Evergreen

Evergreen is at the junction of State Highway 150 and Farm Road 945, sixty-five miles north of Houston in central San Jacinto County. The community was named after the thick evergreen forest that surrounds it. The area was settled soon after San Jacinto County was established, and the community received a post office in 1880. Ben Ellis opened a store in 1884, and "Parson" Ellis owned and operated a small sawmill. Estimates of the rural community's population ranged from 112 in 1900 to 50 in 1925 to 150 in the early 1940s, when Evergreen reported five businesses. Its old schoolhouse was converted to a community center sometime after 1958. Evergreen's population fell to about fifty in the mid-1980s, when no businesses were reported at the community. The population was still recorded as fifty in 1990, but grew to 150 by 2000.