La Marque

Duane's take

Here's how the marker tells it, and I'm gonna pass it right along to you. Way back in 1838, a man named John D. Moore received a Republic of Texas land grant covering this stretch of ground.

Back then, nobody was calling it La Marque. They were calling it Highland Bayou, and that name suited a place that was mostly flat, mostly quiet, and mostly waiting on something to happen. Something happened.

The Galveston, Houston, and Henderson Railroad pushed its way through, linking Galveston and Houston by 1860, and Highland Bayou was sitting right on that line. You put a rail line through a quiet settlement, and quiet doesn't last long. A post office opened in 1869, which means somebody decided this place was worth sending mail to.

Then 1886 rolls around, and the U.S. Postal Service comes calling with a request: give this town a new name. Now, whatever that conversation looked like, the settlement obliged.

The new name, spelled variously as Lamarque or La Marque depending on who was doing the writing, showed up in official records as La Marque by 1900. Then 1911 brought another ribbon of progress: a new interurban electric railway line running from Galveston to Houston. That line ran right through La Marque, and more settlers followed.

The town built itself up around agriculture, dairy farming in particular, and alongside the homes and the businesses, the schools and the churches and the social institutions took root and grew. Then the 1930s arrived, and with them the petrochemical industry began rising along the bay. Through the thirties, the forties, and the fifties, that industrial presence reshaped everything.

La Marque shifted from a farming community into a residential hub, a place for the workers who kept the plants in nearby Texas City running. Now, Texas City had its eye on La Marque. In 1953, Texas City moved to annex it outright.

That attempt failed. And in that same year, La Marque's citizens looked at each other, looked at what they'd built since 1838, and voted to incorporate on their own terms. Highland Bayou had come a long way.

What the marker says

The land in this area, initially known as Highland Bayou, was part of a Republic of Texas land grant awarded to John D. Moore in 1838. The Galveston, Houston, and Henderson Railroad linked Galveston and Houston by 1860, and Highland Bayou, directly on the rail line, began a period of significant growth. A post office opened in 1869, and in 1886, in response to a request from the U.S. Postal Service, a new name was chosen for the settlement. Alternately spelled Lamarque and La Marque, the new name appeared in official records as La Marque by 1900. The construction of an interurban electric railway line from Galveston to Houston in 1911 led to increased settlement in La Marque. The primary local business was agriculture, particularly dairy farming. Along with homes and businesses, social, education, and religious institutions flourished, as well. The rise of the petrochemical industry along the bay in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s changed the area's economic base, and La Marque developed as a residential area to serve industrial workers in nearby Texas City. An attempt by Texas City to annex La Marque in 1953 failed, and La Marque citizens voted to incorporate that same year. (1991)