Chambers County

Chambers County, named for Thomas Jefferson Chambers, is a rural county less than twenty miles east of Houston in the Coastal Prairie region of Southeast Texas. The county is divided by the Trinity River. It comprises 616 square miles of level terrain that slopes toward Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, its southern and southwestern boundaries. The center point of the county is at 29°42' north latitude and 94°41' west longitude. The elevation rises from sea level to fifty feet. Chambers County has a subtropical, humid climate, with rainfall averaging forty-nine inches, a mean annual temperature of sixty-nine degrees, and a growing season averaging 261 days per year. The soils are chiefly coastal clay and sandy loam. The flora includes tall grasses, live oaks, cypress, pine, and cedar trees, as well as hardwoods along rivers and streams. The Union Pacific provides railroad service, and Interstate Highway 10 was built through the county in 1955. The county's abundant coastal marshland has never supported a large population, but its watery lowlands support the rice culture that yields the county's principal crop. Other farmers raise significant numbers of beef cattle, hogs, sheep, and poultry, as well as corn, feed grains, citrus fruits, vegetables, and some cotton. Natural resources include salt domes, industrial sand, and pine and hardwood timber; oil, gas, and sulfur are present in commercial quantities. Hurricanes that have struck Chambers County include those of 1875, 1900, 1915, 1943, 1957, 1961, and 1983.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.