Isaac Conroe:
Enterprising Pioneer Who
Put Our Town on the Map
Robin Montgomery

The Courier
May 20. 2009

In the years following the Civil War, Montgomery County, a timber industry was born.

At first, things were slow due to a lack of adequate transportation. However, in the 1870s, railroads made a appearance. In the east, leading to the birth of such towns as Splendora and New Caney, it was the Houston East and West line, HEWT. Meanwhile, through the middle of the county ran the International and Great Northern, I-GN, rail system. Seeing opportunities here for the timber industry was an intelligent , energetic young man named Isaac Conroe.

The key factor rendering Isaac Conroe's impact on our county's history unusual is that during the Civil War, he fought under the banner of the Union. While born in Long Branch, N.J. in 1835, the outbreak of the great national war found him working in the postal service in Chicago. There, he enlisted with the Twelfth Illinois Calvary, eventually rising to the rank of captain. After the war, he was mustered out at Houston, giving him a taste of opportunities in our area.

With visions of Texas on his mind, Isaac returned to the north long enough to marry Margaret Richardson. Returning to Texas, the couple settled in Harris County of Cedar Bayou. Isaac was involved in the wood and freighting business. On an occasion that he was hauling timber to a lumber yard, the proprietor's checker was not on duty, Isaac assumed the initiative to handle the job himself. So proficient was he that the proprietor offered him the position. He accepted and eventually rose to partner and later to sole ownership of the business.

It was from this base the Isaac Conroe set his vision to the north in Montgomery County, establishing in 1881 a sawmill on Stewart's Creek two miles east of the International and Great Northern line. A small tram line connected his mill to the I-GN track. Aware of opportunity, Isaac soon transferred his base of operations down this tram line to the rail junction with the I-GN track itself. In January 1884, established at his new mill commissary was a post office with Isaac serving as post master. Impressed with Isaac, a key official of the I-GN line, H. M. Hoxey, named the budding community around the post office Conroe's Switch.

Even as Isaac Conroe was capitalizing on his opportunities surrounding the I-GN line, another key railroad was making its way from the northwest to run through Grimes County and into Montgomery County. By the middle 1880s, this line, the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe, had reached Conroe's Switch forming, with the north to south I-GN, the only junction of major rail lines in the county.

Even as the two rail lines were in the process of intersecting, Willis was challenging the town of Montgomery fro the location of the county seat. In 1889, the issue was settled in favor of a third town. Having dropped the "Switch" from the name Conroe's Switch", Isaac Conroe's legacy had taken flight. The resulting new town of Conroe began its reign as the county seat.