Brookshire

Brookshire is on U.S. Highway 90 and Interstate Highway 10 in southern Waller County thirty miles west of Houston. The town is named for Capt. Nathen Brookshire, who received title to a league of land as a member of Stephen F. Austin's fifth colony in 1835. Many skeptics thought that the area, which was surrounded by coastal prairies, was unfit for settlement. Detractors were surprised when?because of the rich alluvial soil of the Brazos riverbottom and the arrival of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad?Brookshire developed into a thriving agricultural community. The railroad and Brookshire's proximity to Houston made the town an ideal shipping point for crops such as cotton, melons, corn, and pecans. By 1893 a post office had been established at the community. With agriculture as its basis, the economy of Brookshire flourished. By 1897 the Brookshire Times noted that the town had some thirty businesses and had shipped 10,000 bales of cotton that year. Although cotton remained king in Brookshire in 1900, the crop's economic significance diminished over the next three decades because of falling cotton prices and the demand for farm labor in the lucrative war industries.