Crabb, Texas
Crabb is a small unincorporated community in Fort Bend County, Texas, United States. Crabb is located along Farm to Market Road 762 and the BNSF Railroad southeast of Richmond, Texas. The Crabb road sign is located west of the intersection of Crabb River Road and Farm to Market Road 2759 and FM 762. The Zion Hill Baptist Church, a Fort Bend County Road and Bridge facility, the Brazos Village and Brazos Gardens subdivisions, several businesses and an abandoned grain elevator are in the area.
Crabb, Texas | |
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Unincorporated community | |
Crabb road sign on FM 762 looking west with disused grain elevator on left and businesses on the right | |
Crabb Crabb | |
Coordinates: 29°32′18″N 95°42′36″W | |
Country | United States |
State | Texas |
County | Fort Bend |
Elevation | 85 ft (26 m) |
Time zone | UTC-6 (Central (CST)) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-5 (CDT) |
ZIP code | 77469 |
Area code(s) | 281 |
History
Old Three Hundred colonists Abner and Joseph Kuykendall were granted ownership of the land around Crabb. Joseph died sometime in the 1870s and his widow Eliza Jane married John C. Crabb. When the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway laid track through the area in 1879, it bought the land from Eliza Jane Crabb. Hence the community was named Crabb or Crabb Switch. In 1894 the settlement was served by a post office. By 1896 there were 400 people living in the community, which had a cotton gin, a school, two doctors, two orchards, and a Methodist church. A separate school for black children opened the following year. The post office was closed in 1900. The population shrank in size until it fell to 100 in 1933. Three years later there were two churches, one business, and a few houses in Crabb. The number of inhabitants shrank to 50 in 1953 and to 40 from the 1960s to the 1980s. In the late 1980s the population increased to 125 and remained steady through 2000.[1]
The town was made notable when an 11-year-old named Brian Zimmerman won an unofficial election for mayor in 1983. He worked to incorporate the small town, which had a population of under 200 when he was elected. This threatened his mayorship because of Texas state law prohibiting minors from serving as mayor.[2][3] His story was made into a movie called Lone Star Kid.[4] While his bid lost, he was reelected mayor again after the referendum.
Education
Crabb is zoned to schools in the Lamar Consolidated Independent School District.
Zoned schools include:[5]
- Williams Elementary School (North of FM 762)
- Navarro Middle School
- George Ranch High School
- B.F. Terry High School
Gallery
- Looking south to FM 762 on Payne Lane
- Horse in a field near Payne Lane
- View east at Brazos Village subdivision
- View northwest at FM 762 and Crabb River Rd
- Photo of 1913 flood at Crabb Switch
Notes
- Hardin, Stephen L. "The Handbook of Texas Online: CRABB". Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved 22 October 2012.
- "Boy mayor may lose if he wins campaign," The New York Times. August 10, 1985. Retrieved 5/16/08.
- "People", Time magazine. Retrieved 5/16/08.
- "Lone Star Kid", IMDB.com. Retrieved 5/16/08.
- "Map of LCISD." Lamar Consolidated Independent School District.
References
- Hardin, Stephen L. "The Handbook of Texas Online: CRABB". Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved 22 October 2012.
- Wharton, Clarence (1939). Wharton's History of Fort Bend County. San Antonio: Naylor.
- U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Crabb, Texas