I discovered what looked like the remains of an abandoned town on google maps last week and had decided that I’d drive out towards Baytown and check it out. What I found turned out to be what must be the creepiest park in Texas.
As it turns out, the area has a really funky history. It started out in 1891 as unincorporated community in Harris County called Wooster, Texas. It was hit hard by the 1900 Galveston hurricane and by the time World War II rolled around, Wooster had become an internment camp for captured German prisoners of war.
After the war, the Wooster internment camp became the Brownwood subdivision. In the 1940s and 1950s, it was a highly desirable residential neighborhood with almost 400 large homes. It was nicknamed “The River Oaks of Baytown” and was home to many well-to-do engineers and oil executives.
In 1961, Hurricane Carla devastated Brownwood and subsidence became a serious problem. Industrial and municipal water users pumped out aquifer groundwater faster than nature could replenish it. Additionally, industry pumped out massive quantities of oil, natural gas and sand. The sustained attack on the environment lead to Brownwood sinking between 10 and 15 feet into the San Jacinto Bay:
In 1983, extensive damage from Hurricane Alicia finally led to Brownwood’s total abandonment. By 1990, the steadily encroaching waters had submerged many Brownwood streets:
In 1991, the residents of Baytown took a small step towards doing something about Brownwood by voting to approve $300,000 in bonds to deal with the sinking ghost town. Eventually in 1997, Brownwood was declared a Superfund site due to the “legal”, but ethically dubious toxic dumping activities of various local oil companies.
Nowadays, the ex-environmental disaster area / ex-Nazi internment camp / ex-exclusive neighborhood / ex-toxic dump is now a place where people can bring their kids to play and fish.
However, Superfund money and playground equipment can’t seem to erase the fact that this place is actually a ghost-town with a sordid past as a dump:
Walking the abandoned streets of Brownwood was evocative. This is such an interesting area. In this place, children grew up; they enjoyed things like Christmas mornings, riding bikes and playing house. In this place, people fell in love, fought and dreamed. In this place, engineers and oil-executives unwittingly designed the destruction of their own homes. In this place, Nazis were held in captivity, people died in natural disasters and the land became toxic.
Best FaceBook comment: “I went to high school in Deer Park, then went off to college, but in th emiddle of those yrs actually went to Lee College in Baytown for a sememster. I dated a girl that lived out there in Brownwood, actually if I remember correctly, on Crow Rd. That was in 1973, if I recall. Those pictures really are frightening. Her family had this gorgeous ranch style rambler, and they were a happy family. Too bad that area has disappeared. I haven’t been back down there since probably 1975, so I had no idea it had changed so much. So sad……so sad.”
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