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Texas:
Sam Houston left Virginia in 1806, at age 13, when mother and family moved to Tennessee. By 1832, Houston was becoming embroiled in the polital scene in Northern Mexico. In 1835, he was made Major General of the army in revolt.
Shortly after, they passed through our area -- the Texan army crossed the Brazos in April, 1836, heading for the monumental battle with Santa Anna at San Jacinto. Along the way, they camped near the gigantic "Old Sam Houston Oak," on Cypress Creek, close to where Compaq's headquarters are today.
In 1839, Harris County was named and its boundaries set to their present configuration. The new Republic of Texas attracted a rush of settlers, hungry to snatch up the suddenly available public lands. Anyone living in Texas on the day of independence -- except Africans and Indians -- were entitled to a grant of land. Three of these "leagues" were along Cypress Creek, covering the land from present I-45 to Cutten Road, and from FM 1960 north to Louetta. Today's roads still correspond to many of the old survey boundary lines.
Klein:
After statehood in 1845, farmers and merchants began to arrive to carve out new communities. German settlers, with their hardy and honest work ethic, gave the area its special characteristics.
Their names are still familiar today: the five Strack brothers came from an area near the Rhine; Adam Klein and his bride, Friederika Klenk, came from Wurtenberg; Carl Wunsche came from Saxony in central Germany. They put down roots and overcame adversity with faith and ingenuity, despite the constant threat of yellow fever.
A farming community called 'Big Cypress' was already established along the banks of Cypress Creek by 1845. The settlement was later named for Adam Klein who left Germany in 1849 to join the California gold rush before moving here in 1854. Klein Post Office was established September 8th.1884, and the first postmaster, William Blackshear, operated the postal facility in his general store until it was replaced by Rural Free Delivery in 1906.
Farmers of the area raised cotton, potatoes and corn, and marketed their produce in Houston, a two-day trip by wagon. Center of community life was Trinity Lutheran Church, organized in 1854 by the Bernshauser, Benfer, Brill, Kaiser, Klein, Lemm, Theiss, and Wunderlich families. The Klenk and Strack families joined soon after the charter was signed.
It was the railroads, however, that revolutionized the north Harris County area. Jay Gould's International and Great Northern Railroad turned the sleepy little community of Spring into a boom town, complete with saloons, hotels and even an opera house. The Wunsche Bros. Saloon and Hotel is now a tourist attraction known as the Spring Cafe. In 1932, there was lots of excitement when the infamous pair, Bonnie and Clyde, pulled off a successful bank robbery! Today, Olde Town spring is one of the area's busiest tourist attractions, featuring antique and craft shops. The area is especially popular during their annual events -- Home For The Holidays, the Heritage and Crawfish festivals.
Following Humble Oil's gusher at Moonshine Hill in 1904, wildcatters drilled a flurry of wells across north Harris County. Just south of Cypress, they hit a hot, free-flowing artesian well that soon became a tourist attraction, bringing visitors to the Houston Hot Well Sanitarium and Hotel to seek the medicinal benefits of bathing in the mineral baths.
Tomball was named for Thomas H. Ball, a prominent attorney and congressman from Houston. Ball was credited with bringing the railroad through the area, but his greatest accomplishment was the transformation of Buffalo Bayou into the Ship Channel in 1914.
Following the opening of Houston Intercontinental Airport and improvements to the highway system, the lightly forested areas around Klein became increasingly accessible. The demand for a less urban living environment and development of the Champions golf course subdivision in the 1960s, attracted an increasingly affluent population. Houston's growth generated strong housing demand for some of the area's earliest custom home subdivisions - Champions, Greenwood Forest, Huntwick and Ponderosa Forest.
With the local population boom came a robust increase in demand for retail stores and services. Most of the new commercial development occurred along FM 1960, particularly near the main cross streets. Development of the Willowbrook Mall added to an already strong commercial focus in the area. Extensive office, retail and apartment development occurred during the 1980s, and numerous affordable subdivisions were added in non-forested portions of the area to create the diverse and vibrant community we know today.
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