Foster is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

located in

Fort Bend County Fort Bend County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. The county was founded on December 29, 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 ...

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 ...

, United States. It is located within the

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 ...

metropolitan area.

History

Foster is situated on land that John and Randolph Foster were granted in 1824. The Foster plantation produced

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fib ...

and

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

before the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. When the Foster community obtained a post office in 1882, the settlement was officially established. Foster had 60 residents, a steam

gristmill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that h ...

and

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 physician, and semiweekly mail delivery in 1884. Three gristmills and daily postal delivery were available in the town in 1892. A general store and a flour mill were erected by 1896. The community gained notoriety for producing

pecan The pecan ( , , ; ''Carya illinoinensis'') is a species of hickory native to the Southern United States and northern Mexico in the region of the Mississippi River. The tree is cultivated for its seed primarily in the U.S. states of Georgia ( ...

s in 1914, but by 1925, just 40 people were living in the village; in 1931, there was only one business mentioned and no population estimate. In 1936, a blacktop road served Foster. Foster was still a community in 1990, despite the post office closing by the 1940s. In 2000, there were no accessible population estimates. On November 21, 1992, an F2 tornado struck Foster. The community is home to the Old Foster Community Museum.

Geography

Foster is located on

Farm to Market Road 359 Farm to Market Road 359 (FM 359) is a state highway in the U.S. state of Texas. The highway begins at U.S. Route 90 Alternate (US 90 Alt.) near Richmond in Fort Bend County. FM 359 heads in a northwesterly direction through Pec ...

, northwest of

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, a city in the United States * Richmond, London, a town in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town ...

in northwestern Fort Bend County.

Education

In 1897, Foster had two segregated schools for White and Black students. They continued to operate in 1936 and closed in the 1940s. Today, the community is served by 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 al ...

. Students who live in the community attend Bentley Elementary School, Briscoe Junior High School, and

John and Randolph Foster High School John and Randolph Foster High School is a secondary school located in unincorporated Fort Bend County, Texas, United States, north of Rosenberg. The school is part of the Lamar Consolidated Independent School District. It opened in 2001, wit ...

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Fort Bend County, Texas Unincorporated communities in Texas