Baytown: Goose Creek Oilfield & the Refinery Coast

Baytown is really three towns that grew into one. When oil came roaring out of the Goose Creek field in 1908 — one of the great early Texas gushers, drilled partly out on the bay — the little settlements of Goose Creek, Pelly, and Baytown boomed almost overnight, and in 1919 the Humble Oil & Refining Company chose the shore of Tabbs Bay for a great refinery that would tie them all together. This drive traces that industrial coast: the post office that became the historical museum, the synagogue and schools that a boomtown population built, the newspaper that started as the Goose Creek Gasser, and the very ground on the bay where the refinery that made the modern city was raised. It's the story of how a stretch of cattle country and small shipyards became one of the largest petrochemical centers on the Gulf. Keep your eyes on the skyline — the flare stacks and cracking towers are part of the tour.