Katy Gas Field

Photo Courtesy Katy Heritage Society

Many workers at the Katy Gas Plant also lived on the premises with their families in employee housing.

Oil industry helped early Katy thrive

Like many Texas towns, Katy was shaped by the local discovery of oil and gas in the decade before World War II. Not only were some farmers the beneficiaries of large royalty checks, but the completion of a landmark gas cycling plant caused Katy's population to surge. As a consequence, farmers, ranchers, store owners and service providers alike thrived as demand increased.

"The impact of the Katy Gas Plant on the city of Katy cannot be overestimated," said Carol Adams in "Historic Katy." "It doubled the population in Katy from 400 in 1942 to 800 in 1943 [and] funded the young Katy ISD."

In February 1935, J.D. Rockefeller's Stanolind and British-owned Amerada Petroleum made the first of many discoveries in the expansive Katy gas field.

According to Adams, the hydrocarbons produced from the Katy field were uniquely suited for use in the manufacture of aviation gasoline, rubber, and toluene—which, among other uses, is a raw material for the explosive TNT. The demand for Katy's natural gas was sufficiently high that the companies with an interest in the acreage, including Humble Oil, decided to jointly fund a cycling plant—a gas processing facility built over the field and designed to maximize recovery without flaring or wasting residue gas.

Built at a cost of $3 million—$50 million today when adjusted for inflation—the gas plant covered 100 acres and included more than 150 buildings. The plant was located in the center of the roughly 35,000-acre gas field, most of which lies in Waller County. The Humble plant was a critical strategic resource during World War II when workers helped to produce millions of gallons of aviation fuel for use by Allied forces. By the mid-1950s, the plant was the largest gas cycling project in the world.

"Humble Oil had integrity," said Linda Mikeska, whose father and husband both worked at the plant. "They instilled it into their employees and their employees instilled it in their families. They were very family oriented."

Humble established an on-site camp that at its peak housed more than 700 employees and families. The company maintained 158 houses for families, four bunk houses for unmarried employees and a central mess hall. Humble gave its employees the opportunity to purchase their homes at a reduced price when it announced the camp's closure in 1959, and many chose to move their houses to Katy and Brookshire, Mikeska said.

Tax revenue derived from the sale and refining of the natural gas—and, to a lesser extent, oil—enabled Katy ISD to thrive. James E. Taylor, who served as superintendent for Katy ISD for more than 30 years, told the Katy Times in 1976 that the gas field and plant enabled Katy to attract and retain highly qualified teachers and to construct state-of-the-art facilities, laboratories and libraries.

The Katy field was even richer than what had been anticipated in the 1930s. In 1954, two new horizons of the field were discovered, followed by two more in the 1960s.

The gas plant was officially closed by Exxon in 2002. The gas field continues to produce, albeit at a fraction of its early 1970s peak of nearly 1.2 billion cubic feet per day.