Hitchcock, Texas

Everything Hitchcock is known for

1 song mention this city 0 artists from here

Music in Hitchcock

Songs About Hitchcock

the ballad of lavern and captain flint
guy clark
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Artists From Hitchcock

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Rivers & Roads in Song near Hitchcock

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

Interstate 45 8 songs FM 3005 2 songs Trinity River 11 songs Brazos River 42 songs Interstate 10 36 songs US Route 90 9 songs

History of Hitchcock

Blimps Over the Gulf: Hitchcock's Giant Hangar and the U-Boat War RoadyGoat

1942

In 1942-43, 24 German U-boats slipped into the Gulf of Mexico and sank 56 merchant ships, damaging 14 more, with tankers burning within sight of the coast; on June 1, 1942 Galveston ordered dimouts so ships offshore wouldn't be silhouetted for U-boat periscopes. The Navy's answer at Hitchcock: a roughly 3,000-acre lighter-than-air base commissioned May 22, 1943, built around a $10 million timber hangar 1,000 feet long, about 300 feet wide and over 200 feet tall, with 300,000+ square feet of unobstructed floor, room for six helium K-ships. It was framed almost entirely in wood to save wartime steel, one of 17 giant timber airship hangars the Navy erected nationwide and among the largest wooden buildings ever raised in Texas. Blimp Squadron ZP-23 flew slow, low patrols over Galveston Bay and the Gulf escorting tankers and hunting periscopes (no Gulf U-boat kill is credited to the blimps; the only U-boat sunk in the Gulf, U-166, fell to a patrol craft). The base closed in October 1944; during the Korean War the hangar floor was used to remanufacture WWII tanks. Hurricane Carla wrecked the great wooden hangar in 1961 and it was demolished in 1962; today only the four massive concrete corner towers and the foundation remain. (Sources: TSHA; Naval Aviation News; BOEM; Wikipedia.)

RoadyGoat → · 4.0 mi away

When Blimps Flew Over Hitchcock RoadyGoat

During World War II, this quiet farming town became a critical part of America's coastal defense. Just south of here, the U.S. Navy built a massive base for a fleet of blimps. At the Hitchcock Naval Air Station, you would have seen K-class airships floating in and out of a colossal wooden hangar, one of the largest wooden structures in the world at the time. Their mission was to patrol the Gulf of Mexico, hunting for German U-boats that were preying on Allied shipping. These 'ghosts of the coast' could hover for hours, using radar and magnetic detectors to find submarines. At the same time, the Army operated Camp Wallace, a huge anti-aircraft training center right in town. For a few short years, the skies over Hitchcock weren't filled with birds, but with blimps and the sounds of artillery practice, as thousands of young service members trained to defend the nation.

RoadyGoat → · 4.1 mi away

The Engineering of the Ghost Fleet RoadyGoat

The blimps that flew from Hitchcock during World War II were impressive, but the engineering that supported them was astounding. The centerpiece was the blimp hangar, a structure so vast it could have held several football fields. Because steel was needed for the war effort, it was built almost entirely of wood. Imagine a massive, arched structure a thousand feet long, three hundred feet wide and two hundred feet tall, framed with giant timber trusses — for a time the largest wooden structure in the world, built for ten million dollars and able to shelter six airships at once. Its doors alone stood a hundred and fifty feet tall and rolled on their own rails. Inside, the K-class airships were technological marvels themselves. Filled with non-flammable helium, their fabric envelopes housed advanced electronics for the time, including early radar and magnetic anomaly detectors used to locate submerged German U-boats. The entire operation, from the structural engineering of the hangar to the physics of lighter-than-air flight and submarine detection, made this small Texas town a hub of advanced military technology.

RoadyGoat → · 4.1 mi away

Hitchcock Naval Air Station

1943

Hitchcock Naval Air Station was a World War II naval air station for lighter-than-air craft—semirigid airships, also known as blimps. The mission of the LTA craft at Hitchcock was to protect shipping facilities and ship traffic along the Texas coast from possible Axis submarine attacks. The base was located thirty-five miles south of Houston and fifteen miles northwest of Galveston, within the boundaries of the small community of Hitchcock in Galveston County. It was on approximately 3,000 acres of coastal plain procured by a government "Declaration of Taking" in April 1943. The construction of the $10 million blimp hangar, which was designed to hold six of the giant airships, was actually begun in 1942. The hangar was 1,000 feet long, 300 feet wide and more than 200 feet high; it had more than 300,000 square feet of unobstructed floor space. Other necessary buildings included warehouses, dormitories, shops, vehicle garages, administration and office buildings, and a recreation building containing an auditorium, a gymnasium, a stage, dressing rooms, kitchen facilities, and an Olympic-size swimming pool. All of the buildings were of wood and painted gleaming white. The station was commissioned on May 22, 1943, by navy captain Arthur D. Ayrault. At the time 143 officers and men were attached to it. The base was struck by a hurricane on June 27 but suffered only minimal damage. As the Axis powers were brought toward their ultimate defeat, the threat of U-boat attack on the Texas coast subsided, and the LTA stations were closed down. Hitchcock was redesignated a naval air facility, to be used primarily for the storage of inactive aeronautical material. In 1949 the General Services Administration sold the installation to H. L. Harvey for $143,777. The Commodity Credit Corporation used the hangar for storing rice; it has been noted that the entire rice harvest of Texas could have been stored in the immense building. In 1950 the site was sold to John W. Mecom. In 1951, during the Korean War, the facility was leased to Bowen-McLaughlin, Incorporated, and the hangar was converted to remanufacture half-tracks and army tanks. In 1961 the hangar suffered such major damage from Hurricane Carla that it was considered too expensive to repair and was demolished in 1962. John Mecom continued to use the site for his various business interests in 1990. The station had a lasting impact on the community of Hitchcock. Many of the civilians and military personnel who came to live and work there either stayed or later returned to the area.

Tsha Handbook →

Hitchcock, Lent Munson

1838

Lent Munson Hitchcock, naval officer and Galveston civic leader, was born in Southington, Connecticut, on October 15, 1816, the son of Lent Munson Hitchcock, a seaman. He sailed as a cabin boy at the age of fourteen and continued in the merchant marine and United States naval service for a number of years; he visited Galveston Island-then still a desert isle-for the first time in 1828. He enlisted in the Texas Navy , apparently at New Orleans, on May 2, 1836, and was appointed midshipman on the Independence . He was second lieutenant on the Brutus before he resigned his commission in April 1837. Hitchcock established residence in Galveston, where he was appointed branch pilot on May 6. In August 1838 he helped to organize the town's government. He was named Galveston's first harbor master, a post that he held for thirty years. By 1840 he owned four town lots, one slave, and a saddle horse. Early in 1838 the Texas Navy purchased the merchant brig Potomac , named for a United States warship on which Hitchcock once served as a mate, from Hitchcock for $8,000. At that time the Potomac was the only ship in the navy. In May 1842, while the Texas government was preparing for an offensive move into Mexico in response to the raids of Rafael Vásquez and Adrián Woll , Hitchcock took charge of the steamer Merchant , lent to the republic by L. M. H. Washington and Edwin Ward Moore to transport volunteers to Galveston. Hitchcock owned a schooner that he occasionally chartered to the Texas government. In 1850 he owned $3,500 in real estate. His business interests included a grocery store, a ship's chandlery, and the Tremont Hotel. He acquired extensive real estate in Galveston County, including the land on which the town of Hitchcock, named in his honor, is located. In addition he served on the board of directors of the Union Fire and Marine Insurance Company, said to be the oldest insurance company in Texas; the Galveston, Houston and Henderson Railroad; and the Galveston Navigation Company. By 1860 Hitchcock's wealth was estimated at $60,000 in real estate and $60,000 in personal property. He served eight terms as alderman of Galveston and four terms as treasurer; he was several times acting mayor and clerk of council. He was also a charter member of Hook and Ladder Company Number One, reputedly the oldest fire house in Texas. Although his wealth was diminished by the Civil War , he remained quite wealthy after it. He was a Mason, an Odd Fellow, and an active member of Trinity Episcopal Church in Galveston. Hitchcock married Emily Sarah Elizabeth Ann Clifford in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1839. They had four children, two of whom lived to adulthood. He died in Galveston on February 28, 1869, and was buried in the Episcopal Cemetery there.

Tsha Handbook →

Lorraine Crosby School

1914

Opening in 1914, the Lorraine Crosby School served as an educational stepping stone for the African American children of Hitchcock. In 1903, the first school was held in the home of Louis Brown. Later, the Galilee Baptist Church offered a small annex on “Little Ben’s Farm” over the bayou and then the church auditorium. In 1910, four members of the church home missionary society discussed a more permanent home for the school near the Santa Fe Railroad. The school board agreed to build a school if the community purchased the lot. To purchase the property, citizens sponsored fish fries and other fundraisers. In 1914, the lot at 7801 Burns Street was purchased. The city built a school and it opened as Hitchcock Colored School. One notable teacher and principal of the school was Mrs. Lorraine Crosby. She instilled high standards and strength in her students and, in 1949 after her death, the school was named in her honor. By 1952, the school footprint expanded with additional facilities for the growing school and again in 1959. Prior to 1956, students wishing to continue their education in high school had to transfer to Galveston or La Marque. Even though funds were limited or non-existent for supplies and activities, staff, parents and community members helped meet the needs of the students. As a result, Lorraine Crosby School had a football team, track team, basketball team and a boy scout troop. The first graduating class was in 1960 and the last was in May 1965. In 1966, the schools integrated and the Lorraine Crosby School became a middle school for a short time. At a time when African American schools had few resources, Lorraine Crosby School was an integral part of the community and will live on in the community’s memory as their educational beginning.

Historical Marker → · 3.9 mi away

Stringfellow Orchards

1883

Nationally and internationally recognized horticulturist Henry Martyn Stringfellow (1839-1922) started an experimental garden and orchard at this location in 1883. In 1890 he published a treatise containing inovative organic gardening methods that were adopted by Japanese, German, and many American fruit and vegetable growers. Silver medals garnered at two world fairs and world-wide acclaim for additional publications solidified his stature as a premier experiemental horticulturist of his time. Vestiges of his handiwork were evident here over 100 years later. (1992) [NOTE: Stringfellow's correct death date is 1912]

Historical Marker → · 4.6 mi away

Hitchcock, TX

1873

Hitchcock, also known as Hitchcock's and as Highland, is an incorporated community fourteen miles northwest of Galveston on State Highway 6, Farm roads 519 and 2004, and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe line in southwestern Galveston County. The area was settled around 1846. On May 31, 1848, Jonas Butler acquired a league of land on Highland Bayou and built a house, part of which still stood in the 1940s. Butler was followed by a group of French settlers, who established homes on the bayou. The community was originally known as Highland for its location on the bayou's high banks. Travelers used the bayou to reach Galveston until the 1870s, when the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway built through the settlement. The town was renamed around 1873, when Emily Hitchcock, widow of Galveston civic leader Lent M. Hitchcock , offered a 450-foot-wide tract from Cow Gully east to the section house for a townsite if the railroad would name the community for her husband. Local farmers shipped cattle and vegetables. A post office was established in 1884 under the name Hitchcock's, later shortened to Hitchcock. Thomas King platted the townsite around 1891, and by 1892 the community reported a population of 275, two grocers, and several fruit growers and commission merchants. Farmers later marketed their vegetables through a cooperative association. A local public school opened in 1894, and by 1907 the town had two schools, one with eighty-nine White pupils and two teachers and one with thirty-seven Black pupils and one teacher. In 1914 Hitchcock had a bank, a hotel, a blacksmith, three general stores, and a population of 550. The town began to decline with the end of local truck farming after 1920. Most local packing houses closed, many residents moved to find work in Texas City, and by 1925 Hitchcock's population had fallen to 350. During the early 1930s the town grew slightly, but declined again by the eve of World War II to 350 residents and seventeen businesses. In the 1940s the Hitchcock population level remained steady because of local oil and gas development, the establishment of Camp Wallace , and Navy construction of a local blimp base for surveillance of enemy submarines ( see HITCHCOCK NAVAL AIR STATION ). The camp and base were used as discharge centers after the war, and some of those who passed through became local residents. During the postwar boom, Hitchcock developed a chamber of commerce, sewers, improved roads, natural gas service, a phone system, and three White and two Black churches. In 1948 Hitchcock was made an independent school district. The community benefited from proximity to petrochemical industry centers at Texas City, Chocolate Bayou, and Freeport. Hitchcock's population jumped to 1,105 after 1954 and increased steadily after 1960, when the town incorporated. In 1968 Hitchcock's population reached a high of 6,954, served by thirty-six businesses. The number of residents fell during the 1970s. Hitchcock became a residential suburb with the development, only twenty minutes away, of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Project Apollo Space Laboratory Project at Clearwater. Hitchcock grew from 5,565 residents and twenty-five businesses in 1972 to 6,405 residents and sixty-seven businesses by 1988. The town offers a yacht basin and resort facilities and celebrates a Christmas Parade each December and a Good Ole Days Parade in August. In 2000 Hitchcock reported 214 businesses and a population of 6,386.

Tsha Handbook →

Texas City Disaster

1947

The worst industrial accident in American history began when the cargo ship SS Grandcamp, loaded with ammonium nitrate fertilizer, exploded at the Texas City docks on April 16, 1947.

Historical Marker → · 9.4 mi away

Things to Do in Hitchcock

historical 19.3 mi away
NASA Johnson Space Center

Houston we have a problem. Where Mission Control guided Apollo 11 to the moon.
historical 19.7 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 13.1 mi away
Galveston Seawall

The 1900 Galveston Hurricane killed at least eight thousand people and remains the deadliest natural disaster in American history. In response Galveston built…
spooky 13.3 mi away
Hotel Galvez Ghost Bride

The Queen of the Gulf opened in 1911 after the Great Storm. Room 501 is haunted by a jilted bride who hanged herself after falsely believing her fiance died at…
nature 22.0 mi away
Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge

More than 40,000 acres of coastal marsh and prairie on the Central Flyway — one of the top birding spots in the U.S., with 320+ recorded species. Drive the…

Sports in Hitchcock

🏆 STATE CHAMPIONS Class 3A · Boys Basketball · 2023–2024

Hitchcock — UIL 3A Boys Basketball State Champions — 2 titles

Most recent: 2024 3A

Hitchcock High School, a familiar name in Class 3A boys basketball, has firmly established itself on the state stage. The Bulldogs have brought home consecutive UIL State Championships, securing the 3A title in both 2023 and 2024. This impressive back-to-back achievement highlights a period of sustained excellence for the Hitchcock program, reflecting dedication and skill within the community.

The success of Hitchcock basketball shines brightly in the coastal air, giving fans in Galveston County plenty to cheer about. While no specific alumni are listed as moving on to professional or major-college careers, the recent state championships speak volumes about the quality of basketball played right here in Hitchcock, Texas.

State titles
2 (2023–2024)
Most recent
2024
Class
3A
The moment

The 2024 Class 3A UIL State Championship marked a significant moment for Hitchcock High School.

Sources: UIL State Championship Archives · SI High School (ScoreBook Live)
🏆 STATE CHAMPIONS Class 3A · Girls Basketball · 2026

Hitchcock — 2026 UIL 3A Division 1 Girls Basketball State Champions

Most recent: 2026 3A Division 1

Hitchcock High School, a Class 3A competitor in the heart of Texas, has a distinguished record in girls' basketball. The Lady Bulldogs have secured a UIL State Championship, a significant achievement that stands out in the school’s athletic history. This accomplishment reflects the dedication and hard work within the program.

The community of Hitchcock takes pride in its high school sports, and the success of the girls' basketball team provides a notable highlight. The championship season brought considerable excitement to the area, underscoring the spirit of competition and local support for the team's endeavors on the court.

State titles
2026
Most recent
2026
Class
3A
The moment

The Hitchcock Lady Bulldogs achieved a State Championship in 2026 in 3A Division 1.

Sources: UIL State Championship Archives · SI High School (ScoreBook Live)

Everything Near Hitchcock

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

Explore Hitchcock on the Map
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