Santa Fe is a city in Galveston County, Texas, United States. It is named for the Santa Fe Railroad which runs through the town alongside State Highway 6. The population of Santa Fe at the 2010 census was 12,222. Locals refer to their town as "The Fe."HistoryIn 1877, the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway was built through the western part of Galveston county. By the turn of the century, three small, unincorporated towns had formed along the railway: Alta Loma, Arcadia and Algoa. The Santa Fe Independent School District, named after the railway, was established shortly afterward to serve the area.In the mid-1970s, the neighboring city of Hitchcock tried to annex an area in eastern Alta Loma known as the Morningview neighborhood. The residents in this neighborhood were vehemently opposed to becoming a part of Hitchcock. Hitchcock was culturally very different, and Santa Fe and Hitchcock sports teams had harbored an intense rivalry for decades. To fend off annexation, a petitioning effort was begun to incorporate the area into a new city. On January 21, 1978, a ballot proposal to incorporate Alta Loma and parts of Arcadia (a total of nine square miles) passed by a wide margin, and the city of Santa Fe was born. In the years since, Santa Fe has grown to include all of Arcadia and parts of Algoa, and has become one of the more affluent areas of Galveston County. Today, ironically, Santa Fe is twice the size of Hitchcock.
