Hog Island was named because the owner, Ashbel Smith, ran hogs on it.

Hog Island was a steamboat landing on the Houston-Galveston route in the 1800's.

John Gaillard discovered natural gas while fishing off of Hog Island.  He thought the bubbles were buffalo fish.

Hog Island was originally 223 acres and J. Gaillard paid Ashbel Smith $2000 for it in 1905 to run livestock.

J. Gaillard sold the Island to Humble Oil Company in 1918 for $300,000.

The first barge of Goose Creek oil was sent out from Hog Island.

Mrs. Hettie Perry ran a boarding house on Hog Island from 1917 to 1920. She charged one dollar per day.

There was a hand operated ferry that carried 40 people and took 15 minutes of pulling to make the trip.

On July 29th, 1933, local folks celebrated the opening of the Tabbs Bay Causeway and the Morgan's Point Ferry, with a 2 day barbecue. 

In 1937, the State of Texas Highway Department took over maintenance of the Ferry and the Causeway.

The East Harris County Federation of Garden Clubs organized and effort to beautify the Island and a park, public beach, and bird sanctuary was opened in 1942.

In 1953, the Morgan's Point Ferry closed when the Baytown-La Porte tunnel opened.

With the closing of the ferry, Hog Island became a local swimming area and lover's lane.

In 1961, Hurricane Carla destroyed the Tabbs Bay Causeway, eliminating the island's only link to the mainland.

Subsidence has caused present day Hog island to appear to be 2 islands and can be seen on the east side of the Fred Hartman Bridge when you are coming from La Porte on Hwy 146.

Hog Island was used as a land fill during the late 1950's.  I worked for an independent collector (company owners were the Glass family) that used the land fill.  We hauled one to two truck loads of refuse to the site per week.  I don't know how long the site was used as a land fill after 1958.  It may have been used until the causeway was lost in September 1961. Boy what a job that was, people living in Lakewood and Brownwood used steel 55 gallon drums for trash cans. and I earned $5.00 a day.  Leon Murphy

Much of the information on this page comes from the excellent book 'Baytown Vignettes', or 'The History of Baytown'  available at Sterling Municipal Library and the Baytown Historical Museum located at 220 W. Defee.