Dairy (Alief)

Meston of Colorado had W. D. Twitchell plat the town in 1895, offered a free town lot with every forty acres of farmland bought, and in 1900 gave land for the Alief cemetery. In 1896 the community had twenty-five people, a two-room school for White children and a one-room school for Black children. The 1899 flood and the 1900 hurricane, which destroyed the Methodist Episcopal church and crops ready for harvest, nearly ended it: the International-Great Northern offered free passage to anyone who wanted to leave, and many families went back to Ellis County.

What the plaque says

Dairy (Alief) Reynolds Reynolds claimed a grant of 1,250 acres of land in this area in 1861. Land developer Jacamiah Seaman Daugherty bought the property from Reynolds' heirs in 1888, and in 1889 he granted a right-of-way to the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad. His plans to develop a townsite almost came to an end when he faced foreclosure in 1893, but the land was purchased by Francis I. Meston, who retained Daugherty to oversee its development. In 1894, after the community was named Dairy by its surveyors, Dr. John S. Magee and his wife, Alief Ozelda Magee, moved here from Ellis County and became the town's first settlers. They were joined by more settlers, and in 1895 Alief Magee applied for a U. S. Post Office for the town. Named Alief by the postal service, the post office operated from her home. Comprised of farms, ranches, a general store, depot, schools, and churches, Dairy endured despite devastating floods. Rice farming began after 1900, enhancing the area's economic base. The citizens formed the first Harris County Flood Control District in 1909 and established an independent school district in 1911. Although much of the town (renamed Alief in 1917) was annexed by Houston in the 1970s, it retains its identity. (1990)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Menil Collection — 12 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.
• Rothko Chapel — 12 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 12 mi
  The oldest art museum in Texas, grown from a 1900 schoolroom art league into a campus of Watkin, Mies van der Rohe and later buildings, with Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend up the bayou.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 13 mi
  A museum in Houston's 1925 Light Guard Armory that tells the service of Black soldiers from the Revolutionary War onward, built from one veteran's thirty years of collecting.

More markers nearby

• Gray Lodge No. 329, A. F. & A. M. — 3.8 mi
• The Kinkaid School — 5.5 mi
• Sugar Land First United Methodist Church — 6.0 mi
• Stafford's Point — 6.1 mi