Rosenberg, Texas

AT A GLANCE ROSENBERG, TEXAS WHAT: A city of 40,500 WHERE: On the Brazos River in southeastern Texas WEBSITE: www.rosenbergtx.gov R osenberg, Texas, once affectionately known as “Mudtown,” due to the dirt streets and regular flooding of the Brazos River, which borders the town to the north, was first settled around 1823 in an area of land that Mexico granted to the original 300 families, known as the Old 300, who settled the territory under the auspices of Stephen F. Austin. The town was subsequently named after Henry Rosenberg, who migrated from Switzerland to Galveston, Texas in 1843, and was the first president of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway. Rosenberg began as a shipping point on the Brazos River, and reached a boom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the railroads developed. It incorporated as a city in 1883, and, by that time, local land developers were sending promotional literature to the northern and midwestern states, explaining that “the famous Brazos Valley has the most fertile land in America,” and showing pictures of green spaces, fruit orchards, wagons of cotton waiting to be ginned, and Victorian homes, all intended to entice more settlers to the area. Soon there were people of German, Czech, Polish, and Mexican ancestry flocking to the area. There was even a section called “Indiana Town,” after the carpenters and craftsmen who came from Indiana with new construction techniques intended to withstand Quality growth