Lone Star Canal

Think of the Lone Star as plumbing. Its channels averaged about four feet deep and eighty feet wide between levees, and they carried water from Turtle Bay, now Lake Anahuac, to roughly 10,000 acres of rice. Digging them also gave local people paying work. Everything depended on keeping salt out of the intake, because dry years and storms let the Gulf creep in. The Handbook of Texas credits a more dependable salt barrier at the head of Lake Anahuac, together with public ownership from 1947, with finally steadying the canal.

What the plaque says

Lone Star Canal Berriman Richard Garland (1840-1918), a native of Indiana, saw the need for fresh water for rice crops in east Chambers County. Garland and A. L. Williams began in 1902 acquiring land and constructing this irrigation canal. It started at the mouth of Turtle Bay, now known as Lake Anahuac. In 1904, "Lone Star Canal Company" was incorporated. E. O. Emerson and Burt H. Collins directed the business in 1906. Sailing vessels anchored next to the warehouse carried the rice to market. In dry seasons, salt water backed into Turtle Bay and into the canal, killing the rice crops. To prevent the damage, the Trinity River Irrigation District formed in 1911 and built a dam and locks at the mouth of the bay. Thomas S. Ellis changed the name to "Anahuac Canal Company" in 1914. After the 1915 hurricane destroyed the dam, pumping plant, and warehouse, the company changed owners several times, closing from 1927-32. In 1932 four men purchased the canal, resumed the name "Lone Star Canal," and reopened operations. In 1947 the Chambers-Liberty Counties Navigation District purchased the canal. Water is available for industrial as well as agricultural use with the goal of improving the economy of the area. (1979)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site — 24 mi
  The 1,200 acres of coastal prairie and marsh where the Texas Revolution ended in eighteen minutes, and the 567-foot shaft of fossil-studded limestone that has stood over them since 1939.
• Space Center Houston — 29 mi
  The visitor center of NASA's Johnson Space Center at Clear Lake, with flown capsules, a shuttle replica riding a 747, and tram tours to Mission Control and a Saturn V.

More markers nearby

• Events at Anahuac Leading to the Texas Revolution — steps away
• Home of Thomas Jefferson Chambers — steps away
• Chambers County — 0.5 mi
• Black Education in Chambers County — 0.6 mi