg, and the unincorporated communities of Booth a ...
Gallery
File:Crabb TX Payne Ln South.JPG, Looking south to FM 762 on Payne Lane
File:Crabb TX Payne Ln Horse.JPG, Horse in a field near Payne Lane
File:Crabb TX Brazos Village.JPG, View east at Brazos Village subdivision
File:FM 2759 Crabb River Road.JPG, View northwest at FM 762 and Crabb River Rd
File:Crabb Texas 1913 Flood.jpg, Photo of 1913 flood at Crabb Switch
Notes
References
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{{authority control
Unincorporated communities in Texas
Unincorporated communities in Fort Bend County, Texas
Greater Houston