Brownwood Subdivision

[Retama]

I grew up in the Brownwood section of Baytown. Lived there from 1964-78. When we first moved there, it was a beautiful tree shrouded neighborhood full of playing children and friendly, adults who like to get together and have backyard cookouts. Very all-American place. After a couple of floods people began moving out and the neighborhood began to slide steeply downhill.

Most people couldn't sell their homes so they rented them out. By the mid-1970s this once nice, shady place looked pretty ragged as many of the rented houses began to fall into disrepair. Living there was somewhat surreal as the bays claimed houses standing outside the perimeter dyke-like road that circled the place. Houses like the one my Texas History teacher owned and others where friends used to live and where I once played and went to parties now sat in the water. A third of a residential street was simply reclaimed by nature on the homeless end that slid into the swampy mire.

Drawn by the cheap rents some truly suspect people began to replace the friendly neighbors. One house on our street was rented by a group of people in their twenties who used it as a drug and sex pad. Further down the street a huge family of violent inbred Oklahomans moved in. I used to have to fight the eldest brother of this sorry mob about once a week before they just disappeared one day leaving a wrecked house and a trash-strewn, tire-rutted yard behind. I later learned that the louse I had to fight all the time (he looked like one of the pinheads from the movie Freaks and I'm not kidding) bashed in an old man's skull, stole his pickup and reeled off on some amphetamine fueled crime spree. I still recall the time I heard a noise in our backyard one night. I went out to check it and found two shadowy figures, one of whom was peeping into the window of our next door neighbor (where two teenage girls lived) and the other was preparing to steal the window AC unit from the back room of our home. I racked up one of them with my Louisville Slugger while the other threw a brick at me and skeedadled away. Hell, I knew both of them. I tracked down the other one and made sure he never came close to my house again.

After that, my dad decided to get the hell out of B-wood. Several years later two guys were brutally murdered two blocks from where we lived.

After Alicia, a tiny handful of people tried to save the place, but it was way past saving. My good friends lived where the Chrystal Bay Butterfly Garden now sits (the whole neighborhood is now the Baytown Nature Center). A massive hole was dug into the ground and their entire home was bulldozed right into it and covered over.

the Baytown Sun did a great retrospective story on Brownwood around 2002 or 2003. The reporter was a friend and neighbor of mine who also grew up there so the story had a nice personal touch to it.

Edited January 26, 2008 by Retama

[TJones]

Yep, Retama is absolutely right, that is exactly what happened to the neighborhood. My grandparents house at 206 Bayshore was rented out, but only because they didn't want to sell it. It was funny though because they moved only one mile away into Lakewood. I think my grandmother KNEW something bad was gonna happen sooner or later, so they moved from Brownwood in 1977. and of course Hurricane Alicia came along. I have some great memories of that place though. Retama where was your house located ?

[Retama]

We lived on Katherine Street near the bay.

I'm not sure, but I think I've been in the house at 206 Bayshore. Was your grandmother a teacher at Baytown Junior High?

[mwkellner]

Quick question for anyone out there:

I read somewhere that National Geographic once did a story on Brownwood. I've searched the local library's collection of NG's, including NG indexes, and can't seem to find anything on it.

Does anyone know if Nat'l Geo ever really did a feature on Brownwood? If so, when did it appear? I'd like to find it if such an animal exists.

The National Geographic article was really on subsidence or the flood insurance problems. There was a picture and short caption used in the article from Brownwood. I don't know the issue though I would guess in the early 90's. I remeber reading the article and surprised to see the picture.

[sevfiv]

There was also an article published in the October 1996 issue of Planning (From Subdivision to Sanctuary by Charles Lockwood) - basic overview of Brownwood and its transformation into the nature center with a couple pictures.

[TJones]

We lived on Katherine Street near the bay.

I'm not sure, but I think I've been in the house at 206 Bayshore. Was your grandmother a teacher at Baytown Junior High?

Nope, my Grandmother was a Socialite/ Doctor's wife. She was President of both the Houston and Wooster Garden Clubs in the 50's 60's and 70's. She was some kind of character I'll tell you. A true Matriarc of her family, and made sure that everyone saw it. My grandfather was Dr. Malcolm A. Jones, he helped establish the current hospital system in Baytown, after WW2. It was kinda weird growing up in Baytown, because if I went with my Grandfather anywhere, they all knew him. Couldn't go to Wyatt's Cafeteria back in the 70's without 20 or 30 people coming up to shake his hand and say "hi", very awkward for this little kid anyways.

Retama, do you remember Aroma's Cafeteria on Bayway ?

[Retama]

Retama, do you remember Aroma's Cafeteria on Bayway ?

Yes I do. My mother loooooooved that place. I also remember it's previous incarnation as the Big Chief Grocery store and then it was a nightclub called Jinglebob's

[Lone Star Rooster]

Interesting accounts of Brownwood. I imagine that living there through the 60's and 70's would have been an almost surreal experience, literally watching the land (and everything on it) slip out from under you.

From what I've read elsewhere, it seems like the Valentine's Day flood in 1969 was really the "beginning of the end" of this once-magnificent place. Is that right? Any recollections out there from those who lived through that?

[TJones]

Interesting accounts of Brownwood. I imagine that living there through the 60's and 70's would have been an almost surreal experience, literally watching the land (and everything on it) slip out from under you.

From what I've read elsewhere, it seems like the Valentine's Day flood in 1969 was really the "beginning of the end" of this once-magnificent place. Is that right? Any recollections out there from those who lived through that?

I would ask my father but he has passed. I will ask my mother though, she lived in Clear Lake at the time working for IBM, I am sure she remembers it as her parents lived off of FM146 and Ward road.

[Retama]

Interesting accounts of Brownwood. I imagine that living there through the 60's and 70's would have been an almost surreal experience, literally watching the land (and everything on it) slip out from under you.

From what I've read elsewhere, it seems like the Valentine's Day flood in 1969 was really the "beginning of the end" of this once-magnificent place. Is that right? Any recollections out there from those who lived through that?

Yep, the Valentine's Day Flood, which was a freak winter storm that sent high tides into the area, was really the start even though Hurricane Beulah, which missed the Texas coast, caused some tidal flooding around the edges of Brownwood in 1967. By the early 1970s even sustained southern winds could cause flooding in some areas.

The really bad one I remember was tropical Storm Delia in 1973. The perimeter road, which was supposed to act as a dike and hold back the bays, had just been completed but the water poured over it turning most of the neighborhood into a giant bowl of water. As it turned out, the perimeter road was a foot-and-a-half lower than it was supposed to be because building crews had used elevation readings dating back four years when the road project had been originally approved. During Delia my friends and I paddled around the neighborhood in canoes shooting snakes with our pellet guns. My dad had mounted a basketball backboard onto a telephone pole and planted it beside our driveway. The floodwaters lifted it out of the ground and carried it off three blocks south.

After Delia the neighborhood tumbled downward in a hurry. When you live in a place it's hard to see some of the gradual changes but when we looked at the pictures in our family album and saw how many trees had died around us and when you watched your friends move off and see a series of strangers occupy their houses it was pretty stark. In the 13-plus years we lived there Brownwood went from being a friendly and pretty neighborhood to being a rough and dangerous place with houses sitting in the bays.

[BabyJaneHudson]

I got lost in this thread, so interesting. There is a great link with lots of pics of Brownwood before and after.

Get comfortable and get a drink and snack, here it is.

http://www.rice.edu/~lda/wet/index.htm

[TJones]

I got lost in this thread, so interesting. There is a great link with lots of pics of Brownwood before and after.

Get comfortable and get a drink and snack, here it is.

http://www.rice.edu/~lda/wet/index.htm

That was ............well, just AWESOME !!! I saw our old house on Bayshore Dr. but only in the aerial views and it was really just a speck.

The Kirkpatrick "mansion" mentioned in the documentary, belonged to one of my Dad's bestfriends growing up, Dr. Jesse Kirkpatrick, who still practices and is still my dentist in Baytown. I remember him being very upset over the house burning down, it kinda gave a finallity to him, that the house he grew up in was nevermore. I remember him saying , "All the floods couldn't kill it, but it didn't have a chance against the fire. He said by the time the fire dept. had gotten there it was already in embers.

Ok, this attachment here shows the approximate location of 206 Bayshore (the red circled area), just a couple of houses down from the Kirkpatrick "mansion". I put it in quotes, because it wasn't really a mansion per se.

Edited March 21, 2008 by TJones

[Lone Star Rooster]

Did subsidence cause a lot of damage in the adjacent Lakewood subdivision? I've been through that neighborhood a couple of times, and it looks to be in pretty good shape--in fact, there are still some very nice bayfront houses in that area.

[Retama]

Did subsidence cause a lot of damage in the adjacent Lakewood subdivision?

There are some homes on the southern end of South Burnet Dr. that flood easily under the right circumstances. Also, the homes on Rue Orleans nearby (which was developed in the early 1970s) would flood except that they must be built on stilts on on a mound. Otherwise, Lakewood is in pretty good shape.

TJones I must confess that my buddies and I snuck into the Kirkpatrick House (also known as the Worster House to some) a couple of times back when you could still access it by tippy-toeing around the edges of the water and making a tightrope walk over the debris. It was a grand home back in its day, a three-story structure with a huge room on the third that had a gigantic picture window that looked out over the bay and straight across to the San Jacinto Monument. I remember than a group of hippies lived there in the late 1960s and accessed the place via a row boat!

Edited March 21, 2008 by Retama

[TJones]

Retama is right, Lakewood is in pretty good shape. There has been LOTS of "settling" throughout though, and I would wager that just about EVERY house in there has a $5000 to $10000 foundation repair on it. The only 2 major things I ever witnessed in Lakewood, were the 2 houses that got BLOWN UP ! That's right, BLOWN UP !!! The house across the street form my grandparents house on Lakewood Dr. was owned by a very rich and influential Israeli gentleman, which his address is actually on S.Burnet Dr., but anyways, the house was bombed by the PLO,(no B.S.) the friggin' PLO. The second house was accidentally BLOWN UP by Exxon, when one of their pipes ruptured under a house on N.Burnet Dr. Retama, you have to remember that ?!? I can't remember clearly all the details, but either nobody was home at the time because it happened in the middle of the day or there actually was someone home in the opposite side of the house from the laundry room where the explosion took place and burned down the rest of the house.

There was the other time when my Grandmother ran her Buick into a neighbors garage after being runoff the road by a teenager and basically BLEW UP their detached garage.

Edited March 21, 2008 by TJones

[Retama]

Now, I remember the Lakewood house that blew up in the pipeline accident (no one was home at the time) but I don't recall any bombing incidents. When did that happen?

Many owners in Lakewood, particularly on Burnet Drive along the bay, are tearing down the old houses and building newer and bigger homes. I was just down there yesterday and was surprised at the amout of rebuilding going on

I have always liked Lakewood and if I ever moved back to Baytown, I would move there.

TJones, there was a stone state historic marker between two houses on Burnet Drive that marked the spot where David G. Burnet's home used to be but I don't think it is there anymore. Do you know anything about it? Also, about Brownwood. Did you ever trek down to the cemetary just off the corner where Bayshore and Mapleton met?

[GREASER]

The cemetary is/was at the end of Mapleton. I think some/most is under water now.

Edited March 22, 2008 by GREASER

[TJones]

Now, I remember the Lakewood house that blew up in the pipeline accident (no one was home at the time) but I don't recall any bombing incidents. When did that happen?

Many owners in Lakewood, particularly on Burnet Drive along the bay, are tearing down the old houses and building newer and bigger homes. I was just down there yesterday and was surprised at the amout of rebuilding going on

I have always liked Lakewood and if I ever moved back to Baytown, I would move there.

TJones, there was a stone state historic marker between two houses on Burnet Drive that marked the spot where David G. Burnet's home used to be but I don't think it is there anymore. Do you know anything about it? Also, about Brownwood. Did you ever trek down to the cemetary just off the corner where Bayshore and Mapleton met?

http://www.tinypic.com/view/?pic=ht5q36

This is 306 Lakewood Dr. at the corner of S.Burnet and Lakewood. Retama, if you stand directly in front of this house and turn around to face Burnet Bay, then look just a smidge left, THAT is the house that got Bombed. It must have been 1982 to 1984, I know for a fact that this happened because I saw the rubble, and the Feds actually came to my Grandmother's house to interview her about what she might have seen. The house was later rebuilt and sold immediately.

Lakewood is still a good place to buy and build, some real deals to be had. I sold the Lakewood house in 1995 for well over $200k, I was lucky, the property value is only a little over $90k now. We are talking a 3200 sq ft. home for pennies on the dollar. I know my old house has never flooded, if is VERY elevated, and I can't recall even in bayfront homes getting any water excpet maybe those Retama mentioned at the end of S.Burnet adn a couple others back towards Brownwood sub.

Historical marker is a bit hazy to me, I will ask a couple of people about it.

Edited March 22, 2008 by TJones

[sevfiv]

It's interesting to see the differences using the historic aerials site:

latest Google image:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source...mp;t=h&z=14

1957 image:

http://www.historicaerials.com/?poi=3756

[cosmic08]

I got lost in this thread, so interesting. There is a great link with lots of pics of Brownwood before and after.

Get comfortable and get a drink and snack, here it is.

http://www.rice.edu/~lda/wet/index.htm

WOW - thanks for the link!! VERY interesting...I had no idea this place existed!

[margokorin]

Very interesting indeed. I drive thru Baytown almost every day. What exit would I take to get to this area?

[TJones]

Very interesting indeed. I drive thru Baytown almost every day. What exit would I take to get to this area?

You would take I-10 take the Decker Dr. exit to Bayway Dr. take a right on Bayway Dr. and go about 2 miles or so, you will go past Baytown Jr. High, then go past lakewood Subdivision, then a big church and keep driving and then look to the right just before you make the big bend, you will see the Wildlife Sanctuary on the right.

[margokorin]

Thanks! Ill go out there this week and take some pics.

[NenaE]

It's interesting to see the differences using the historic aerials site:

latest Google image:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source...mp;t=h&z=14

1957 image:

http://www.historicaerials.com/?poi=3756

Saw that web documentary a few years ago, the pics of subsidence are really sad. Some geological areas are just not meant for human habitation. What a vulnerable area. The historic aerial "comparison" maps are really amazing.

[FIREhat]

I wonder if the marker you are thinking of between the two houses is getting mixed up with something else. President Burnet's wife is actually buried between two driveways under some bushes, IIRC. That's the marker I am thinking of between two houses in Lakewood. I don't know of another Burnet-related marker there. Maybe I am mixed up, it's been awhile since I saw it but I am pretty sure it's a grave and not just a historical marker.

I'm surprised to hear of this bombing, I'm going to dig into this a little deeper and see what I can come up with. Does anyone have a better date? I work for the Baytown FD and we still have quite a few guys who were around in the early '80s.

[Cemeterywolf]

Back in the 1980's we would walk the beach at the end of Crow Rd. hunting arrowheads. The Wooster Cemetery used to be located here also, lost to nature.

There was coffen handles on the beach and you could see the remains of a crypt in the water.

Edited January 17, 2009 by Cemeterywolf

[NenaE]

Back in the 1980's we would walk the beach at the end of Crow Rd. hunting arrowheads. The Wooster Cemetery used to be located here also, lost to nature.

There was coffen handles on the beach and you could see the remains of a crypt in the water.

When I was a kid we went exploring "bird island" (what my dad called it) in the kemah bay area, & I recall seeing a black cross, marker or something very similar to what you are describing there, as well. Being a kid, I just got really spooked by it. That would have been in the late 60's, early 70's. That little island is probably gone now. I never heard of Brownwood, growing up.

[TJones]

I wonder if the marker you are thinking of between the two houses is getting mixed up with something else. President Burnet's wife is actually buried between two driveways under some bushes, IIRC. That's the marker I am thinking of between two houses in Lakewood. I don't know of another Burnet-related marker there. Maybe I am mixed up, it's been awhile since I saw it but I am pretty sure it's a grave and not just a historical marker.

I'm surprised to hear of this bombing, I'm going to dig into this a little deeper and see what I can come up with. Does anyone have a better date? I work for the Baytown FD and we still have quite a few guys who were around in the early '80s.

The address should be 413 S.Burnet Dr. Bombed and burned in either '81 or '82. I did a google map to confirm the address. My old house is 306 Lakewood Dr. but the Google map street view is trying to show it as 414 S.Burnet. So, go figure. Just type in my 306 Lakewood address, you will see a mocha colored 2 story, then do a 180* with the street view map and you will see a long driveway with a white mailbox, that is the house that got torched.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

Edited January 17, 2009 by TJones

[Retama]

Back in the 1980's we would walk the beach at the end of Crow Rd. hunting arrowheads. The Wooster Cemetery used to be located here also, lost to nature.

There was coffen handles on the beach and you could see the remains of a crypt in the water.

Cemeterywolf, yes, growing up in Brownwood, I used to ride my bike out there when there was still a beach and there were lots of arrowheads. I can also recall an old wooden boat that had been washed up on that beach as well. You might recall the old fenced portion of the cemetery but there were a number of graves outside the fence that were unmarked and lost. I remember they found one flat, grounded gravestone when they cut the grass out there. Further on up that road, up on the shore of the bay was an old homestead that pre-dated the Woosters. There were some old timers who told me about playing in the ruins of the place.

The Browns, who owned that area years ago, used to drive their cattle across the river from where Deer Park used to be (think of the Shell refinery off highway 225) to Brownwood prior to the development of the ship channel.

FIREhat: That marker between the houses in Lakewood markes the spot where David G. Burnet's house stood. The name he gave to his land was Oakland.

[Lone Star Rooster]

Wow...those Historic Aerial images really paint a vivid picture of what happened in the Brownwood area. Also, check out the "slide" (split-screen) feature between 1957 and 1981. Amazing.