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Alvin&nbsp;is a city in the&nbsp;U.S. state&nbsp;of&nbsp;Texas&nbsp;within the&nbsp;Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land&nbsp;metropolitan area and&nbsp;Brazoria County. As of the&nbsp;2010 U.S. Census, the city population was 24,236.&nbsp;Alvin's claim to fame is&nbsp;Baseball Hall of Famer&nbsp;Nolan Ryan, who moved with his family to the city in 1947 as an infant and lived there until he moved to&nbsp;Round Rock&nbsp;in 2003. The Nolan Ryan Museum is in the Nolan Ryan Foundation and Exhibit Center on the campus of&nbsp;Alvin Community College.
The Alvin area was settled in the mid-19th century when bull ranches were established in the area. The Santa Fe Railroad eventually expanded into the area, and a settlement was established along the railroad. Alvin was originally named "Morgan" by the town's residents in honor of the settlement's original resident, Santa Fe employee Alvin Morgan; upon discovery that the name Morgan had been taken, the town named itself after Morgan's first name. The town was officially incorporated in 1893, making it the oldest incorporated settlement in Brazoria County. Alvin Morgan received a land grant from the state of Texas prior to 1891. As of 1933, Alvin was a sundown town, where practically no African Americans were allowed to live. On July 25, 1979,&nbsp;Tropical Storm Claudette&nbsp;stalled over Alvin and inundated the region with 45 inches (1,140&nbsp;mm) of rain in 42 hours. The total included 43 inches (1,090&nbsp;mm) in 24 hours, at the time the maximum 24-hour rainfall in American history.
Alvin is located in northeastern Brazoria County at&nbsp;29&deg;23&prime;37&Prime;N&nbsp;95&deg;16&prime;18&Prime;W (29.393698, -95.271588).&nbsp;It is bordered to the northeast by and League City&nbsp;in&nbsp;Galveston County, and part of its southeast border is along the village of&nbsp;Hillcrest.&nbsp;Texas State Highway 35&nbsp;bypasses the center of the city to the east; it leads north 25 miles (40&nbsp;km) to downtown&nbsp;Houston&nbsp;and southwest 21 miles (34&nbsp;km) to&nbsp;Angleton, the Brazoria County seat.&nbsp;Texas State Highway 6&nbsp;crosses Highway 35 and passes through the center of Alvin, leading southeast 30 miles (48&nbsp;km) to&nbsp;Galveston&nbsp;and 28 miles (45&nbsp;km) northwest to&nbsp;Sugar Land. According to the&nbsp;United States Census Bureau, Alvin has a total area of 25.6 square miles (66.4&nbsp;km2), of which 24.3 square miles (62.9&nbsp;km2) is land and 1.4 square miles (3.5&nbsp;km2), or 5.26%, is water.

Alvin

Baytown is a city within Harris County and partially in Chambers County in the Gulf Coast region of the U.S. state of Texas. Located within the Houston&ndash;The Woodlands&ndash;Sugar Land metropolitan area, it lies on the northern side of the Galveston Bay complex near the outlets of the San Jacinto River and Buffalo Bayou.
White American&nbsp;settlers first arrived in the now-Baytown area in 1822.&nbsp;One of its earliest settlers was Nathaniel Lynch, who set up a ferry crossing at the junction of the San Jacinto River and Buffalo Bayou. The still-operating ferry service is known as the&nbsp;Lynchburg Ferry. Other early settlers of Baytown included William Scott, one of&nbsp;Stephen F. Austin's&nbsp;Old Three Hundred, and&nbsp;Ashbel Smith, who owned a&nbsp;plantation in the area. The city now known as Baytown was originally three separate towns. The first of these was Goose Creek, named for the bayou of the same name where&nbsp;Canada geese&nbsp;wintered and whose name is still reflected in the area's&nbsp;Goose Creek school district, whose establishment dates back to before 1850. With the discovery of the&nbsp;Goose Creek Oil Field, the rival communities of Pelly in the late 1910s, and East Baytown in the early 1920s, developed as early&nbsp;boomtowns. The "East" in East Baytown was later dropped because it was west of Goose Creek. The city of Baytown is located at the mouth of the&nbsp;San Jacinto River&nbsp;on&nbsp;Galveston Bay, 26 miles (42&nbsp;km) by road east of&nbsp;Houston. According to the&nbsp;United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 36.5 square miles (94.6&nbsp;km2), of which 35.4 square miles (91.8&nbsp;km2) is land and 1.1 square miles (2.8&nbsp;km2), 2.92%, is covered by water.
Baytown is located on the&nbsp;Gulf coastal plain, and its vegetation is classified as temperate grassland and&nbsp;marshes. The municipalities have been built on reclaimed marshes,&nbsp;swamps, and&nbsp;prairies, which are all still visible in undeveloped parts of the Galveston Bay area.&nbsp;Baytown is bordered by water on three sides. Along the south and west is Galveston Bay. On the east is&nbsp;Cedar Bayou. The city is roughly bordered along the north by&nbsp;Interstate 10. Portions of the city to the east of Cedar Bayou lie in&nbsp;Chambers County. Flatness of the local terrain and proximity to the bay have made flooding&nbsp;a recurring problem for the area.&nbsp;Baytown and surrounding communities once relied on&nbsp;groundwater&nbsp;for its needs, but severe land&nbsp;subsidence&nbsp;has forced much the city to turn to ground-level water sources.

Baytown

The city is named after Northern-born Union Cavalry officer and Houston lumberman Isaac Conroe. Conroe founded a sawmill there in 1881. The city originally gained in wealth due to the lumber and oil industries. Originally named "Conroe's Switch", the area saw an influx of residents in the late 19th century due to the lumber demands on the piney wood forest of the area.
During the 1930s, because of oil profits, the city boasted more millionaires per capita than any other U.S. city, though only briefly. After the construction of Interstate 45, many Houstonians began to settle communities around Conroe.

Conroe

Crosby is a census-designated place in Harris County, Texas, United States. The population was 2,299 at the 2010 census.

Crosby

Cypress&nbsp;is an&nbsp;unincorporated community&nbsp;in&nbsp;Harris County,&nbsp;Texas, United States, located completely inside the&nbsp;extraterritorial jurisdiction&nbsp;of the City of&nbsp;Houston. The Cypress area is located along&nbsp;U.S. Highway 290&nbsp;(Northwest Freeway) is twenty-four miles (35&nbsp;km) northwest of&nbsp;Downtown Houston. The Cypress urban cluster ranks 50th in the top 100 highest-income urban areas in the United States.
Large scale residential and commercial development beginning in the 1980s transformed the once rural area into one of the Houston area's largest&nbsp;suburban&nbsp;communities.

Cypress 

Deer Park was founded in 1892 by Simeon H. West, a farmer, retired legislator, and much-traveled adventurer from Illinois. He named the town for the large number of deer that roamed the Gulf plains. A railroad station opened later that year and a post office followed in 1893.
The subdivision was established in 1893 and was the site of a Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway station by about 1894. A Deer Park post office was established in 1893, discontinued in 1919, and reestablished in 1930. In 1896, the community, with a population of forty, had a hotel, a general store, and three resident carpenters. By 1922 Deer Park had dwindled down to almost nothing with four houses, one little schoolhouse, and an old hotel with a few scattered shacks along the railroad right-of-way. 1928 brought in Shell Oil Company breaking ground on a new refinery. In the 1930s, an independent school district was established. By 1940, the population had grown to 100. By 1946, however, the area began to flourish as Deer Park became the site of refineries and toluene plants for the production of TNT.
The citizens of Deer Park voted to incorporate on December 12, 1948, and a few weeks later Earl E. Dunn became the first mayor. Because of the 1948 incorporation, Houston did not incorporate Deer Park's territory into its city limits. The first city council meeting was held on February 7, 1949. The population had grown to 700 by 1948, to 5,000 by 1960 with a fire station, city hall, playground parks and an independent city water supply. A public library was begun in 1962. Population was 12,773 in 1970, and 28,520 in 2000. This growth has been fueled by the growth of the petrochemical industry as well as the growth of business along the Houston Ship Channel. Deer Park has a school district with 14 campuses, a city library, community theater, municipal court building, three fire stations, numerous city parks and recreational facilities, state-of-the-art water and sewer processing facilities, a post office, several hotels, 14 major industries as well as several light industrial companies. Today, Deer Park has approximately 9,000 homes and more than 30,000 residents.
It is near the site of the&nbsp;Battle of San Jacinto, where, on April 21, 1836, Texas won its independence from Mexico. Because the initial surrender treaty after the battle was signed in Dr. George Moffitt Patrick's cabin, Deer Park bills itself as the "Birthplace of Texas". The original cabin was located on&nbsp;Buffalo Bayou&nbsp;where&nbsp;Rohm and Haas&nbsp;now has a chemical plant in Deer Park. A replica of Dr. Patrick's cabin is in front of the Theatre/Courts Building on Center Street.

Deer Park

Dickinson is located on a tract of land granted to John Dickinson in 1824, and named after him. A settlement had been established in this area on&nbsp;Dickinson Bayou&nbsp;before 1850. The Galveston, Houston, and Henderson Railroad was built directly through Dickinson. This line was used in the&nbsp;American Civil War&nbsp;to successfully retake Galveston.
The Dickinson Land and Improvement Association was organized in the 1890s by Fred M. Nichols and eight other businessmen. It marketed to potential farmers with claims of the soil's suitability for food crops, and to socialites with the creation of the Dickinson Picnic Grounds and other attractions. By 1911, the&nbsp;Galveston&ndash;Houston Electric Railway&nbsp;had three stops in Dickinson, and the Oleander Country Club was a popular destination for prominent Galvestonians.
In 1905, Italian&nbsp;ambassador&nbsp;Baron Mayor des Planches convinced about 150 Italians from crowded eastern cities to move to Dickinson. They joined the dozens relocated there after flooding in&nbsp;Bryan&nbsp;forced them to seek new homes.
Dickinson continued to grow due to its proximity to Texas City, with its shipyards and wartime industries, and later its proximity to the Johnson Space Center.
During the 1920s, Dickinson became a significant tourist destination resulting from investment by the Maceo crime syndicate which ran Galveston during this time. The syndicate created gambling venues in the city such as the Silver Moon casino.
The City of Dickinson constructed a new multimillion-dollar city hall and library complex which was dedicated June 30, 2009. The complex is located at 4403 Highway 3.
In May 2009 the city began hosting a crawfish festival, called the Red, White and Bayou crawfish festival. The city decided in 2018 not to continue with the festival.
In August 2017, Dickinson was devastated by&nbsp;Hurricane Harvey. Ninety percent of the city was flooded during the storm and 50% was destroyed by flooding.

Dickinson

Friendswood is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. It is part of the Houston&ndash;The Woodlands&ndash;Sugar Land metropolitan area. The city lies in Galveston and Harris Counties. As of the 2010 census, the population of Friendswood was 35,805.
In 2007, CNN/Money&nbsp;magazine listed Friendswood as one of 100 "America's Best Places to Live" for that year, making it one of 900 small towns recognized since the rankings first began in 2005.
Friendswood was founded in 1895 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).
&nbsp;

Friendswood

Fulshear is a city in northwest Fort Bend County, Texas, within the Houston&ndash;The Woodlands&ndash;Sugar Land metropolitan area. The population was 1,134 at the 2010 census, up from 716 at the 2000 census. The estimated population in 2015 was 5,886.

Fulshear

Galveston is an island city on the Gulf Coast of Texas. It&rsquo;s known for Moody Gardens, where giant glass pyramids house sharks, monkeys and other animals. Amusement rides and restaurants line Galveston Island Historic Pleasure Pier on the south shore. West is bird-rich Galveston Island State Park, with its trails, kayak launches and fishing spots. Stewart Beach and East Beach are on the island&rsquo;s eastern end.
During the 19th century, Galveston became a major U.S. commercial center and one of the largest&nbsp;ports&nbsp;in the&nbsp;United States. It was for a time, Texas' largest city, known as the "Queen City of the Gulf". It was devastated by the unexpected&nbsp;Galveston Hurricane of 1900, whose effects included massive flooding and a storm surge which nearly wiped out the town. The natural disaster on the exposed&nbsp;barrier island&nbsp;is still ranked today as the deadliest in United States history, with an estimated death toll of 6,000 to 12,000 people. The city subsequently reemerged during the&nbsp;Prohibition era&nbsp;of 1919&ndash;1933 as a leading tourist hub and a&nbsp;center of illegal gambling, nicknamed the&nbsp;Free State of Galveston&nbsp;until this era ended in the 1950s with subsequent other economic and social development.
Much of Galveston's economy is centered in the&nbsp;tourism,&nbsp;health care,&nbsp;shipping, and&nbsp;financial&nbsp;industries. The 84-acre (34&nbsp;ha)&nbsp;University of Texas Medical Branch&nbsp;campus with an enrollment of more than 2,500 students is a major economic force of the city. Galveston is home to six&nbsp;historic districts&nbsp;containing one of the largest and historically significant collections of 19th-century buildings in the U.S., with over 60 structures listed on the&nbsp;National Register of Historic Places, maintained by the&nbsp;National Park Service&nbsp;in the&nbsp;United States Department of the Interior.

Galveston

Hitchcock was created as a station of the railroad between Galveston and Houston in 1873 and around the turn of the 20th century became a vegetable shipping center. The settlement's economy crashed in the 1930s after insect plagues in the surrounding areas, and the area stayed impoverished until the establishment of the Camp Wallace anti-aircraft training base and the Hitchcock Naval Air Station at the beginning of World War II. After the end of the war, the bases were used as discharge centers, and some former soldiers settled in the area. Hitchcock was established in 1960 as the area's population boomed, topping out at nearly 7,000 by the end of the 1960s. Today, the town serves as a suburb of Galveston and houses workers from the Johnson Space Center.
Since 1984, Hitchcock has been home to the Galveston County Fair &amp; Rodeo. The Galveston County Fair &amp; Rodeo began in 1938 and was held at facilities in Runge Park in Arcadia. In the early 1980s, the County Fair had reached its limits of growth at Runge Park, and plans began for a move to Jack Brooks Park in Hitchcock. The move to Jack Brooks Park was completed in time for the 1984 fair.
Hitchcock was affected by&nbsp;Hurricane Ike&nbsp;in 2017. The director of community development, D. Joe Wood, stated that&nbsp;bankruptcy&nbsp;was a possibility in the post-Hurricane environment.

Hitchcock

Houston is a large metropolis in Texas, extending to Galveston Bay. It&rsquo;s closely linked with the Space Center Houston, the coastal visitor center at NASA&rsquo;s astronaut training and flight control complex. The city&rsquo;s relatively compact Downtown includes the Theater District, home to the renowned Houston Grand Opera, and the Historic District, with 19th-century architecture and upscale restaurants.
Comprising a total area of 637.4 square miles (1,651 km2), Houston is the eighth most expansive city in the United States (including consolidated city-counties). It is the largest city in the United States by total area, whose government is not consolidated with that of a county, parish or borough. Though primarily in Harris County, small portions of the city extend into Fort Bend and Montgomery counties, bordering other principal communities of Greater Houston such as Sugar Land and The Woodlands.
The city of Houston was founded by land investors on August 30, 1836, at the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and White Oak Bayou (a point now known as Allen's Landing) and incorporated as a city on June 5, 1837. The city is named after former General Sam Houston, who was president of the Republic of Texas and had won Texas' independence from Mexico at the Battle of San Jacinto 25 miles (40 km) east of Allen's Landing. After briefly serving as the capital of the Texas Republic in the late 1830s, Houston grew steadily into a regional trading center for the remainder of the 19th century.
The arrival of the 20th century saw a convergence of economic factors which fueled rapid growth in Houston, including a burgeoning port and railroad industry, the decline of Galveston as Texas' primary port following a devastating 1900 hurricane, the subsequent construction of the Houston Ship Channel, and the Texas oil boom. In the mid-20th century, Houston's economy diversified as it became home to the Texas Medical Center&mdash;the world's largest concentration of healthcare and research institutions&mdash;and NASA's Johnson Space Center, where the Mission Control Center is located.

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Alvin

Baytown

Conroe

Crosby

Cypress

Deer Park

Dickinson

Friendswood

Fulshear

Galveston

Hitchcock

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