Our Fort Bend County Page is a Documentary

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Most housing was unsuitable for families, with some people living in canvass-roofed dwellings. By 1915, mostly Caucasian blue- and white- collar workers began living in permanent homes in the Hill neighborhood or along Imperial Boulevard and the highway. Managers resided south of the refinery in the upscale Flats enclave. The company segregated minority populations to live immediately north of the refinery, an area known as the Quarters, in former convict quarters and sharecropper-style shacks. These substantial houses had no plumbing except for an exterior cold-water faucet.

A severe flood in 1913, followed by a drought in 1917, led to the suspension of refinery operations and prompted W.T. Eldridge to undertake a decade-long infrastructure improvement project. He built levees and dams, dredged lakes and streams, drained swamps, and filled in low areas. He connected Oyster Creek to lakes and reservoirs via canals, providing water for continuous refinery operations and irrigation for farmlands. In 1921, the American Society of Civil Engineers praised the effort.  

Sugar Land's crown jewel was its modern school complex. It was crescent shaped, with ten cottage-style classrooms tethered by a columned pergola with an auditorium at its apex. The auditorium also served as the town's social center. Church services, speaker events, traveling shows, movies, and dances took place there.

The Sugar Land independent School District provided lower standard schools for minority families in the Quarters and rural areas. A small auditorium in the Quarters doubled as a movie theater and church.

For spiritual nourishment, the company set aside land for churches and Sunday schools. Congregations either shared the Union Church or had services in the school auditorium until they were able to build their own sanctuaries.

The 1920's was Sugar land's first golden age. Business was good, the refinery expanded, and about 2,000 people lived in relative comfort with good amenities.

Women played leading roles in Sugar Land. Charlotte Mayfield was a teacher and principal of the African American M.R. Wood School. Carrin Foreman was the Sugar Land ISD superintendent. Registered Nurse Nema Shepherd directed and supervised the Laura Eldridge Memorial Hospital, and Nina Mae Iams served as Sugar Land's Postmistress.

W.T. Eldridge found three men to carry out his vision for Sugar Land. Gus D. Ulrich, an early protege of Eldridge, advanced quickly to run all of Sugar Land except its refinery operations. He was known as "Mr. Sugar Land." Practically no transactions occurred without his knowledge. The trusted and fastidious engineer and sugar chemist, M.R. Woods, designed and built Sugar Land's model school and served as consulting engineer for the nine-story char house. Captain William McCan Brooks managed farm operations; matching Eldridge's tough character, carrying a pistol, with a shotgun handy in the front seat of his car or across his saddle.

Conditions on the farm were difficult. Sharecroppers and migrant workers, many of whom had escaped the Mexican Revolution, fared worse than the white tenant farmers. One enterprising young man, Felix Tijerina, advanced from field work to owning a chain of Mexican restaurants in Houston and becoming the leader of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

On December 1, 1922, Sugar Land residents medical care improved with the addition of a local hospital. The town contained 400 residences when Samuel Gayle Deatheridge first opened his medical practice above the pharmacy in 1917. Three years later, W.T. Eldridge and I.H. Kempner invested $15,000 towards a hospital and housing for single nurses across Lakeview Street from Sugar Land School. 

Good, affordable medical care drew workers to Sugar Land and was available to all employees. In 1923, the Laura Eldridge Memorial Hospital opened, staffed with excellent doctors and nurses.

Dr. W.G.L. Blackwell and Registered Nurse Nema Sheppard joined Deatheridge's medical practice at Laura Eldridge Memorial Hospital.

The first baby born in there was James Byron Fowler Jr., son of J.B. and Sybil Fowler. His mother was the first patient admitted to the new facility. Belle McShay, the supervising nurse, was the one holding the baby in front of the hospital on the day he left to go home. The family lived in their home on Guenther Street in the Flats.

By 1926, Sugar Land's population swelled to over 1,500 residents and a third physician, Carlos Slaughter joined the staff. The ominous names of physicians Deatheridge, Blackwell, and Slaughter became a local irony since most residents considered the quality of their care equal to that found in Houston.

The hospital required larger quarters in 1956 and was relocated to the east side of Eldridge Road. Despite its essential role, the hospital operated at a chronic deficit requiring regular infusions of company cash. Unable to sustain itself, the hospital became an economic fatality after Sugar Land's 1959 incorporation.

Distance, unpaved roads, and minimal train transportation isolated Sugar Land, so the company provided full retail services. The Imperial Mercantile, the area's superstore, sold everything from baby buggies to coffins. The Sugar Land Railway stopped at the Mercantile's back entrance. The store extended credit and accepted cash and company-issued scrip or coupons.

Sugarland Industries had been created in 1919 to operate Kempner and Eldridge's growing list of enterprises. According to an ad in the statewide publication, the Texas Industrial News, it operated the following enterprises in addition to the refinery and railway:

Sulfuric acid, vinegar, and pickling plant

Paper mill

The Sealy Mattress Company

MixRite Stock Feed

Cotton gin and seed oil mill

Lumberyard and furniture company

Poultry and squab farms

Dairy and hog operations

A telephone exchange and drug company

The Texas Fig Company

Even during the height of the Great Depression, Kempner and Eldridge invested in school infrastructure, adding high school buildings that offered a gym, a heated pool, and new science, mathematics, and home economics classrooms. The Kempner family managed to keep Imperial Sugar and Sugar Land afloat after Eldridge's death in 1932. Thanks to the Kempner's financial support and a government loan, no one in Sugar Land was laid off.

Imperial Sugar reduced work hours and encouraged townspeople to engage in government-sponsored work programs to make up for decreased wages. Managers even waived rent and retail account payments until employees could afford to pay. Moreover, company officials made a special effort to employ wives and children who had lost husbands or fathers so that they could remain in Sugar Land. They also allowed outside companies, including Visco (Nalco) and the Marshall Canning Company, to come to Sugar Land to provide new jobs. 

The onset of World War II was deeply felt in Sugar Land. Not only were members of the community fighting for the country's freedom, but Imperial Vice President and Treasurer Herbert Kempner successfully fought for the company's survival.

The Wartime Shipping Administration limited the shipment of any refined product outside designated zones. Imperial was on the list of refineries to be closed by the government, but Kempner ensured the company's survival by lobbying the government to create a zone that included Texas. He later resigned from the company to assume a U.S. Navy post in Washington, D.C. Joining Kempner's call to duty were various members of the company town's founding families, including William T. Eldridge, III, William Randle Eldridge, and widow Abbie Eldridge Green's new husband.

After the onset of World War II, refinery employees worked around the clock to produce sugar needed for soldiers' rations. School children and social clubs held rallies and campaigns, made bandages, watched for enemy plane fighters, and sent care packages to soldiers. Many Sugar Land men served their country in the armed forces. 

Among those honored for service during the war was Medal of Honor recipient, (U.S. Army Sergeant) Staff Sergeant Marcario Garcia of Sugar Land. President Harry S. Truman presented Garcia with the Medal of Honor at a ceremony in the White House on August 23, 1945. 

Garcia's citation read:

Staff Sergeant Marcario Garcia, Company B, 22nd infantry, in action involving actual conflict with the enemy in the vicinity of Grosshau, Germany, 27 November 1944. While an acting squad leader, he single-handedly assaulted two enemy machine gun emplacements. Attacking prepared positions on a wooded hill, which could be approached only through meager cover. His company was pinned down by intense machine-gun fire and subjected to a concentrated artillery and mortar barrage. Although painfully wounded, he refused to be evacuated and on his own initiative crawled forward alone until he reached a position near an enemy emplacement. Hurling grenades, he boldly assaulted the position, destroyed the gun, and with his rifle killed three of the enemy who attempted to escape. When he rejoined his company, a second machine-gun opened fire and again the intrepid soldier went forward, utterly disregarding his own safety. He stormed the position and destroyed the gun, killed three more Germans, and captured four prisoners. He fought on with his unit until the objective was taken and only then, he permits himself to be removed for medical care. Staff Sergeant (then Private) Garcia's conspicuous heroism, his inspiring, courageous conduct, and his complete disregard for his personal safety wiped out two enemy emplacements and enabled his company to advance and secure its objective.

Town and refinery maintenance and improvement projects that had been delayed during the Depression remained incomplete throughout the war years.

Sugar Land American Legion members and Veterans of Foreign War posts have a rich history of recognizing the service and sacrifice of the Sugar Land's heroes. This also includes an association with Fort Bend Salutes America.

After the war, Sugar Land entered its second golden age. I.H. (Herbert) Kempner, Jr. took charge, instituting a new vision for Imperial Sugar and the town. In the late 1940's, the refinery underwent major expansions and, as a result, needed more workers. Instead of building more rent houses, Herbert sold lots and let employees build their own homes, freeing up rent houses for new employees. Imperial began to sell off company-owned homes and land after WW II. Employees were the first in line to buy them.

Even though incorporated in 1959, Sugar Land's roots are deep, going back before Texas Independence. Originally part of Mexico's government, it was the size of 13 counties and known as Austin's Colony in 1835 after Stephen F. Austin's original 300 settlers. Austin gave one of these land leases to Galveston's Samuel May Williams. It was later called Oakland for the varieties of oak trees native to this area. In the mid-1800's Sugar Land was known for the product that would shape the city. Around the same time Fort Bend County was formed in 1837. The surroundings also gave birth to a company town that would later become an incorporated city on December 15, 1959. For over fifty years before its incorporation, Sugar Land was a highly successful "company town." It was run by the Imperial Sugar Company and eventually Sugarland Industries as well. The land passed through a succession of owners until 1908 when I.H. (Ike) Kempner of Galveston and W.T. Eldridge of Eagle Lake partnered to acquire the sugar refinery and mill. The seedling of a company town, and the surrounding 12,500 acres. The main crop, sugar cane, gave the area its name. And so, it all began in 1906, Sugar Land was on its way to the path of building infrastructure. The Imperial model of doing things was unlike any other southern town, New England mill operated town, or mining towns of West Virginia where poverty took over. Even though segregation was involved, everyone had a job, and no one was laid off. A bridge was even built across Oyster Creek to make travel easy for workers and school children. The Jim Crow period did not get in the way of Sugar Land growing despite the southern ways of segregation in the 1950's to the 1960's. Gambling and saloons were a thing of the past, instead a small town became rich with small business owners that helped Imperial branch into an industrial corporation that protected workers and their families with company pay and benefits. In 1912, convict leasing was put to a stop statewide, thus began equal and fair treatment of Imperial workers. The Imperial model of running a company paved the way to healthcare which included doctors and a pharmacy, better homes, education, banking, and shopping for future Sugar Land residents. A new way of family living was so successful that many different churches developed into homestead developments for people to congregate safely. Communities also had access to better schools and education for all of the children despite segregation. In time, that all went away when the federal government stepped in the sixties. Sugar Land was "born" as a master planned community, thanks to the visions of Kempner and Eldridge. A modern way of living included electricity, gas, telephone, streets, and better sewage for cleaner water with less flooding. Long after they died, Sugar Land still exists to this day as an incorporated city with commercial businesses. Their dreams became a reality. Little did they know that Sugar Land would later become a metropolis.