Isaac Conroe: Lumberman Pioneered City
Deborah Deggs
Courier staff
 

On Oct. 16, 1881, a retired Civil War Illinois Calvary captain came into Montgomery County from Houston looking for a place to make his mark. His name was Isaac Conroe.
 

Conroe bought the J. G. and Lemuel Smith tract of land that fall and established a sawmill about two miles east of the present town that bears his name. It was merely a forest, but that is part of what initially drew Conroe.
 

Conroe's first mill was east of the I&GN Railroad (International & Great Northern) and between the Santa Fe tracks and what is now Avenue A. He built a tram of wooden rails and spokes to transport his lumber products to the I&GN.
 

He soon selected a location some two miles east of the present city on the south side of the Santa Fe line and named it Beach, Texas.
 

There he built a two-story frame building, putting a commissary on the first floor and a living area upstairs.

The store served mill employees, and those who remember said it had the best weiners in the area.
 

A post office was soon established there and Conroe was the first postmaster. The captain continued living in Houston and commuted back and forth on the I&GN. A railroad official suggested making the new mill site a regular stop and gave it the name "Conroe's Switch." Printed rail tickets said "Conroe's Switch to                ." The name was shortened to "Conroe's" and then simply to "Conroe."

The Smith survey held two major assets that helped make Conroe a pivotal spot in the county within a decade of its birth: timber and railroads. The growing town was at the junction of a north-south railroad and an east-west railroad — the only such location in the county. Conroe is also near the geographic center of Montgomery County.

Lumbering brought prosperity to Conroe. The going wage in those days was $1 to $2.50 a day. The railroads made transporting lumber goods to market an easier task and many mills sprouted up. The sawmills caused new families to move into the area and the town thrived.

Besides Conroe's mill, there were many others in the county, including Chandler Hill four miles west of Conroe on Old Montgomery Road, and further west at Leonidas, Honea and Keenan. East of town there were mills at Waukegan, Timber, Security and Foster Lumber Co. at Fostoria.

Ellis Oualline had a mill north of town and there was a mill south of Conroe at Frazier's Switch. Later, the Grogan-Cochran Mill was established at Tamina.

In 1886, local citizens used rough lumber and homemade desks to establish Conroe's first one-room public school near the present community of Beach. Open each year for a five-month term, the Conroe Mill School educated mostly children of mill workers.

Three years later another prominent mill operator, J. K. Ayres, and some 200 other citizens petitioned the county to hold an election to move the county seat from Montgomery to Conroe. On May 6, history records, the combined votes of Conroe, Willis and the Leonidas mill produced 1,161 votes for Conroe. Montgomery polled 1,099.

The winners lost no time in cementing the victory. Within a week a temporary building was designated as a courthouse and Conroe was the county seat.

The locale was still so wild a deer was shot on what is now the courthouse square during construction of the permanent courthouse.

Despite several epidemics and two disastrous fires, the town continued growing. An unofficial 1889 count showed a population of 250 to 300 citizens.

Conroe lost its founder in 1897. Capt. Isaac Conroe died in his room at the mill of what was then thought to be acute indigestion, but more likely was a ruptured appendix. He was 62.

In an 1898 interview with The Courier, W. M. Conroe, the captain's son said, "Due to the ideal industrial setup of Conroe, with the location of the county seat, two railroads and numerous sawmills, it is no wonder that it became the leading city in Montgomery County."

Increasing lumber industry expansion and the accompanying population growth demanded more school space. In 1900, Conroe got its first four-room painted school built near the 300 block of Murray Street. In December 1904, the city was officially incorporated. J. F. Collier was the first mayor.

In the final analysis of what made "Conroe's Switch" boom rather than bust, historians write that only the oil industry ranks above timber and the lumber business in importance here. The rail crossroads helped build Conroe, and Isaac Conroe left his mark.
 

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| Isaac Conroe: Enterprising Pioneer Who Put Our Town on the Map |
| Isaac Conroe House |