BRAZORIA COUNTY.
Brazoria County (G-18), on the prairie of the Gulf Coast at the
mouth of the Brazos River in Southeast Texas, is bordered by
Matagorda, Fort Bend, Harris, and Galveston counties. It covers an
area of 1,407 square miles. Its highest altitude, Damon Mound, is
146 feet above sea level. The center of the county lies at
approximately 29°10' north latitude and 95°26' west longitude, near
the county seat, Angleton. Other principal towns include Alvin,
Amsterdam, Brazoria, Damon, Pearland, Rosharon, West Columbia,
Holiday Lake, Old Ocean, Bailey's Prairie, Iowa Colony, Bonney,
Hillcrest Village, Brookside Village, Danbury, Liverpool, Manvel,
and Sweeny; the towns that constitute Brazosport include Clute,
Freeport, Quintana, Oyster Creek, Jones Creek, Lake Jackson,
Richwood, and Surfside Beach. Key county roads include State
highways 6, 35, 36, and 288, and railroad service is provided by the
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe and Southern Pacific railroads. The
annual rainfall is fifty-two inches, and the mean annual temperature
is 69° F. Hurricanesqv and floods are common in the
region, among the most notable being the hurricanes of 1854, 1900,
1909, 1915, 1932, 1941, Hurricane Carla in 1961, and the floods of
1899, 1913, 1915, 1929, and 1940. Soils in the county are chiefly
alluvial loams and clays, and are highly productive when well
drained. The growing season averages 309 days a year. In 1982,
between 61 and 70 percent of the land was considered prime farmland.
The principal streams flowing through Brazoria County into the Gulf
of Mexico include the Brazos and San Bernard rivers, Oyster Creek,
Bastrop Bayou, and Chocolate Bayou. The Gulf Intracoastal Waterwayqv
crosses Brazoria County near the coast. The Brazos River divides the
county into two sections; the western one-third is covered by
hardwoods, and the rest is generally prairieland. Abundant groves of
pin oak, cedar, live oak, mulberry, hackberry, ash, elm, cottonwood,
and pecan trees grow in the river and creek bottoms, while
cordgrasses, bunchgrasses, and sedges predominate in the coastal
marshes. When settlers first arrived, wildlife was abundant,
including deer, bear, turkey, and fish. Two major national wildlife
refuges, the Brazoria and San Bernard, are close to the Gulf Coast
in Brazoria County. In 1947 the county ranked fourth in state timber
production. More recently, the petrochemical industry and mineral
resources including oil, gas, sulfur, salt, lime, sand, and gravel,
concentrated in the Damon Mound-West Columbia-Freeport area, have
dominated the county economy. Magnesium is also extracted locally
from seawater.
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