Baytown, Texas

Everything Baytown is known for

8 songs mention this city 7 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

Devils Name
The Washers
75%
"He's a landman for someone in Baytown"
Welcome to Baytown Texas
YUNG JAMES
50%
That's Life (Live and Lively)
Joe Tex
50%
"Folks back in Baytown, Texas wouldn't believe this, ha-ha!"
Grandma Mary
Joe Tex
49%
"I'll be so glad your mama come and take you onto Baytown"
Texas Thang
South Bound Twin
40%
"Texas Thang"
Wallisville Road
Lyle Lovett
21%
"The Lynchburg Ferry Runs a little too slow"
Ohio (Reprise)
Bowling for Soup
8%
"Gary Busey wants you back"
I’ve Been Everywhere...In Texas
Brian Burns
2%
"Baytown"

Artists From Baytown

R
RaeLynn
country
C
Chris Cagle
country
L
Leeland
gospel
J
Joe Tex
r-n-b
D
David Glenn Band
country
S
South Bound Twin
hip-hop
D
David Glenn
country

Rivers & Roads in Song near Baytown

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

Interstate 10 36 songs US Route 90 9 songs Trinity River 11 songs Interstate 45 8 songs U.S. Route 59 9 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

The Rich Neighborhood That Sank Into the Bay RoadyGoat

Out on the peninsula now occupied by the Baytown Nature Center, a wealthy neighborhood called Brownwood once stood, ringed by Burnet, Crystal, and Scott Bays. Starting in the late 1930s, Humble Oil executives and other prosperous families built around 400 waterfront homes here, some with private docks and swimming pools. It was one of Baytown's best addresses. The problem was underground. Industries and cities were pumping huge volumes of groundwater from layers of sand and clay, and when the water came out, the clay compacted permanently and the land dropped. Between 1943 and 1973, much of the Ship Channel area subsided several feet, with some spots near Baytown sinking about nine feet. After Hurricane Carla flooded Brownwood in 1961, even ordinary storms and high tides pushed water into the houses. Residents raised appliances, rigged pumps, and piled up makeshift levees, but the ground kept dropping. When Hurricane Alicia struck on August 18, 1983, the neighborhood was declared unfit to live in. The homes came out, marsh channels went in, and today walkers still spot old streets, manhole covers, foundations, and pool remnants among the wetlands at 6213 Bayway Drive. (Source: Baytown Nature Center; USGS subsidence studies.)

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Baytown, TX RoadyGoat

Baytown lies on the northern side of the Galveston Bay complex near the outlets of the San Jacinto River and Buffalo Bayou. Its strategic location on the water and discovery of the Goose Creek Oil Field contributed to the growth of the city. The Humble Oil and Refining Company built the first offshore drilling operation in Texas and the second in the United States in the Goose Creek Oil Field, later building the Baytown Refinery, which would become one of the largest Exxon refineries in the world.

Baytown, TX RoadyGoat

The Baytown Refinery, built by the Humble Oil and Refining Company, is one of the largest Exxon refineries in the world. It was built after the company developed the Goose Creek Oil Field, the first offshore drilling operation in Texas and the second in the United States. Exxon-Mobil remains a major employer in Baytown, running over 10 plants in the area, including a newly announced 2 billion dollar expansion to its chemical facilities in 2019.

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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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Bayland Guards

1861

On April 27, 1861, Dr. Ashbel Smith organized a group of volunteers from Bayland (now Baytown) and Cedar Bayou in Harris County, and Barbers Hill in Chambers County. The group, known as the Bayland Guards, drilled on Smith’s Evergreen Plantation and worked in local defense of Galveston Bay. On August 13, 1861, they mustered into the Confederate forces as Company C of the Galveston Infantry Regiment. The regiment was redesignated in October as the Second Texas Infantry Regiment and that December, it moved to Camp Bee in Houston. Among the Bayland Guards were three sons of Republic of Texas presidents Sam Houston and Anson Jones: Samuel Houston, Jr., Charles Elliot Jones and Samuel Edward Jones. The Bayland Guards fought with the rest of the regiment at the Battles of Shiloh, Corinth and Hatchie Bridge in 1862. At the Battle of Shiloh, half of Company C was wounded or killed. During the Vicksburg campaign in 1863, the Second Texas distinguished itself by defending a crescent-shaped fortification in the center of the line of Confederate defense while withstanding Union assaults and 46 days and nights of shelling and bombardment. The Second Texas infantry and the other defenders were surrendered at Vicksburg on July 4, 1863 and were promptly paroled to make their way back to Texas. The decimated regiment reorganized at Houston in the fall of 1863 and served out the war on the Texas coast from Matagorda to Galveston, helping to deter General Banks’ attempt to invade Texas early in 1864. The regiment was surrendered on May 26, 1865. After the war, many members of the Bayland Guards became leaders and respected individuals in their communities.

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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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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.
day trip
Day Trip to Baytown 🏁 (FULL EPISODE) S6 E7

Featured on The Daytripper — a full-episode local travel guide.

Everything Near Baytown

784 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

Explore Baytown on the Map
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