Baytown, Texas

Everything Baytown is known for

2 songs mention this city 4 artists from here

Baytown, Texas, located on the northern shore of Galveston Bay, is home to a variety of musical talent. The city has been mentioned in songs like "Welcome to Baytown Texas" by YUNG JAMES and "Texas Thang" by South Bound Twin.

Several artists have roots in Baytown, including country singers RaeLynn and Chris Cable, gospel group Leeland, and hip-hop artist South Bound Twin.

Music in Baytown

Songs About Baytown

Welcome to Baytown Texas
YUNG JAMES
50%
Texas Thang
South Bound Twin
40%
"Texas Thang"

Artists From Baytown

R
Raelynn
country Pop: 51
L
Leeland
gospel Pop: 30
S
South Bound Twin
hip-hop Pop: 5
C
Chris Cable
country Pop: 1

Rivers & Roads in Song near Baytown

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Baytown.

Interstate 10 23 songs US Route 90 6 songs Trinity River 8 songs Interstate 45 2 songs U.S. Route 59 3 songs FM 3005 2 songs

Musical Heritage

Joe Tex: The Soul Star Raised in Baytown RoadyGoat

1940

Soul star Joe Tex, born Joseph Arrington Jr. in Rogers, Texas, in 1935, was raised in Baytown from the age of five. He sang in school and church choirs here before winning amateur-night contests at Harlem's Apollo Theater as a teenager, launching a career that produced soul hits across three decades, including 'I Gotcha,' which reached number 2 on the Hot 100 in 1972. His preaching, talking style of soul made him one of the genre's great originals. He died in 1982. (Source: Handbook of Texas.)

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History of Baytown

Baytown, TX RoadyGoat

Baytown, as the name suggests, owes its existence and identity to the bay. It’s a straightforward name, born of its geography, firmly planted where Galveston Bay meets the Houston Ship Channel. Incorporated in 1948, the name reflects the communities that came together, all hugging the shoreline, all tied to the water. It isn't a grand, romantic title, but it speaks to the heart of the place: a working town, built on the bay, by the bay, for the bay’s opportunities. That connection to the water is a constant presence. The marsh grasses that line the shore, the salty air, even the ever-present threat of hurricanes like Alicia and Harvey, they all reinforce the town's relationship with its namesake. The bay provides, but it also demands respect. It's a fitting name for a community that has always relied on the industries that thrive on the water, from the petrochemical plants that dominate the landscape to the ships that traverse the channel. Even a simple thing like the sprayground at Jenkins Park, a year-round attraction, is a small reminder of the water that defines Baytown.

The Brunson: Baytown's Streamline-Moderne Movie Palace RoadyGoat

1949

The Brunson Theater at 311 W. Texas Avenue opened August 23, 1949 with Donald O'Connor in 'Yes Sir, That's My Baby,' built for a reported $100,000 and designed by architect Leon C. Kyburz. Its Streamline-Moderne facade pairs brick end panels with giant limestone fluting split by the vertical neon BRUNSON sign, plus limestone relief plaques by decorative artist Rudolph Wagner depicting the sources of Baytown's wealth, local industry and maritime trade. It anchored Texas Avenue's mid-century heyday, closed in the early 1980s as malls drained downtown, and briefly reopened in February 1983 as the 'Cine Brunson' showing Spanish-language films. The city acquired the derelict building through foreclosure in 1997. In 2019 the facade, marquee and vertical sign were restored and relit, and the building reopened as the Baytown Visitor Information Center, winner of a 2023 Texas Travel Award. (Sources: Cinema Treasures; SAH Archipedia; visitbaytown.com; ABC13.)

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Rooster's: Fifty Years of Steak on Old Baytown's Texas Avenue RoadyGoat

1977

You're in Old Baytown near the longtime home of Rooster's Steakhouse at 6 West Texas Avenue, opened in 1977 and run by the Cox family for close to fifty years. Its dining room doubled as a museum of Baytown memory: walls covered in historic photographs, including shots from the 1968 John Wayne film Hellfighters, whose oil-fire scenes were filmed in the Goose Creek Oilfield nearby. The restaurant has since closed, but for two generations of Baytown families, big nights meant a steak at Rooster's. (Source: local press and reviews; the closure is per the restaurant's own notice.)

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Baytown Mexican School (DeZavala Elemenary)

1923

Established in 1923 by the Goose Creek Independent School District, Baytown Mexican School was the first educational facility for Mexican American children in the community. The very modest beginning of the school in 1923 had a profound effect on the city of Baytown as a whole. Students of the 1920s later confirmed that school was held in the Mexican community recreation hall owned by Humble Oil and Refining Company. Instead of having professional teachers, the school was staffed by female students from Robert E. Lee high school, and the school mission was to receive young Spanish-speaking children and transition them to English. In 1927, land was purchased for the construction of a senior high school building and Mexican grade school building. The three-room building at 3010 Magnolia Street opened for classes in 1928. The first teachers in 1928 were Miss Jessie L. Pumphrey (principal), Miss Bertie Walker and Miss Celeste Dashiel. The teachers developed a very short list of English words in the 1930s. A new elementary school was built in 1992 at 305 tri-city beach road. From 1970-1972, the Mexican school building was used as a head start program building after the school closed in 1969. The cornerstone for the Baytown Mexican School is now on display at the Baytown historical museum. The original building was demolished in 1995. In 1938, the name of the school was changed to de Zavala for Lorenzo de Zavala, interim vice president of Texas (1836). One of the school’s teachers, Elizabeth Burrus, appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in 1961 for expanding the short list of English words into a 400-word book. In 1937, Antonio Banuelos started La Tipica all-girls orchestra, a legend in the local Hispanic culture.

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Goose Creek Oilfield

1903

The first offshore drilling for oil in Texas occurred along Goose Creek in southeast Harris County, twenty-one miles southeast of Houston on Galveston Bay. In 1903 John I. Gaillard noticed bubbles popping to the surface of the water at the point where the creek empties into the bay. With a match he confirmed that the bubbles were natural gas, a strong indication of oil deposits. Royal Matthews leased the Gaillard property and drilled for 2½ years but could not bring in a continuously producing well. Not until a Houston-based syndicate, Goose Creek Production Company, drilled on the marsh of the bay was oil found, on June 2, 1908, at 1,600 feet. On June 13 the Houston syndicate sold out to Producers Oil Company, a subsidiary of the Texas Company. After drilling twenty dry holes in two years they abandoned the field. The American Petroleum Company, new holders of a lease on Gaillard's land, finally drilled close to the shore. On August 23, 1916, contractor Charles Mitchell brought in a 10,000-barrel gusher at 2,017 feet. Initially the well produced 8,000 barrels daily, a quantity indicating that Goose Creek was a large oilfield. The community changed overnight as men rushed to obtain leases, drill wells, and build derricks. Tents were everywhere, teams hauled heavy equipment, and barges brought lumber and pipe from Houston. Within two months the well leveled off to 300 barrels a day, but by December 1916 drilling along the shores of Goose Creek, Tabbs Bay, and Black Duck Bay had raised production to 5,000 barrels daily. The flow of the average well drilled in 1917 was 1,181 barrels a day. The largest well of the field was Sweet 16 of the Simms-Sinclair Company, which came in on August 4, 1917, gushing 35,000 barrels a day from a depth of 3,050 feet. This well stayed out of control for three days before the crew could close it. World War I oil prices of $1.35 a barrel encouraged Humble Oil and Refining Company and Gulf Production Company to try offshore drilling. The Goose Creek field reached its peak annual production of 8,923,635 barrels with onshore and offshore drilling by 1918. In 1917 Ross S. Sterling , a founder and president of Humble Oil (now Exxon, U.S.A.), bought the Southern Pipe Line Company to route oil from the field to the Houston Ship Channel . Two 7,000-foot lines of four-inch pipe crossed Black Duck Bay storage tanks and a wharf on Hog Island in the channel. Since Goose Creek oilfield was a prospective long-term producer, Humble constructed its major refinery, which was completed by April 21, 1921, adjacent to the field and named the plant and townsite Baytown. The Dayton-Goose Creek Railroad Company, built in 1918, connected the refinery to the Goose Creek field. The Goose Creek field is a deep-seated salt dome with overlying beds slightly arched; its discovery spurred exploration for deep-seated domes, and led to the discovery of some of the largest oilfields in the United States. Production declined from 1918 until 1943, when it was only 388,250 barrels; 2,146,450 barrels was produced in 1965. Principal operators in the field in 1984 were Exxon, Gulf Oil, the Monsanto Company, Coastal Oil and Gas Corporation, and Enderli Oil. The total production of the field in 1983 was 366,225 barrels. The first Gaillard well and the Sims Sweet 16 were still producing in 1984. In 1990 the field's 192 wells produced 742,934 barrels. Total production of the field's lifetime stood at 140,644,377 barrels.

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Smith, Ashbel, M. D.

1805

(1805-1885) Born in Hartford, Connecticut, this prominent physician, statesman, soldier, and educator received his degree from Yale Medical College in 1828. After a period of study in France, Smith returned to the United States to practice medicine in the state of North Carolina. He determined to go to Texas upon hearing news of the events of the mid-1830s and arrived in 1837, too late to participate in the revolution. He soon, however, was appointed surgeon-general of the Texas army and established a home, known as Evergreen Plantation, one mile east of this site. Smith later served the Republic of texas as secretary of state and as minister to Great Britain, France, Belgium, and Spain. After Texas attained statehood, Smith served several terms in the State Legislature. A Civil War veteran, he was elected captain of the Bayland Guards and colonel of the 2nd Texas Infantry of the Confederate army. Also noted for his work in higher education, Ashbel Smith served as president of the first Board of Regents of the University of texas and led support for establishment of its medical branch in Galveston. A significant leader during Texas' formative years, Ashbel Smith died at his home on Evergreen Plantation and is buried in the state cemetery in Austin.

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West, Emily D.

1836

Emily D. West, erroneously called Emily Morgan by those who presumed her a slave of James Morgan and the "Yellow Rose of Texas" by twentieth-century myth-makers, was born a free Black in New Haven, Connecticut. She signed a contract with agent James Morgan in New York City on October 25, 1835, to work a year as housekeeper at the New Washington Association 's hotel, Morgan's Point, Texas. Morgan was to pay her $100 a year and provide her transportation to Galveston Bay on board the company's schooner, scheduled to leave with thirteen artisans and laborers in November. She arrived in Texas in December on board the same vessel as Emily de Zavala and her children. On April 16, 1836, while James Morgan was absent in Galveston in command of Fort Travis, Mexican cavalrymen under command of Col. Juan N. Almonte arrived at New Washington to seize President David G. Burnet , who was embarking on a schooner for Galveston Island. As the president and his family sailed away, the troops seized Emily and other Black servants at Morgan's warehouse, along with a number of White residents and workmen. Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna arrived at New Washington the following day, and after three days of resting and looting the warehouses, he ordered the buildings set afire and departed to challenge Sam Houston 's army, which was encamped about ten miles away on Buffalo Bayou. Emily was forced to accompany the Mexican army. With regard to the Yellow Rose legend, she may have been in Santa Anna's tent when the Texans charged the Mexican camp on April 21, but it was not by choice. She could not have known Houston's plans, nor could she have intentionally delayed Santa Anna. Moreover, in their official reports after returning to Mexico, none of his disaffected officers mentioned the presence of a woman or even that el presidente was in a state of undress. After the battle Emily found refuge with Isaac N. Moreland , an artillery officer, who later made his home in Houston and served as county judge. Strangers assumed Emily was James Morgan's slave because she was Black. A story was told around campfires and in barrooms that Emily had helped defeat the Mexican army by a dalliance with Santa Anna. The only discovered documentation for this in the nineteenth century was a chance conversation in 1842 between a visiting Englishman and a veteran on board a steamer from Galveston to Houston. William Bollaert recorded in his journal, "The battle of San Jacinto was probably lost to the Mexicans, owing to the influence of a Mulatta Girl (Emily) belonging to Col. Morgan who was closeted in the tent with G'l Santana." Bollaert does not identify the veteran or say Emily was Morgan's slave. The edited diary, published in 1956, included that notation as a footnote with Bollaert's name attached, a fact that led readers to believe the note was a footnote in the original manuscript. The editor's 1956 footnote launched prurient interest on the part of two amateur historians who concocted the modern fiction. Francis X. Tolbert , a prolific journalist, says in his The Day of San Jacinto (1959) that Emily was a "decorative long-haired mulatto girl...Latin looking woman of about twenty." No footnote documents this description or the author's statement that she was in Santa Anna's tent. Tolbert also presumptively identified Morgan as the informant. Henderson Shuffler , also a journalist, became a publicist for Texas A&M University in the 1950s, wrote historical articles for the Southwestern Historical Quarterly , and made speeches while working at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas in the 1960s. On one occasion he said Emily was "the M'latta Houri" of the Texas Revolution , a "winsome, light-skinned...slave of James Morgan." He added that she was a fitting candidate for the identity of the girl in the then-popular Mitch Miller version of "The Yellow Rose of Texas." Shuffler credited Tolbert for bringing Emily's story out into the open and

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Robert E. Lee High School

1919

After a population increase due to the discovery of oil in 1908, local residents realized the need for permanent school facilities and formed the Goose Creek Independent School District in 1919, encompassing the cities of Goose Creek, Pelly, and Baytown and the Wooster community. Prominent Houston architect Harry D. Payne designed a new school, which opened in fall 1928. The Art Deco-style building with Classical elements is concrete-framed with a stucco veneer on a concrete foundation. Notable features include glazed terra cotta roof tiles, brick trimmed niches with urns, and Classical finials. Robert E. Lee High School, named due to the Confederate general's popularity in the area, served as a senior high school for the entire district. Sited between Goose Creek-Baytown Highway (now Market Street) and the Dayton-Goose Creek Railroad (now Union Pacific), the school was centrally located in the tri-cities, allowing it to unite them and become the heart of the area. As a state purpose of the school was to become the center of all community activities, various organizations and churches were allowed to use its facilities, and the auditorium became a popular venue for civic events. Another purpose was adult education; from 1934 to 1951, Lee Junior College held classes at night on the high school campus. Disaster struck on April 29, 1987, when a fire, later determined to be arson, engulfed the main building. Alumni and citizens insisted on restoration of the building to its original appearance. From the beginning, Robert E. Lee High School students have won numerous honors in both academics and athletics. Over the years, the school has expanded and modernized to consistently meet the highest standards and remain a first-class high school. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2011

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Things to Do in Baytown

historical 14.0 mi away
Space Center Houston

Houston we have a problem. Every word spoken between Apollo astronauts and Earth came through Mission Control at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston. The…
historical 14.7 mi away
NASA Johnson Space Center

Houston we have a problem. Where Mission Control guided Apollo 11 to the moon.
food 21.6 mi away
The Original Ninfa's on Navigation

Ninfa Laurenzo was a widow with five kids when she opened a little restaurant in her late husbands failing tortilla factory on Navigation Boulevard in 1973.…
historical 6.3 mi away
San Jacinto Monument

Taller than the Washington Monument. Where Texas won independence in 18 minutes.
historical 6.3 mi away
San Jacinto Monument

On April 21 1836 Sam Houston and nine hundred Texans caught Santa Annas army napping at San Jacinto and won Texas independence in eighteen minutes. Six hundred…
historical 7.0 mi away
Battleship Texas

The last surviving WWI-era dreadnought. Fought at D-Day and Iwo Jima.
food 21.6 mi away
Killen's Barbecue

Chef Ronnie Killen's Pearland powerhouse. A classically trained chef who chose brisket over fine dining. The beef rib is absurd.

Everything Near Baytown

364 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

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