Settlement Community

The plaque compresses the Settlement's later decades. In 1911 the electric interurban line was built through the middle of the community and divided its roughly 120 residents. The Settlement had electric service in 1929, years ahead of surrounding communities, and gained Lincoln School in 1938 and Woodland School in 1952. On September 9, 1953, Texas City annexed it. As schools integrated in the late 1960s, much of its identity as a self-sufficient Black community faded. The 1867 Settlement Historic District reached the National Register in 2010, and a Black cowboy rodeo is still held there.

What the plaque says

Settlement Community During Reconstruction, former slaves founded a community known as the Settlement on land platted by Judge William J. Jones for purchase by freedmen. Prior to this, a number of cattlemen moved to this area with their slaves. During the Civil War, George Washington Butler was placed in charge of a containment camp and used slave labor from there to drive cattle for the Confederate Army. After the war ended, Butler continued in the cattle industry, hiring freedmen as cowboys. Some of them lived in the community first known as Highland Tank. The first settlers were Kneeland and Sylvia Britton, and Albert and Priscilla (Britton) Phillips. Calvin Bell, Thomas Britton and David Hobgood were area cowboys and pioneers of the community. By 1870, the Rev. Israel S. Campbell helped begin a church; residents built a sanctuary and school the following year in a community called Campbellville for the Reverend. The pioneering families, however, called it Settlement, shortened from "Our Settlement," declaring the importance of freedom and owning land. The African American community prospered throughout the late 1800s. Many male residents worked on Butler Ranch or as farmers. Also, unique for the time, the commuinty had a high literacy rate. By the early 1900s, residents worked in railroad occupations and later in industry. In 1911, and interurban line came through the community, and Highland Station opened; the Settlement was known as Highlands and La Marque until it was incorporated into the city limits of Texas City in the 1950s. The community began to decline in the 1960s, when many young people left to work in an integrated society. However, rodeos and trail rides have been held as reminders of this once flourishing and self-sufficient community founded by African American cowboys. (2007)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Seaport Museum and the Elissa — 12 mi
  An iron barque launched in Aberdeen in 1877 that called at Galveston twice, ended up smuggling in the Adriatic, and was bought back from a Greek scrapyard to sail again from Pier 22.
• The Strand — 12 mi
  Five blocks of iron-front brick buildings near the harbor that were once called the Wall Street of the Southwest, emptied after 1900 and brought back by preservationists from the 1960s.
• Moody Mansion — 12 mi
  A four-story, 28,000-square-foot house on Broadway, finished in 1895, that W. L. Moody Jr. bought just after the 1900 storm and his family kept until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.
• Galveston Seawall and the 1900 Storm — 12 mi
  The concrete wall along the Gulf that Galveston built after the hurricane of September 8, 1900, which killed between 6,000 and 8,000 people in a city of 38,000.

More markers nearby

• Greater Bell Zion Missionary Baptist Church — steps away
• Frank Bell, Jr. — 1.0 mi
• Texas City Memorial Cemetery — 3.0 mi
• Texas City — 3.5 mi