Lake Jackson

Lake Jackson is an incorporated residential community ten miles upriver from the mouth of the Brazos River in south central Brazoria County. The 3000-acre sugar and cotton plantation of Abner Jackson occupied the site from 1843 to 1845. It originally used as many as eighty-two slaves to produce cotton, sugar, and corn, and later used convict labor to cultivate sugar after Jackson's death in 1861. As the plantation declined, the area became a Black community, which had a single school and one teacher as late as 1937. In 1942 the plantation was purchased for use as a townsite for employees of the Dow Chemical Company. A model community, named for Abner Jackson, was designed by Alden B. Dow of Midland, Michigan, with the assistance of engineer J. P. Dunbar. The new town, operated by the Lake Jackson Company, encompasses Jackson Lake, Flagg Lake, and two other unnamed lakes. Though primarily concerned with employee housing, Dow left room for private development, thereby encouraging Lake Jackson to become more than simply a company town. The community was established in 1943, incorporated in April 1944, and received a post office in 1945, by which time it had become part of the expanding Brazosport industrial area. The first school, opened in 1943 and initially part of the Clute school district, offered classes through the eighth grade. High school students attended Freeport High School. In 1944 area school districts voted to form the Brazosport Independent School District.

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.