Welcome

Fort Bend County was organized in 1838 and named for a blockhouse built at a bend in the Brazos River in 1822. The county seat is Richmond, which is located almost in the center of the county and was named for a town in England in 1837. It's now a suburb of Houston, which has spilled out of its native Harris County.

As early as 1838, one of the main crops in Fort Bend was sugar cane grown at the Oakland Plantation. Colonel E. H. Cunningham bought the 12,500-acre plantation soon after the Civil War. He had a sugar-refining plant built there, and developed the town around it in 1879, platting the land and attracting settlers during the post-Reconstruction era. In 1908, The Kempner family of Galveston purchased the Cunningham plantation, combined it with their plantation (Ellis) and Sugar Land became the headquarters of the Imperial Sugar Company.

This page was originally created May 6, 1997. Since then we have had 5 coordinators. Lois Hardy Kennedy, Jul 2000-Aug 2003, Rosanna Urban Parra, Aug 2003-Aug 2007, Mary Ann Hetrick, Aug 2007-2019, Laura Gregory Roberts, 2019-2024 and her co-coordinator Bunny Freeman who passed away 12 Oct 2021.
We thank each of these ladies for their hard work and dedication.

Resources

On-Site

Cemeteries History Land Records Local Information Lookups Military Records Surrounding Counties

Off-Site

Fort Bend Archives Other TXGenWeb Counties Portal to Texas History Query Board

Communities

(g) ghost town
(m) occupies multiple counties
Arcola
Beasley
Booth
Cinco Ranch (m)
Clodine
Crabb
Cumings
Duke (g)
Fairchilds
Fifth Street
Foster
Four Corners
Fresno
Fulshear
Greatwood
Guy
Houston (m)
Juliff
Katy (m)
Kendleton
Long Point
Meadows Place
Mission Bend (m)
Missouri City (m)
Needville
Orchard
Pearland (m)
Pecan Grove
Pittsville (g)
Pleak
Powell Point
Richmond
Riverstone
Rosenberg
Sienna
Simonton
Stafford (m)
Sugar Land
Tavener
Thompsons
Town West/Townwest
Weston Lakes