On the Road in Fulshear 

This week’s “windshield survey” begins in Fulshear, Texas. The town’s history can be traced to Churchill Fulshear, a member of Stephen F. Austin’s Old Three Hundred. In 1824, Churchill, received a land grant from the Mexican government to establish his plantation where he grew cotton, corn, rice, and pecans and raised livestock. Churchill’s son inherited the plantation at his father’s death and added a cotton gin and flour mill. In 1888, he granted the San Antonio and Aransas Railway right-of-way through his land, and, in 1890, the town itself was laid out and granted a post office.  

Fulshear remained a sleepy little town until Houston’s sprawl reached the area, at which point it prospered. The Houston Business Journal recently noted that the ZIP code encompassing Fulshear is among the priciest in the metro area. It is also one of the fastest-growing areas in the state and nation. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city’s population exploded from 1,134 in 2010 to 17,558 in 2020 and, by 2023, was crowding 43,000. Local estimates now place it over 50,000. For decades, Houston’s growth and influence expanded west rapidly along FM 1093, which is essentially an extension of Westheimer Rd. The growth both north to Katy and south to Richmond/Rosenburg off 1093 has been staggering.  

This region is an eclectic mix of tall grass prairies, post oak savannahs, farms/ranches and pecan-tree-studded bottomlands. Bessies Creek, a rich body of water in the eyes of naturalists, originates in Waller County near Monaville and meanders its way south through Waller and Fort Bend County where it joins the Brazos River. Enterprising developers took note of both the creek and oxbows formed by the Brazos River, just southwest of the old town of Fulshear, and created new residential communities such as Fulbrook, Oxbow Lake, and a newly formed municipality incorporated as Weston Lakes. A series of stepped dams and weirs designed by astute engineers were designed and constructed to channel floodwaters away while leaving lakes that offer waterfront properties for high-end luxury homes. 

I spoke with one resident who confirmed that in his 14 years of living there, his house, which backs up directly to one of the lakes, never flooded (even during Hurricane Harvey and subsequent tropical storms), nor did others in the subdivision. However, he said the area’s population had grown so much that he was thinking of selling and moving to Bellville.  

One of Fulshear’s landmark businesses closed its doors in March of 2024. In 1957, Ed Dozier entered his pecan-smoked BBQ in the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and won first place. That was all it took for him to open his iconic BBQ joint. Doziers put Fulshear on the map for BBQ lovers. No worries though: Doziers re-opened with new owners, and several new upscale restaurants have been added to the township.  

Passing north on FM 359, many new houses are being built in a new development by Del Webb. The project, Del Webb Fulshear, appears to have taken in a part of the historic Frost and/or Hunt Ranch. Unlike the pricey houses on the lakes southwest of Fulshear, Webb’s project appears to be targeting lower-income homebuyers.  

Just north of Fulshear lies Brookshire, which was named for Capt. Nathen Brookshire who received title to a league of land as a member of Austin’s fifth colony in 1835. Brookshire developed into a thriving agricultural community and shipping point with the arrival of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad.  

Cotton was king in Brookshire until the early 1900s, when cotton prices began to fall. But the community’s economy was not devastated for long. Rather, it rallied as rice became a major crop. The area’s economy was boosted even more in 1943 when Humble Oil and Refining (now Exxon Mobil) established the Katy Gas Plant, which offered high-paying jobs for chemists and other college-educated individuals. Brookshire’s population was 1,250 in 1920 and fluctuated over the next two decades, then steadily increased. By 1980, the population was 2,244, growing to 3,450 by 2000. As Katy, only nine miles to the east, merged with Houston’s westward growth, the town’s population took off, growing from 5,111 in 2020 to 5,667 in 2023, an almost 11 percent increase. The area’s now a center for business with a heavy concentration of warehouse distribution facilities located between Katy and Brookshire. 

After Katy, Brookshire, and Fulshear, there is a dramatic drop in large-scale development until you reach Sealy. Just southwest of there, a large national homebuilder has started building on the road to Eagle Lake. The Austin County judge told me that most of the new homes there were being sold as rental units.  

We will hit the road again in Sealy next time. 

All notations on history of the towns in this blog were sourced from the Texas State Historical Association.