Panorama Village

Panorama Village is on Interstate Highway 45 five miles north of Conroe in central Montgomery County. Typical of the bedroom communities that have proliferated north of Houston in Montgomery County since the 1960s, Panorama Village originated in 1964, when the Bamwood Development Company purchased 660 acres of land on the headwaters of White Oak Creek west of newly constructed Interstate 45 and opened a golf course known as Panorama Golf Club. Sales of residential lots in the neighboring Panorama Village subdivision began in January 1965, and within five years 1,100 had been sold. In August 1966 the Panorama Village Municipal Utility District was established. A civic association was organized in 1969, and residents purchased the golf links. Nestled in a peaceful wooded environment only minutes by freeway from one of the nation's largest metropolitan areas, Panorama Village has attracted large numbers of Houstonians with moderate real estate prices and tax and insurance rates. Construction of Lake Conroe five miles west in the early 1970s enhanced the setting. In 1972 Panorama Village was incorporated with a population of 304. A police department was organized in 1976 and a volunteer fire department three years later. By 1975 the population had risen to an estimated 499, and it climbed to an estimated 1,186 by 1980. In the following decade, however, hampered by the energy-driven recession of the 1980s, growth rates slowed, and in 1990 the population was estimated at 1,556.