Name: Bay City, Texas
Address: Bay City, TX

The Nuclear Neighbor RoadyGoat

Just a few miles outside Bay City stands one of the most powerful and complex structures in Texas: the South Texas Project Nuclear Generating Station. If you see two large, identical concrete domes on the horizon, that's it. Construction began in the 1970s, a massive undertaking that brought thousands of workers to the area and forever changed the local economy. When it went online in the late 1980s, it became one of the nation's largest and most efficient nuclear power plants. It's been a steady source of jobs and tax revenue for Matagorda County for decades, a quiet, humming giant on the prairie. The plant is a constant presence—a symbol of immense technological power, a major economic engine, and a reminder of the complex energy choices that shape our modern world.

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Engineering Nuclear Power on the Prairie RoadyGoat

The South Texas Project, located just outside Bay City, is a marvel of 20th-century engineering. At its heart are two pressurized water reactors. Inside each reactor's steel vessel, nuclear fission—the splitting of uranium atoms—generates an immense amount of heat. This heat doesn't boil water directly. Instead, it superheats water in a primary, closed loop to over 600 degrees Fahrenheit, keeping it under extreme pressure to prevent it from turning to steam. This intensely hot water then passes through thousands of tubes in a steam generator, boiling water in a separate, secondary loop. The resulting high-pressure steam spins massive turbines, which are connected to generators that produce electricity. To cool and condense the steam back into water for reuse, the plant created a 7,000-acre reservoir, a massive man-made lake that acts as a heat sink. It’s an incredibly complex, powerful, and precise system for turning atomic energy into the electricity powering Texas.

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The County Seat War of 1894 RoadyGoat

The courthouse in the center of Bay City isn't just a building; it's a trophy from a political heist. Until 1894 the county seat was in the old coastal town of Matagorda. Then a syndicate of promoters — a Colorado mining millionaire named David Swickheimer among them — bought two cow pastures out on Bay Prairie, laid out wide regular streets, and started a newspaper called the Bay City Breeze before a single building existed. Their pitch was simple: vote us the county seat and we'll build you a new courthouse. On September 18, 1894, Matagorda County voters did exactly that. And then, in the most Texas detail of all, they didn't haul the records so much as haul the building — the little frame house that had served as Matagorda's grand jury room was dragged overland to Bay City to work as a makeshift courthouse. The railroad wouldn't reach town for seven more years, but Bay City was already the seat of government.

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Matagorda County

1685

Early home of the Karankawa Indians. Landing place of LaSalle in 1685. Settled 1822-1836 by colonists of Stephen F. Austin. The municipality of Matagorda organized under the Mexican Government on March 6, 1834. Became on March 17, 1836, Matagorda County, which was organized in July 1837. Matagorda, was the county seat, 1837-1894, Bay City since 1894. In Memory Of James Cummins, Hosea H. League, Elias R. Weightman, Seth Ingram, Horatio Chriesman, William Selkirk, early settlers. Mary S. Wrightman Helms, the first woman teacher in Texas. Ira Ingram, Silas Densmore, members of the Convention of 1832. R.R. Royals, Ira L. Lewis, Charles Wilson, Delegates to the Consultation. Bailey Hardeman, Samuel Rhodes Fisher, signers of the Declaration of Independence. George M. Collingsworth and the men who served under him during thr struggle for Texas Independence. A.C. Horton, Lieutenant Govenor of Texas. The citizens of early Matagorda County who contributed to the economic, cultural, and spiritual development. Matagorda County has contributed to the development of Texas culture. The pioneer woman teacher Mary S. Wrightman Helms,1829; an early newspaper The Matagorda Bulletin, 1837; First Episcopal Church, 1839; first request for promotion of free school, that of Ira Ingram, 1837. Erected by the State of Texas 1936

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Matagorda, C.S.A.

1862

Near the mouth of the Colorado River, 20 miles to the south, is the town of Matagorda, the second most important Port of entry in early Texas. In the Civil War, center for rich farmlands and one of 8 Texas ports that blockade runners used for taking out tons of cotton while delivering to the confederacy guns, munitions, clothing and other vital goods. By reason of the declared blackade, the federals claims to hold Matagorda, yet their own ships had to refuel (even to supplies of drinking water) in New Orleans. When a blockader's crew went ashore near Matagorda, on November 20, 1862, confederates captured every man. By hit-and-run tactics, federals destroyed salt works and other propert, but found Matagorda Peninsula impossible to occupy. On December 30, 1863, C.S.A. cottonclads (ships bulwarked with cotton bales in which guns were set) moved men out of Matagorda to expel a federal unit from a beach below confederate works at Caney Creek. When troops were trying to land, a sudden norther lashed the bay and swamped their skiffs. Before the ships could pick them up, 22 men died by drowning or freezing. In the tragedy, the troop commander, Capt. E.S. Rugeley lost his own 17-year-old brother.

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Ingram, Ira, First Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives

1836

Born in Vermont. Came to Texas in 1824. Worked to establish the Republic. Represented Matagorda in the First Congress of the Republic where he served as speaker, Oct. 1836 to April 1837. At his death in Sept. 1837 left $70,000 to schools in Matagorda. Since Ingram's term, 62 men have served Texas as speaker. Five have gone on to become governor. One, Sam Rayburn, became Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and served 21 years in that office. The speaker, elected from the 150 members of the house, is one of the most powerful men in state government -- being third in line of succession to the governorship. Through his power of appointment of the 41 standing committees, and a presiding officer, he directs the course of legislation. He is chairman of the Legislative Audit Committee; vice-chairman of the Legislative Budget Board; and vice-chairman of the Texas Legislative Council. He signs all legislative acts and resolutions, appoints conference and interim committees, and performs many administrative duties spanning his two year term. (1965)

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Bess, Forrest Clemenger

1911

Forrest Bess, artist, the son of Arnold and Minta (Lee) Bess, was born in Bay City, Texas, on October 5, 1911. His father was an itinerant oil worker, and Bess spent his childhood in various oil towns throughout Texas and Oklahoma. Probably inspired by the fantasy painting of his maternal grandmother, he became interested in painting at an early age. In 1924 he took his first art lessons from a neighbor in Corsicana. In 1929 he entered the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M University), where he began to study architecture. He became interested in English literature, Hinduism, Greek mythology, and the works of Darwin and Freud. In 1931 he transferred to the University of Texas. After dropping out of school in 1933, he worked for a short time as a roughneck in various oilfields to earn money to go to Mexico. There he began to paint in a style that he identified as post-impressionist, modeled upon that of Vincent Van Gogh and Maurice Vlaminck. He returned to the United States in 1934 and set up a studio in Bay City. He had his first exhibition in a Bay City hotel lobby in 1936. During World War II he served with the United States Army Corps of Engineers in the camouflage division and received a commendation for his services. In 1946 he suffered a mental breakdown; after spending some time in the Veterans Administration Hospital in San Antonio (now the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital ) he obtained a job giving art lessons there. A few years later, when his father's health was failing, he returned to Bay City to manage the family bait camp in Chinquapin. He lived there the rest of his life selling bait, building frames, designing visual aids for the public school, giving private art lessons, and occasionally selling his paintings. In 1948 he made a trip to New York City, where he met Betty Parsons, a prominent New York City gallery owner who represented leading Abstract Expressionist and Color Field painters Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. Parsons mounted the first major exhibition of Bess's work in 1949; it was followed by shows in 1954, 1957, 1959, 1962, and 1967. Critic Meyer Schapiro championed Bess's work and wrote an essay for the 1962 retrospective exhibition of his paintings at the Betty Parsons Gallery. Bess's work was included in the Corcoran Gallery Biennial (1939), and he was featured in solo exhibitions at the Witte Museum in San Antonio (1938, 1967), the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (1951), the Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City (1951), the André Emmerich Gallery, Houston (1958), the Contemporary Arts Museum , Houston(1962), and the New Arts Gallery, Houston (1963), among others. His work was featured at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco (1958), and in 1962 some of his works were included in "Wit and Whimsy in 20th Century Art," an exhibition organized by the American Federation of Arts in New York. Bess was a visionary abstract artist whose small oil paintings featured personal symbolic images, such as crescents, eyes, crosses, lines, and simple geometric forms, which he saw in his dreams. He kept a notebook by his bed in which he drew the visions. He claimed to have had his first vision, a Dutch village guarded by a lion and a tiger, in 1915, and he later recorded this in one of his paintings. He was inspired by Carl Jung's theories to study mythology, alchemy, archeology, and religion; he became convinced that his ideograms, as he called them, could end human suffering, including death, by aiding the physical transformation of the male and female bodies into an androgynous being. Bess wrote to several psychologists and anthropologists, including Jung, and kept a notebook of sketches, clippings, and quotations to develop his thesis. In 1960 he had himself surgically altered in an effort to become androgynous. During the 1960s his work attracted the interest of Texas artists Jim Love and Roy Fridge and such collectors as Dominique

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Bay City, TX

1894

Bay City, the county seat of Matagorda County, is an incorporated city at the junction of State Highways 35 and 60, in the north central portion of the county ninety miles southwest of Houston. The community is named for its location on Bay Prairie, between the richly productive bottomlands of the Colorado River and Caney Creek. It was established in 1894, when David Swickheimer , a Colorado mining millionaire and participant in a promotional organization called the Enterprise Land and Colonizing Company, formed the Bay City Town Company in partnership with G. M. Magill, N. M. Vogelsang, and Nicholas King. Planning that Bay City would one day supplant Matagorda as county seat, the men selected two cow pastures on Bay Prairie as the site for a new community. The company bought 320 acres from D. P. Moore and another 320 acres from the Mensing brothers of Galveston. One square mile was given to the townsite, on which the promoters laid out wide, regular streets. Elliott's Ferry ( see ELLIOTT, TEXAS), two miles away, provided transportation across the Colorado River. In August 1894, before a single building had been erected, Magill and Vogelsang released the first issue of the Bay City Breeze and began to promote the new community. Distributed countywide, the newspaper, coupled with the promoters' promise to build a new courthouse if the county government were moved, succeeded in convincing county residents to support the new town. At the time, the population of the county totaled roughly 3,000 people, of which 75 percent were Black. On September 18, 1894, Matagorda County voters elected to make Bay City the new county seat. A week later, when editor Vogelsang announced the victory in the Breeze , he also revealed that the town did not yet actually exist: "As soon as it can be surveyed, lots will be put on the market, buildings will go up and Bay City will be a reality." Bay City was a tent city before construction began on its first buildings. The Town Company office, which housed the printing presses of the Bay City Breeze , was among the first completed. A small frame house, formerly used as the grand jury room at Matagorda, was moved overland to Bay City to serve as a makeshift courthouse, as was D. P. Moore's dry-goods store, which housed the post office. Education for Black and White children began immediately. The town's first telephone was installed in 1900, and the Wharton-Bay City Telephone Company was awarded a franchise in 1903. Bay City Rice Mills completed construction on its rice warehouse in 1901, and the next year it opened the town's first mill. Other businesses at that time included four groceries, three implement stores, three saloons, and two each of butcher shops, barbershops, confectioneries, and drugstores, as well as several dry-goods stores and a bakery, a laundry, a blacksmith shop, a brickmaking plant, a broom factory, a cotton gin, and a lumberyard. In 1901 the Cane Belt Railroad reached Bay City, the first of several lines to serve the town. By that time the Breeze had ceased publication and been replaced by the Matagorda County Tribune , edited by J. L. Ladd, and the Weekly Visitor , edited by W. E. Green. Methodist, Baptist, Christian, Episcopalian, and Presbyterian congregations held services in the community. An eight-room, two-story frame school building had opened, and residents had the services of one dentist, four physicians, six lawyers, and three teachers. In 1902 the city, with about 2,000 inhabitants, incorporated, but it failed to replace its plank roads with streets until some time later. Also in 1902 the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway came into Bay City. Oil was discovered in the county in 1904, and that year the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway arrived. By 1914 Bay City, with 3,156 residents, was a thriving community at the center of the largest rice-producing area in the nation and was served by three railroads: the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico, the Galveston, Harri

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LeTulle, Victor Lawrence

1901

Victor Lawrence LeTulle, merchant, banker, farmer, rancher, and philanthropist, was born in Columbus, Texas, on July 5, 1864, the son of Victor D. and Helen Maria (Webb) LeTulle. His father, who moved to Texas from Virginia by way of California, served as a captain in the Confederate Army. Victor L. LeTulle was the great-grandson of Samuel B. Webb of Revolutionary War fame. He attended public schools in Colorado County, after which he became a farmer. On January 29, 1890, he married Sarah West Bell, daughter of Sarah Catherine Green and Nathan Edward Bell, a veteran of Hood's Texas Brigade who came to Colorado County from Virginia. Mrs. LeTulle died on May 24, 1933, and two years later LeTulle married her sister, Estelle Bell Fate. This marriage was dissolved the following year. No children were born to either marriage. In 1890 the LeTulle family moved to Matagorda County and settled near Caney, where LeTulle began acquiring vast landholdings for farming and ranching purposes. He registered the Circle and 7VL as his brands. He moved to Bay City in 1900, when the town was only six years old, and began farming rice in 1901. He purchased a canal system from Ross S. Sterling and installed some 334 miles of waterways capable of irrigating more than 100,000 acres a year-at that time considered to be the largest privately owned irrigation system in the world-and gave impetus to the rice-farming industry in Matagorda County, once the third largest producer in Texas ( see RICE CULTURE ). LeTulle sold the system in 1931. He was founder and president of a mercantile company and served as president of the First National Bank for twenty-one years. He was a Mason and member of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association . He gave a farm of about 9,000 acres, a hospital, and a dormitory (a memorial to his first wife) to Buckner Orphans Home ( see BUCKNER BAPTIST CHILDREN'S HOME ) in Dallas and made monetary gifts to Memorial Hospital in Houston. In Bay City he donated land for a public park and the local hospital, gave a gas utility system to the city, and built the First Baptist Church auditorium as a memorial to Sallie LeTulle. He died on May 1, 1944, in Houston and was buried in Cedarvale Cemetery, Bay City.

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Bay City, Texas

Music in Bay City

Songs About Bay City

Artists From Bay City

Rivers & Roads in Song near Bay City

History of Bay City

The Nuclear Neighbor RoadyGoat

Engineering Nuclear Power on the Prairie RoadyGoat

The County Seat War of 1894 RoadyGoat

Matagorda County

Matagorda, C.S.A.

Ingram, Ira, First Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives

Bess, Forrest Clemenger

Bay City, TX

LeTulle, Victor Lawrence

Everything Near Bay City