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.”
Tags: ghost towns nature Photography
Interesting!
I really enjoyed reading the area's history along with your observations and comments, as well as seeing the pictures.
I hope to visit this odd park this summer with Ateng. Hopefully the National Visa Center will come through for us by then!
Interesting, in the last picture you can see the Fred Hartman bridge off in the distance.
This sort of reminds me of that History Channel series on "life after people."
I lived on Bayshore Drive when I was a kid growing up in Baytown. It was a big old house near the end of the road close to the old Wooster family cemetery long ago relocated due to subsidence by 1968. I remember the house was "L" shaped with a large open room above the garage with pull out twin beds in drawers lining the walls. There were windows on all four sides. The home was built in the late 30's and can be seen in aerial photos of the area on Google Earth in 1944. The room made for better sleeping before air conditioning in the summer months, a story above ground where the bay breezes could flow through the room. I visited the park a couple of years ago, there were healthy oyster beds in the tidal shallows near the end of the road where I used to play. There were no healthy oyster beds there in 1968.
You are describing 203 Bayshore Drive. My family lived there from 1954 to 1961 and we were the ones who put that addition onto the house above the garage to help accommodate 8 kids. We would slide the beds into the wall and then roller skate in the room. I remember going back to look at the house after a hurricane finally destroyed it. The house went from being an L-shaped home to V-shaped.
We also had a barn on Maplewood for our horses where my mom taught kids horseback riding. The first barn was destroyed by Hurricane Carla and we built a new one. The second barn eventually fell into the bay due to the land subsidence.
I understand we polluted the land, we know that now and have been working on trying to make things better for some time and based on the oyster beds it looks like we have had some effect for the better…..that makes me happy.
The oil we pumped out of the ground allowed America to grow….allowed us to defeat tyranny and genocide in WW II. Certainly we can talk of the terrible side effects of our misuse and abuse of oil but there was great good that came form it also.
I just cannot beat the horse I rode to the dance……the dance was great.
Hello.
I live in Baytown born & raised. I never heard of this story until now I’ve read your article and I wanted to let you know that it’s no longer a park on both ends to get into that park is blocked off with fences and signs saying “No Trespassing” and “No Fishing beyond this Point”. Now days people don’t even know what used to be what. The only way you can find out is talking to people who know stories back in the day. I would like to know more stories about the town I live in but I haven’t found much.
There is a pay to enter booth on bayway
Hi I am living now in wooster just off bayway and pass by this park daily . I find the whole story very compelling . All around us houses are being bought by Exon and plowed under there are streets behind us that used to be neighborhoods there are signs of stores and market and old buildings on the bay that exon has walled off I have been here only 4 years now but I have to tell you it is a strange area there used to be a drive in movie at bayway and I46 some remaines still there I knew it was a drive in LOL.
HELLO IM KENDALL SAUSLEY, I GREW UP IN BROWNWOOD AT 202 BAYSHORE DR. NEXT DOOR
TO LOUIS HUNSUCKER WHICH WAS AN HUMBLE OIL BIG WIG. HE ORIGINALLY SURVEYED AND DEVELOPED BROWNWOOD SUBDIVISION OF COURSE KEEPING THE PROPERTY WITH THE HIGH EST ELEVATION FOR HIMSELF. MY PARENTS, LEE & JOANN SAUSLEY WERE THE ONLY COUPLE
EVER TO BE MADE HONORARY MEMBERS OF THE HUMBLE BOAT CLUB, AN EXCLUSIVE GROUP OF HUMBLE EMPLOYEES. THEIR LIFES ALL SEEMED TO REVOLVE AROUND ACT- IVITIES RELATED TO THE WATER IN SOME WAY, BOATING, FISHING, HUNTING, WEEKEND & VACATION ECURISIONS ALL TAKEN BY BOAT UP AND DOWN THE SAN JACINTO RIVER, HOUSTON SHIPCHANNEL AND THE INTERCOASTAL WATER WAYS ALL THE WAY TO FLORIDA. BECAUSE OF THIS ASSOCIATION MY PARENTS WERE THE FIRST FAMILY INTRO- DUCED
HELLO IM KENDALL SAUSLEY, I GREW UP IN BROWNWOOD AT 202 BAYSHORE DR. NEXT DOOR
TO LOUIS HUNSUCKER WHICH WAS AN HUMBLE OIL BIG WIG. HE ORIGINALLY SURVEYED AND DEVELOPED BROWNWOOD SUBDIVISION OF COURSE KEEPING THE PROPERTY WITH THE HIGH EST ELEVATION FOR HIMSELF. MY PARENTS, LEE & JOANN SAUSLEY WERE THE ONLY COUPLE
EVER TO BE MADE HONORARY MEMBERS OF THE HUMBLE BOAT CLUB, AN EXCLUSIVE GROUP OF HUMBLE EMPLOYEES. THEIR LIFES ALL SEEMED TO REVOLVE AROUND ACT- IVITIES RELATED TO THE WATER IN SOME WAY, BOATING, FISHING, HUNTING, WEEKEND & VACATION ECURISIONS ALL TAKEN BY BOAT UP AND DOWN THE SAN JACINTO RIVER, HOUSTON SHIPCHANNEL AND THE INTERCOASTAL WATER WAYS ALL THE WAY TO FLORIDA. BECAUSE OF THIS ASSOCIATION MY PARENTS WERE THE FIRST NON- HUMBLE FAMILY LIVING IN BROWNWOOD. THEY WERE OFFERED THE FRED W. ABBY HOME AFTER HIS DEATH IN 1963. 202 BAYSHORE DR. BECAME OUR HOME FOR 20 YRS. TILL ALICIA IN 1983. W.H.REBER LIVED ON KATHERINE ST. HE WAS MY BOY SCOUT MASTER AND ALSO THE SON OF R.H.REBER PRESIDENT & CEO OF HUMBLE OIL & REFINARY CO. MANY A WEEKEND
WAS SPENT AT CAMP REBER OUT ON DECKER DR. THAT WAS THE PROPERTY NORTH OF THE REFINARY, WHERE BAYTOWN’S WHITE HOUSE WAS LOCATED, THE HUMBLE OIL OFFICES..
SOME OF MY FONDEST CHILDHOOD MEMORIES ARE FROM BROWNWOOD.MY GOOD FRIENDS DICKEY,JOEY & CINDY BREELAND FROM ACROSS THE STREET, DR. JESSIE KIRK-
PATRICK & HIS BROTHER WERE TWO OF THE WILDEST GUYS I’VE EVER MET, THEY WERE MUCH OLDER AND GREW UP ACROSS CRYSTAL BAY ON WEST BAYSHORE. JESSIE HAD AN
A.C.BRISTOL 1 OF ONLY 6 IN THE U.S. TWIN TO THE A.C.CROBRA’S, BOY IT WAS FAST. THEY
HAD A BEAUTIFUL 20′ CHRIST CRAFT SPEED BOAT AS WELL VERY FAST.JESSIE USE TO TAKE
THE BREELAND BOYS & MYSELF UP FLYING OUT OF THE AIRPORT IN LAPORTE. I WAS MUCH YOUNGER THAN THESE GUYS, I GUESS THEY REALLY LIKED ME, I WAS ALWAYS IN- CLUDED. LOST MY VIRGINITY TO ONE OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD GIRLS AT 14 AT THE WOOSTER CEMETARY AT THE END OF MY STREET. BEDDED MY FIRST CAJUN GIRL AT THE DECKER DRIVE IN, SHE MOVED INTO THE NEIGHBORHOOD MY FRESHMAN YEAR. AND THE MEMORIES GO ON AND ON. IM REALLY SADDENED BY BROWNWOODS OUTCOME