Thompson Switch

Satsuma, also known as Ashford and as Thompson Switch, is on U.S. Highway 290 ten miles southeast of Cypress in the dairying and farming area of northwestern Harris County. In 1910 J. T. Thompson, president of the Satsuma Land Company, platted a townsite in the Charles Clarkson survey on the Houston and Texas Central Railway and named it Satsuma for the satsuma orange groves that were planned. C. W. Hahl, a developer, bought the site in 1913, replatted the town, and sold tracts over the next several years. A post office was established in 1909 but was discontinued in 1914, when the town had one general store. Satsuma became a shipping point on the railroad but never developed as a town, despite the fact that Stanolind Oil and Gas discovered oil in the area in 1936. In the 1980s the county highway map showed the townsite with the Satsuma Chapel, an abandoned section house, and a nearby pipeline pumping station.