Sugar Land, Texas

Everything Sugar Land is known for

4 songs mention this city 5 artists from here

Sugar Land, Texas, a prominent city in Fort Bend County, is recognized for its master-planned communities and high quality of life. While not widely known as a music mecca, it has connections to the music world through artists and songs. Country music duo Maddie & Tae call Sugar Land home. The city is also mentioned in songs such as "The Midnight Special" by Creedence Clearwater Revival.

The city also participates in Make Music Day, a global celebration of music, offering free lessons and performances across various genres.

Music in Sugar Land

Songs About Sugar Land

Shorty George
Lead Belly
40%
"The Fort Bend bottom is a burning hell"
Houston Belongs To Me
Sunny Sweeney
25%
"My grandma lives down on Sugar Creek"
Sugarland
Sugarland
19%
"Down in Sugarland"
The Midnight Special
Creedence Clearwater Revival
12%
"Let the Midnight Special / Shine a light on me"

Artists From Sugar Land

M
Maddie & Tae
country Pop: 57
K
Katie Armiger
country Pop: 43
K
Keller Cox
country Pop: 17
B
Bryan Su
country Pop: 5
M
Morgan McKay
country Pop: 4

Rivers & Roads in Song near Sugar Land

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Sugar Land.

U.S. Route 59 7 songs Brazos River 37 songs US Route 90 8 songs Interstate 10 32 songs Interstate 45 7 songs Texas Colorado River 6 songs

Musical Heritage

Lead Belly and the Midnight Special RoadyGoat

Somewhere on the prison-farm ground that once spread across Sugar Land, one of America's most influential musicians watched the midnight train pass and turned it into a song. Blues and folk legend Huddie Lead Belly Ledbetter was imprisoned at the Imperial State Prison Farm here from 1918 until his pardon in 1925. The experience became woven into his enduring version of The Midnight Special, a traditional song about a train whose passing light came to represent freedom to prisoners, with his lyrics referring directly to being sent to Sugar Land. That song later traveled far beyond these fields, recorded by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Johnny Rivers, Little Richard, and many others. Lead Belly reportedly entertained inmates and guards alike with his twelve-string guitar. His Texas pardon came after he composed a song appealing to Governor Pat Neff, though historians caution that good behavior and having served his minimum sentence also weighed on the decision. The granulated white sugar may be the city's brand, but a prisoner's train song is one of its most lasting cultural exports. (Source: Smithsonian Folkways; Handbook of Texas.)

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History of Sugar Land

The Town the Refinery Built RoadyGoat

The polished suburb around you grew out of cane fields. This land was once associated with Oakland Plantation, where the Williams family raised cotton, corn, and sugarcane, and a commercial raw-sugar mill was already running in the area by the mid-1800s. After the Civil War, businessman Edward H. Cunningham assembled more than 12,000 acres and built a modern refinery. His $1.5 million Cunningham Refinery opened in 1896 and was hailed as state-of-the-art, earning him the nickname the Texas Sugar King. But bad loans, major floods, and the catastrophic 1900 Galveston hurricane pushed the business into receivership. In 1908, Isaac Kempner and William Eldridge acquired the refinery and the land around it and founded the Imperial Sugar Company. Sugar became so central to the place that the settlement simply took the name Sugar Land, and Imperial's crown logo became part of the city's identity. The lesson buried under all the master-planned subdivisions is that this town wasn't merely named for sugar. The refinery came first, and the town assembled itself around it. (Source: Handbook of Texas; Imperial Sugar Company history.)

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The Company Owned Almost Everything RoadyGoat

For about five decades, Sugar Land ran as a textbook company town. Imperial Sugar and its sister firm, Sugarland Industries, supplied the employee housing, streets, schools, churches, medical care, electricity, sewer lines, and even the flood-control canals. Sugarland Industries also controlled the stores, the bank, a cattle ranch, a cannery, and the mercantile. Residents could buy food, clothing, and even automobiles through deductions taken straight out of their company paychecks, and almost everyone in town worked for one of the two related businesses. It was a place where a single company could employ you, house you, treat you when you got sick, and sell you nearly everything you owned. That arrangement held until Sugar Land finally incorporated as an independent city in 1959, with a population of roughly 2,259. The new municipal government inherited much of the infrastructure Imperial had already built, so the first city of Sugar Land was, in a very real sense, just the company town handed over to its residents. (Source: Handbook of Texas; Imperial Sugar Company history.)

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The Eight-Story Machine That Whitened Sugar RoadyGoat

That tall brick Imperial Sugar Char House looming over Sugar Land was never really an office tower. It was a massive, gravity-powered filtration machine. Raw sugar was dissolved into an amber liquid full of minerals, salts, and other impurities. That liquid was pumped to tanks near the top of the eight-story building and then released downward through filters packed with bone char, cleaned animal bones heated and ground into a porous material. The trick is adsorption: color-producing molecules and impurities cling to the char's enormous internal surface area as the liquid trickles past. By the time the syrup emerged from the filters, it was reportedly nearly colorless and roughly 99.7 percent pure. The building's height was deliberate, letting gravity carry the liquid through stage after stage and cutting down on pumping. The char itself could be regenerated: workers washed away leftover sugar and reheated the material in kilns so it could be used again. The clarified syrup then went on to evaporation, crystallization, separation, and drying to become granulated sugar. The most recognizable building in town was essentially a vertical purification engine. (Source: Imperial Sugar Company; Texas Historical Commission.)

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Garcia, Macario

1944

Macario García, recipient of the Medal of Honor during World War II , was born on January 2, 1920, in Villa de Castaño, Mexico, to Luciano and Josefa García, farm workers who raised ten children. In 1923 the family moved to Texas; they eventually settled in Sugar Land. Like the rest of his brothers and sisters, he contributed to the family's support by picking crops. He was working on the Paul Schumann Ranch near Sugar Land when he was drafted into the army on November 11, 1942. García distinguished himself on the battlefield. He was wounded in action at Normandy in June 1944, but after his recovery he rejoined his unit, Company B, First Battalion, Twenty-second Infantry Regiment, Fourth Infantry Division. On November 27, 1944, near Grosshau, Germany, he singlehandedly assaulted two German machine-gun emplacements that were blocking his company's advance. Wounded in the shoulder and foot, he crawled forward alone towards the machine-gun nests, killed six enemy soldiers, captured four, and destroyed the nests with grenades. Only after the company had secured its position did García allow himself to be evacuated for medical treatment. He was awarded the Medal of Honor with twenty-seven other soldiers at a White House ceremony on August 23, 1945, by President Harry S. Truman. García also received the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, and the Combat Infantryman's Badge, as well as the medal of Mérito Militar, the Mexican equivalent to the Medal of Honor, during a ceremony in Mexico City on January 8, 1946. After three years of active service, one of which was overseas, García received an honorable discharge from the army with the rank of sergeant. He returned to Sugar Land and found that he had become a celebrity around the state. Newspapers published accounts of his heroism, and he was asked to appear at meetings and banquets. The League of United Latin American Citizens Council No. 60 in Houston, presided over by president Fernando Salas Aldaz and vice president John J. Herrera , honored him at a special ceremony at the courthouse. In September 1945, shortly after his return to Texas, García again attracted media attention when he was denied service at a restaurant in Richmond, a few miles south of Houston, because he was Hispanic. Outraged that he was treated like a second-class citizen after having risked his life for his country, García fought with the owner until police were called in. He was arrested and charged in the incident. His case immediately became a cause célèbre, symbolizing not only the plight of Hispanic soldiers who returned from the war, but the plight of the Hispanic community as a whole. Numerous groups and private citizens rallied to his aid. LULAC Council No. 60 and the Comité Patriótico Mexicano sponsored benefits in his honor to raise money to pay for his defense. Garcia’s legal defense was headed first by John J. Herrera and later, James V. Allred. During 1945–46, the case was repeatedly postponed, until all charges were finally dropped. On June 25, 1947, García became an American citizen. He earned a high school diploma in 1951, and married Alicia Reyes on May 18, 1952. They raised three children. Like other GIs who returned from the war, García encountered many difficulties in finding employment. He eventually found a job as a counselor in the Veterans' Administration, and remained with the VA for the next twenty-five years. In 1970 García and his family moved to Alief. He died on December 24, 1972, in a car crash and was buried in the National Cemetery in Houston. At the graveside ceremonies an honor guard from Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio performed the military rites. In 1981 the Houston City Council officially changed the name of Sixty-ninth Street to Macario García Drive. This 1½ mile thoroughfare runs through the heart of the city's east-side Mexican-American community. In 1983 Vice President George Bush dedicated Houston's new Macario García Army Reserve Center, and in 1994 a Sugar Land middle s

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Imperial Sugar Company

1843

The Imperial Sugar Company, which refines raw cane sugar at its huge plant at Sugar Land, is the oldest extant business in Texas. It has operated continuously on the same site, making the same products-refined cane sugar and a byproduct, blackstrap molasses-since 1843, before Fort Bend County was established. In the 1840s Nathaniel F. Williams developed Oakland Plantation and grew cotton, corn, and sugarcane. He sold the land to Benjamin F. Terry and William J. Kyle about 1852. Sometime after the Civil War most of the land was acquired by E. H. Cunningham, who built a large sugar refinery on the property around 1879. In 1906 the Kempner family of Galveston, under the leadership of Isaac H. Kempner and in partnership with William T. Eldridge , purchased the 5,300-acre Ellis Plantation, one of the few Fort Bend County plantations to survive the Civil War. The Ellis Plantation had originally been part of the Jesse Cartwright league and in the years after the Civil War had been operated by a system of tenant farming under the management of Will Ellis. In 1908 the partnership acquired the adjoining 12,500-acre Cunningham Plantation with its raw sugar mill and cane-sugar refinery. The partnership changed the name to Imperial Sugar Company; Kempner associated the name Imperial, which was also the name of a small raw-sugar mill on the Ellis Plantation, with the Imperial Hotel in New York. Dan Kempner, one of Isaac's younger brothers, served as the new company's first president until 1914, when he was replaced by Isaac. As part of the Kempner-Eldridge agreement, Eldridge moved to the site to serve as general manager and build the company-owned town of Sugar Land. He was given the Sugar Land Railway. Sugar Land, where all of the land and businesses were owned by the Kempner-Eldridge partnership, soon attracted a stable population largely made up of Germans and Czechs from the Schulenberg-Flatonia area of Texas. The firm built homes and provided medical treatment for its employees, organized the Imperial State Bank in 1907, and established the Imperial Mercantile Company, a company store, a paper mill, various retail stores, a cotton gin, and a feed mill. The Sugar Land Manufacturing Company operated an acid plant, produced Imperial vinegar and pickles, and was involved in meatpacking, canning, and the processing of a variety of agricultural crops. In 1911 the firm built a plant for the Sealy Mattress Company as part of an effort to attract other manufactures and later completed a plant for the periodical Texas Farm and Industrial News , which became the Texas Commercial News . Convict labor worked the Ellis Plantation until 1914, when the company sold the property to the state of Texas as a prison farm, and for a time thereafter convicts continued to produce sugar ( see PRISON SYSTEM ). In 1917 the company merged the Imperial Sugar Company and Cunningham Sugar Company to form a new Imperial Sugar Company. Sugarland Industries was organized in 1919 as a trust estate to own and operate the conglomerate of Sugar Land businesses as departments or subsidiaries, and Imperial Sugar Company became a department in the new institution. Kempner and Eldridge remained the sole owners. Gus D. Ulrich served as general manager. Subsidiaries in time included Sugarland Motor Company, Sugar Land Truck Lines, and Texas National Warehouse Company. Affiliated firms included Belknap Realty, Alcorn and Foster Farms, Fort Bend Cattle Company, and Sugar Land Telephone. In 1924 the company was reorganized as a $5 million corporation, and in the late 1920s and early 1930s it successfully fought efforts of the Sugar Trust to control production as well as competition from the Texas Sugar Refining Company at Texas City. Supplies of raw sugar were first imported in 1902, after which most local farmers turned to crops besides sugarcane. By 1932 Imperial was the only remaining sugar manufacturer in Texas. Hurt by the Great Depression and an effort to process figs that e

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Imperial Prison Farm Cemetery

1908

Prior to the Civil War, this rich river bottom land was known for its cotton, corn and sugar cane crops and sugar mill. With the emancipation of slaves in 1865, area plantation owners struggled to work the fields and mill. In 1878, landowners L. A. Ellis and E. H. Cunningham negotiated a lease with the State of Texas to open a private prison, leasing convicts for labor. Five years later, the state gained control over the prison and inmates. Sugar trade thrived here, and in 1908, I. H. Kempner and W. T. Eldridge bought the small town of Sugar Land, created the Imperial Sugar Company and a stable company town and workforce. Also in 1908, the State of Texas purchased 5,235 acres of adjoining land and started the Imperial State Prison Farm. With more than 400 inmates, it was one of Texas' first state-run prisons. Once dubbed the "Hellhole on the Brazos," this and other Texas prisons became notorious for deplorable inmate treatment and living conditions before public outcry forced reforms in 1912. The cemetery has 31 marked graves of inmates and guards, dating 1912-1943, some with graphic descriptions of their deaths. By the late 1940s, all Texas inmates were buried at Huntsville's Prison Unit or in prisoners' hometowns. Later called the Central State Prison Farm and then Central Unit, the prison farm operated here until 2011 when the state sold part of its land for a new housing development. The City of Sugar Land purchased 65 acres, including the cemetery, for parkland and to ensure the preservation of the cemetery. A white cross, surrounded by prisoner-made bricks, stands in the center of the cemetery; the gate and some sections of the fence are original. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2007

Historical Marker →

Sugar Land, TX

1890

Sugar Land is on Oyster Creek and U.S. Highway 90A, east of the Brazos River and seven miles northeast of Richmond in northeastern Fort Bend County. The area was originally granted to Samuel M. Williams in 1828 for his service as secretary to Stephen F. Austin . Nathaniel F. Williams purchased the land from his brother in 1838, and there he and a third brother, Matthew R. Williams, operated Oakland Plantation, which grew cotton, corn, and sugarcane. The Williams brothers established their raw-sugar mill in 1843. In 1853 Oakland Plantation was purchased by Benjamin F. Terry and William J. Kyle , who were instrumental in extending the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway through the property. A post office was established in Sugar Land in 1858. After the deaths of Terry in 1861 and Kyle in 1864 the plantation began to languish. The post office was closed in 1886. E. H. Cunningham of San Antonio accumulated more than 12,000 acres of the property over time and invested more than $1 million in a sugar refinery, a new raw-sugar mill, a paper mill, and the fourteen-mile Sugar Land Railroad in the 1890s. Sugar Land was one of the rail stations. In 1890 a second post office opened. At that time much of the labor force was leased from the nearby state prison farms. The inmates worked in the wet sugarcane fields, many falling victim to the periodic epidemics of fevers. The brutal working conditions caused bitter convicts to call Sugar Land the "Hell hole on the Brazos." In 1892 the town had one physician and a population of 500. From 1906 to 1908 Isaac H. Kempner of Galveston and William T. Eldridge of Eagle Lake acquired the Ellis and Cunningham plantations and the Cunningham Sugar Company, modernized the facilities, and made the community a company town for the Imperial Sugar Company , the Sugarland Industries, and Sugar Land Railroad (Missouri Pacific). By 1914 the population had dropped to 200, but the number of businesses had increased to include a paper manufacturer and a bank. In 1919 the interests were managed by Sugarland Industries, which operated the farm and ranch and mercantile interests. In 1913 the sugar company built 8½ miles of levee, along with twenty miles of drainage ditches, to keep the Brazos River from flooding Sugar Land. Between 1917 and 1928 dredging of the many shallow pools, lakes, creeks, and Oyster Creek reclaimed acreage to provide necessary drainage and more farmland. The last sugarcane crop in Fort Bend County was harvested in 1928. Plant disease and the high federal protective tax on cane sugar ended local cane farming, and thereafter raw sugar was imported for the refinery. In 1925 the population was listed at 1,000; four years later that figure had expanded to 2,500. With the Great Depression the town lost residents, and in 1936 population was registered at 1,500, where it remained through the 1940s. In 1946 the Kempner family became sole owners of the town. By 1956 some 2,285 people called Sugar Land home. The town was incorporated in 1959, a year after Imperial Sugar and Sugarland Properties, Incorporated, also owned by the Kempner family, began selling the businesses, homes, and land for development. T. E. Harmon was the first mayor. By 1964 the population had increased to 3,100. In 1970 the town listed 3,499 citizens and twenty-eight businesses. In 1980 it had 4,173 residents and ninety-five businesses. Spurred by development from nearby Houston, the population had climbed in 1988 to 14,898, and businesses numbered 423. In 1989 the population was 19,874. In 1990 it was 24,529. The population was 63,328 in 2000. See also PRISON SYSTEM .

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Buffalo Bayou, Brazos & Colorado, First Railroad in Texas

1840

Planned 1840 to benefit the Republic of Texas by moving rich sugar and cotton crops from plantation areas. Chartered 1841 by 5th Congress of the Republic, in name of Harrisburg Railroad & Trading Company. H. R. & T. C. did not succeed in building a railroad. Its holdings were transferred in 1847 to Gen. Sidney Sherman, a hero of the Battle of San Jacinto, who was backed by eastern capital and leading texans -- W. J. Hutchins, gen. Hugh McLeod, Wm. Marsh Rice (benefactor of Rice University), B. A. Shepherd, James H. Stevens, and John Grant Tod (a former Texas naval officer). B. F. Terry (destined to lead Terry's Texas Rangers in the Civil War) and W. J. Kyle graded the roadbed. The first locomotive, "General Sherman," arrived 1852. In August 1853 the tracks extended 20 miles from Harrisburg to Stafford's Point, early Texas center of trade and social life. On Sept. 1, with fanfare, a special train brought a load of honored guests to join planters here for a barbecue-jubilee. Regular schedules were soon in operation. Stafford's Point, end of the line for two years, did much business. Buffalo Bayou, Brazos & Colorado in 1860 reached Alleyton -- a distance of 80 miles from Harrisburg. Incise in base: Early Travel, Transportation and Communication Series erected by the Moody Foundation.

Historical Marker → · 4.8 mi away

Sugar Land

1853

Founded 1853. Named by B. F. Terry and W. J. Kyle for sugar mill and plantation bought on their return with fortunes from California Gold Rush. The town's founders organized Terry's Texas Rangers at the start of the Civil War. Farming market. Site of Texas' only cane sugar refinery. Texas prison farms are located nearby.

Historical Marker →

Things to Do in Sugar Land

food 20.0 mi away
The Original Ninfa's on Navigation

Ninfa Laurenzo was a widow with five kids when she opened a little restaurant in her late husbands failing tortilla factory on Navigation Boulevard in 1973.…
food 21.8 mi away
Killen's Barbecue

Chef Ronnie Killen's Pearland powerhouse. A classically trained chef who chose brisket over fine dining. The beef rib is absurd.
historical 14.2 mi away
The Astrodome

The Astrodome opened in 1965 as the worlds first fully enclosed air-conditioned stadium -- the Eighth Wonder of the World the Houston papers called it. Judge…
quirky 14.8 mi away
Eclectic Menagerie Park

An outdoor display of giant welded-metal sculptures along the edge of the Texas Pipe and Supply pipe yard including a King Kong hanging from a crane a 20-foot…
quirky 16.3 mi away
Beer Can House

A house covered in 50000 flattened beer cans. 18 years of drinking and decorating.
historical 16.4 mi away
The Menil Collection

World-class art museum that's completely free. Rothko Chapel next door.
quirky 7.9 mi away
Trio of Jumping Cows

A trio of multicolored fiberglass steers mounted to look like they are leaping skyward and salvaged from the 2001 CowParade Houston charity event now rises…
quirky 19.4 mi away
Virgin Mary Oak Tree

An oak tree in the Garden Oaks neighborhood where passersby report seeing the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the bark and leave flowers and religious…

Sports in Sugar Land

⭐ HOMETOWN LEGENDS Class 6A · Football

Stephen F Austin Spike The Bulldogs — Stephen F Austin — a college & pro athletic pipeline

3 alumni who reached major-college or pro sports

Stephen F. Austin High School in Sugar Land has a proud tradition of developing athletes who excel beyond high school. The Bulldog community has seen several of its own go on to compete at major collegiate and professional levels. These individuals represent the dedication and talent cultivated within the school's athletic programs, inspiring current and future generations of Bulldogs.

Among the notable alumni are Devard Darling, a football player for the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs, and Jerry Hughes, a football player for Texas Christian University and later for the NFL's Buffalo Bills, Indianapolis Colts, and Houston Texans. The school also celebrates Troy Omeire, a college football wide receiver for the UNLV Rebels. These former Bulldogs highlight the lasting impact of their time at Stephen F. Austin High School.

Pro/D1 alumni
3
Class
6A
Founded
1995
Key Players
  • Devard Darling — , football player for NFL's Kansas City Chiefs
  • Jerry Hughes — , football player for Texas Christian University and NFL's Buffalo Bills, Indianapolis Col
  • Troy Omeire — , college football wide receiver for the UNLV Rebels
The moment

Jerry Hughes played football for Texas Christian University.

Sources: Wikipedia

Everything Near Sugar Land

1873 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

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