Foster Community
Rosenberg, Fort Bend County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Foster community began in the fall of 1821 as a permanent campsite settled by Randolph Foster (1790-1887) on what was then one of the largest single land grants in Texas (11,601 acres). The John Foster grant, deeded by Stephen F. Austin, came from the relationship between Foster, his father John (1757-1837) and Austin. John was one of Austin's "Old Three Hundred" colonists, and Foster family members participated in the Texas War for Independence. Sugar cane was the area's dominant industry in the 1840s, and Foster community thrived from its production and export. Other crops that benefited the community included pecans and cotton. Local residents tamed wild horses found on the upland prairies for domestic use and trade. The community's first school, which offered up to grade five, was held in Randolph Foster's home before construction of a one-room schoolhouse also used for early community religious services. African American students studied at Jones Creek School. The community's first post office initiated mail service from the area's general store in 1882. The volume of local sugar production was so great that in the 1920s, Imperial Sugar Company built a railroad between Foster community and mills in Sugar Land. In 1928, Sugar Land Industries bought acreage in this area and named it Foster Farms. By the end of World War II, several factors led to the community's decline: the end of area sugar crops; the closing of the railroad; the Great Depression; and changes in ownership and farming techniques. In 1944, the community's schools, post office and general store closed. Today, adjacent to Houston, the state's largest urban area, Foster exists in memory as a pioneer Texas community. (2005)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Foster community traces to 1821, when Randolph Foster pitched a permanent camp on an enormous land grant tied to his father John, one of Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred" colonists. Foster kin fought in the Texas War for Independence, and the settlement thrived on sugar cane in the 1840s, later shipping its crop by a railroad Imperial Sugar built to the mills at Sugar Land. Schools, a store, and a post office followed, but by the end of World War II the failing sugar crop, the Depression, and shifting ownership drained the community away.
Why it matters
Foster's rise and fall traces the whole arc of Anglo settlement in Texas—from Austin's colony through the plantation-sugar economy to the suburban sprawl of modern Houston that finally erased it.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the fall of 1821, Texas was on the very threshold of a new era. Mexico had just won its independence from Spain, and a trickle of American settlers was beginning to arrive under land grants meant to populate a vast and lightly settled frontier. This was the raw beginning of Anglo colonization in Texas—wild prairie, timber, and river bottom, with almost none of the towns and roads that would come later.
Into this opening stepped Stephen F. Austin, the empresario whose colony would anchor American settlement in Texas. The families he recruited, later celebrated as the "Old Three Hundred," received large land grants along the fertile river valleys, and they became the founding stock of Anglo Texas.
The country around this site was prime bottomland, well suited to agriculture. Over the following decades it would pass through the whole arc of Texas history—colony, revolution, plantation-era agriculture, and finally the reach of a great modern city.
People & events
The Foster community began as a campsite. In the fall of 1821, Randolph Foster settled a permanent camp on what was then one of the largest single land grants in Texas—11,601 acres. That grant, deeded by Stephen F. Austin, grew out of the relationship between Austin and the Foster family, for Randolph's father, John Foster, was one of the celebrated Old Three Hundred colonists. Foster family members went on to take part in the Texas War for Independence.
The settlement put down deep agricultural roots. By the 1840s sugar cane was the dominant industry, and the community thrived on its production and export, with pecans and cotton adding to the harvest. Residents even tamed the wild horses that roamed the upland prairies, for their own use and for trade. Education began, as it so often did, at home: the first school met in Randolph Foster's house, teaching through the fifth grade, before a one-room schoolhouse was built that doubled as an early place of worship. Black students of the area studied at Jones Creek School. In 1882 the community's first post office began carrying mail from the general store.
Sugar remained king well into the 20th century. In the 1920s the Imperial Sugar Company built a railroad linking Foster to its mills in Sugar Land, and in 1928 Sugar Land Industries bought acreage here and named it Foster Farms. Then came the unraveling: the end of the area's sugar crops, the closing of the railroad, the Great Depression, and shifting patterns of ownership and farming. In 1944 the community's schools, post office, and general store all closed their doors.
Its place in the American story
Few places compress the whole story of Texas as neatly as Foster does. It begins at the very origin point of Anglo settlement—an Old Three Hundred family, an Austin land grant, and a permanent camp pitched in 1821—runs through the revolution that made Texas independent, and matures into the plantation-and-sugar economy that shaped the region for a century.
It is also a classic American tale of boom and disappearance. The rise of a company town around a single dominant crop, the railroad built to serve it, and then the slow collapse when the crop failed and the economy shifted—this pattern played out across the country, leaving ghost towns in its wake. Foster's arc from thriving settlement to memory is the life cycle of countless rural communities that fed and built the nation and then faded.
And there is one final, distinctly modern turn: the community that helped begin Anglo Texas now sits at the edge of Houston, the state's largest urban area. The frontier campsite of 1821 was ultimately overtaken not by decline alone, but by the sprawling metropolis that grew up around it.
If you visit
Foster is a place you visit with your imagination as much as your eyes—it "exists in memory," as the marker says, so let the words do the work of rebuilding it. Stand here and picture the fields of sugar cane that once defined this ground, the general store with its post office counter, and the one-room schoolhouse that served as both classroom and church.
Listen, too, for the railroad. It's remarkable to think that local sugar production was so heavy that Imperial Sugar laid its own line to haul the crop to the mills at Sugar Land—a detail that tells you just how much this quiet spot once produced. The nearby name of Sugar Land is itself a living echo of the industry that made and unmade communities like this one.
Make this a thoughtful stop on a drive through Fort Bend County, where the deep history of Austin's colony lies just beneath the modern suburbs of greater Houston. Reading this marker is a chance to feel the full sweep of Texas history at a single spot—from a frontier camp in 1821 to the edge of a great American city.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Randolph Foster
- · John Foster
- · Stephen F. Austin
Related events
- · Texas War for Independence
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
_H7 Ranch
Houston, TX
Emil Henry Marks, a descendant of Prussian immigrants orphaned young, registered the _H7 cattle brand in 1898 and by 1917 had moved his growing longhorn herd to a ranch near Barker, Texas, eventually running thousands of head across 36,000 acres. His annual spring roundup barbecue and rodeo grew so popular he began charging admission, and he helped found key Texas cattle institutions including the Houston Fat Stock Show and Rodeo and the Texas Longhorn Breeders' Association. The _H7 rodeos ended in 1950 when much of the ranch was flooded by the Barker Reservoir.
William Henry and Lydia Ann English Guyler
Wallis, TX
Kentucky natives William and Lydia Guyler married in 1845 and made the journey to Austin County in 1859, where William built a log cabin, trading post, sawmill and cotton gin that served settlers for twenty miles around. He served the Confederacy while Lydia nursed the sick through the 1867 yellow fever epidemic and aided soldiers at home. When the Santa Fe railroad came in 1875–76, the Guylers sold land that became the town of Wallis.
Stafford Plantation
Sugar Land, TX
Tennessean William Joseph Stafford brought his family here in 1822 as members of Stephen F. Austin's "Old 300," the first Anglo colonists in Mexican Texas, and built a plantation with a sugar mill and cotton gin known as Stafford's Point. Its high-molasses sugar prospered even in lean cotton years, until Mexican troops burned the buildings during the Texas Revolution. The family rebuilt, and the settlement that grew around the plantation survives today as the city of Stafford; this site is believed to be its early cemetery.
James Tarrant Pattison Homesite
Pattison, TX
At the crossing of the Atascosito Road and the San Felipe Trail, James Tarrant Pattison and his wife Sarah settled a Republic of Texas land grant that grew into a 5,000-acre plantation with its own grist mill, sawmill, and cotton gin. The homesite doubled as a stagecoach stop, and the Pattisons founded the community's first church and school. The town that grew up here took the founder's name, and his heirs still live on the land.