Sweet On You Multi-cache

Sugar Land's Founding

• Sugar Land has a heritage tracing its roots back to the original Mexican land grant to Stephen F. Austin. One of the first settlers of the land, Samuel M. Williams, called this land "Oakland Plantation" because there were many different varieties of oaks on the land, such as Pin Oak, Post Oak, Water Oak, Red Oak, and Live Oak. Williams' brother, Nathaniel, purchased the land in 1838. They operated the plantation by growing cotton, corn, and sugarcane. During these early years, the area that is now Sugar Land was the center of social life along the Brazos River. In 1853, Benjamin Terry and William J. Kyle purchased the Oakland Plantation from the S. M. Williams family. Terry is known for organizing Terry's Texas Rangers during the Civil War and for naming the town. Upon the deaths of Terry and Kyle, Colonel E. H. Cunningham bought the 12,500 acre plantation soon after the Civil War and developed the town around his sugar refining plant around 1879.

Company town

In 1906, the Kempner family of Galveston, under the leadership of Isaac H. Kempner and in partnership with William T. Eldridge, purchased the 5,300 acre Ellis Plantation, one of the few plantations in Fort Bend County to survive the Civil War. The Ellis Plantation had originally been part of the Jesse Cartwright league and in the years after the Civil War had been operated by a system of tenant farming under the management of Will Ellis. In 1908, the partnership acquired the adjoining 12,500 acre Cunningham Plantation with its raw sugar mill and cane-sugar refinery. The partnership changed the name to Imperial Sugar Company; Kempner associated the name Imperial, which was also the name of a small raw-sugar mill on the Ellis Plantation, with the Imperial Hotel in New York City. Around the turn of the century, most of the sugarcane crops were destroyed by a harsh winter. As part of the Kempner-Eldridge agreement, Eldridge moved to the site to serve as general manager and build the company-owned town of Sugar Land.

• Trains have always been the sound of Sugar Land. These rails are on the route of the oldest railroad in Texas. It went right through the middle of town, by the sugar refinery, and west of town, through the heart of what used to be known as the Imperial State Prison Farm.

• As a company town from the 1910's until 1959, Sugar Land was virtually self-contained. Imperial Sugar Company provided housing for the workers, encouraged construction of schools, built a hospital for the workers well-being, and provided businesses to meet the workers needs. Many of the original homes built by the Imperial Sugar Company remain today in The Hill area and Mayfield Park of Sugar Land and have been passed down through generations of family members.

• During the 1950s, Imperial Sugar wanted to expand the town by building more houses. This lead to the creation of a new subdivision of Venetian Estates. The subdivision featured water front homesites fronting Oyster Creek and other man-made lakes.

  

A City Emerges

• As the company town expanded, so did the interest of establishing a municipal government. It resulted in Sugar Land becoming a general law city in 1959 by voters. T. E. Harman became the first mayor of Sugar Land.

• In the early 1960s, a new subdivision development introduced contemporary affordable housing in Sugar Land for the first time called Covington Woods.

• The Imperial Cattle Ranch sold about 1,200 acres to a developer to create what became Sugar Creek in 1968. As a master-planned community, Sugar Creek introduced country club living with two golf courses and country clubs, swimming pools, and security.

• Encouraged by the success of Sugar Creek, First Colony, a new master-planned community encompassing 10,000 acres set out to create a new standard in development in Sugar Land. Development began in 1977 by Sugarland Properties Inc. and would follow the next 30 years. The master-planned community offered homebuyers formal landscaping, neighborhoods segmented by price range, extensive greenbelts, a golf course and country club, lakes and boulevards, neighborhood amenities and shopping.

• Around the same time of First Colony, another master-planned community development started in northern portion of Sugar Land called Sugar Mill. Sugar Mill offered traditional, lakefront, and estate lots.

• Sugar Land began attracting the attention of major corporations throughout the 1980s, and many chose to make the city their home. Fluor Daniel, Schlumberger, Unocal and others offered their employees the opportunity to work within minutes of their home. This resulted in a 40/60 ratio of residential to commercial tax base within the city.

• In 1981, a special city election was held for the purpose of establishing a home rule municipal government. Voters approved the adoption of a home rule charter. The type of municipal government provided by this Charter was known as "mayor-council government," and all powers of the City were invested in a Council composed of a mayor and five councilmen.

• A special city election was held Aug. 9, 1986, to submit the proposed changes to the electorate for consideration. By a majority of the voters, amendments to the Charter were approved which provided for a change in the City's form of government from that of "mayor-council" (strong mayor) to that of a "council-manager" form of government which provides that the city manager be the chief administrative officer of the city. Approval of this amendment provided for the mayor to become a voting member of Council, in addition to performing duties as presiding officer of the Council.

• Sugar Land annexed the master-planned Sugar Creek community in 1986 with the community being almost built-out. This was the first of several large annexations that will follow later on. Also, that same year, the city extended its extraterritorial jurisdiction across the Brazos River to what would later cover the 2,050 acre master-planned community of Greatwood.

• In 1986, Sugar Land organized the largest celebration in its history— The Texas Sesquicentennial Celebration, celebrating 150 years of Texan independence from Mexican rule.

The Cache

• This is an offset cache with WP1 located at the listed coordinates. At WP1 you will find a beautiful fountain of Stephen F. Austin. On the South side of the fountain, you will find the beginning of a long and winding history of Sugar Land. At the beginning of the long and winding history you can find the year which Alonso Alvarez de Paneda was credited to come to the Texas Gulf region and created the first map of the Texas coast.

• From the digits in this year, you can calculate the coordinated of WP2 (final) location, where you can find a micro (waterproof match) container.

  N29 3A.BCD

  W95 3E.FGH

  Where:

  A = 2nd digit in the year +2

  B = 1st digit in the year + 1

  C = 1st digit in the year + 2

  D = 3rd digit in the year + 3

  E = 4th digit in the year - 1

  F = 3rd digit in the year

  G = 2nd digit in the year - 1

  H = 2nd digit in the year +1