Our Fort Bend County Page is a Documentary

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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.

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.

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. 

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.