More on the Town of Porter Texas
PORTER, TEXAS. Porter
(Porters) is on the Southern Pacific line at the intersection of State Highway
494 and Farm Road 1314 in southeastern Montgomery County. It was founded in the
late 1800s and was the county seat from 1896 to 1915. A post office operated
there from 1892 through the 1930s. By 1914 the population of Porters was 150,
and the town had two general stores, a lumber company, and a livestock breeder.
Porter by 1940 had four businesses and a population estimated at 100, rising to
150 by the early 1940s. In the 1960s the town was apparently brought into the
suburban orbit of Houston. By 1965 the Porter schools had been incorporated into
the New Caney Independent School District. The town reported more than 100
businesses by 1989. From 1970 to 1990 the town's population was listed as 2,146.
Porter's most famous resident has probably been Robert L. Crippen, United States
Navy, who was born in Beaumont but grew up in Porter. Crippen became a National
Aeronautics and Space Administration astronaut in 1969 and was pilot for the
space shuttle Columbia in 1981.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Montgomery
County Genealogical Society, Montgomery County History (Winston-Salem,
North Carolina: Hunter, 1981).
Rebecca L. Borjas
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