Channelview, TX

Channelview (Channel View), an oil refinery suburb of metropolitan Houston, is at the site where the San Jacinto River forms Old River, south of Interstate Highway 10 and the Missouri Pacific Railroad and eight miles southeast of Houston in eastern Harris County. It was named for its location on the northeastern curve of the Houston Ship Channel and was populated by blue-collar oil refinery workers and their families after oil discoveries in the area in 1916. After 1910, schools for both Black and White students opened as ship channel industries grew. Beginning sometime before 1916 and continuing as late as 1942, the McGhee School served Black students. The local White school had thirty-one pupils in 1925. A post office was established at the community in 1933, and the 1936 county highway map showed a sawmill, a school, several businesses, and multiple dwellings at the site. By 1938 the Channelview school district covered twenty square miles and employed one Black teacher and seven White. Channelview reported a population of fifty and two businesses in 1940, and grew to 700 residents and twenty-three businesses by 1947. In 1967 a new Sinclair Petrochemical plant began production of isophthalic acid and metaxylene near the ship channel. At that time the town had a population of 7,860 and seventy-five businesses. Its population was 8,227 in the mid-1970s. In 1985 Channelview had 347 businesses. In the early 1990s it had a population of 26,115 and 385 businesses. In 2000 the population was 29,685 with 659 businesses. The population increased to 38,289 in 2010.