Texas City is a city in Galveston County in the US state of Texas. Located on the southwest shoreline of Galveston Bay, Texas City is a busy deepwater port on Texas' Gulf Coast, as well as a petroleum refining and petrochemical manufacturing center. The population was 45,099 at the 2010 census, making it the third-largest city in Galveston County, behind League City and Galveston. It is a part of Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan area. The city is notable as the site of a major explosion in 1947 that demolished the port and nearly destroyed the city.HistoryThree duck hunters in 1891 noted that a location along Galveston Bay, known locally as Shoal Point, had the potential to become a major port. Shoal Point had existed since the 1830s, when veterans of the Texas Revolution were awarded land for their services. The name was applied to the community when a post office opened in 1878. The duck hunters were three brothers from Duluth, Minnesota named Benjamin, Henry and Jacob Myers. After they returned to Duluth, they formed the Myers Brothers syndicate, convinced other investors to put up money to buy 10,000 acres of Galveston Bay Frontage, including Shoal Point. They renamed the area Texas City.FoundingBy 1893, the investors had formed the Texas City Improvement Company, which plotted and filed the townsite plan. A post office opened in 1893 with Frank B. Davison appointed as the town's first postmaster, to serve approximately 250 people who had moved there from Minnesota and Michigan. TCIC also received permission from the Federal Government to dredge an eight-foot channel in the bay from Bolivar Roads to serve Texas City. In 1894, the channel was first used commercially. TCIC eventually dredged the channel to a forty-foot depth and extended the length of the port to 1.5 mi. TCIC also built a 4-mi railroad to the Texas City Junction south of town, where it connected to two other rail lines: Galveston, Houston and San Antonio and Galveston-Houston & Henderson.
