Simonton is a city in Fort Bend County, Texas, United States, within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. Simonton is located at the intersection of Farm roads 1093 and 1489, approximately fourteen miles northwest of Richmond, Texas and five miles west of Fulshear, Texas. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the city population was 647, down from 814 at the 2010 census.

The first event that shaped Simonton’s history was when James Simonton and his brother Theophilus bought 4000 acres of land in Northwest Fort Bend County in the 1840s. The two Simonton brothers built a plantation next to the Brazos River. They raised cotton. The year 1850 is officially designated as the founding year for the Simonton since the 1850 US Census showed the two brothers, their mother, Mary, and Theophilus’s wife and two sons residing on the property. Another brother, Joseph, and his family moved to the plantation in the 1850s. In 1857, Theophilus helped charter the Richmond Masonic Hall Association, symbolizing the elite status of the SImonton family in Fort Bend County. The town of Simonton joined Fulshear and Pittsville as the main rural towns in Northwest Fort Bend County.

At the onset of the US Civil War, the 1860 US Census shows that the Simonton’s owned one of the largest and most prosperous plantations in Fort Bend County with a real property value at $200,000 and personal property valued at $155,000. The Simonton brothers have been identified as among the largest slaveholders in Texas. According to the 1860 US census and a subsequent research, there were 105 slaves on the Simonton plantation on the eve of the Civil War. This census also revealed that their plantation had 975 improved acres that produced 11,000 bushels of corn and 600 bales of cotton. Like many Texas plantation owners, they supported the Confederacy.

The plantation was broken up and sold after the war. Tracts of land were sold to incoming settlers. The Simonton’s actively resisted the post-Civil War Reconstruction efforts. During the Fort Bend Jaybird-Woodpecker political battles during post-Civil War Reconstruction, the Simonton brothers joined the Jaybirds, a faction within the Democratic Party, who wanted to oust the Woodpeckers, primarily blacks and their white allies, from the county administration. In October 1888 in nearby Pittsville, Theophilus Simonton Jr. was arrested by the county sheriff for fatally shooting a local black leader, Lamar Johnson, and injuring his half-brother, Taylor Randonan. This incident gained regional and national attention on the deep racial divisions of the Jaybird-Woodpecker War raging throughout Fort Bend County.

The Simonton family’s position and presence gradually dwindled after the deaths of the pioneer brothers and the influx of European immigrants who passed through Galveston during the late 19th and early 20th Century.

Their deaths accompanied by the industrial revolution that was sweeping the United States drastically altered the economic means, and thus the social and political roles, in Simonton as well as throughout Fort Bend Country.

According to oral history documentation, the Ku Klux Klan was present in Simonton from the early 20th Century, as they were in many Texas small towns, and were especially active due to the influx of foreign-born immigrants, who moved to Simonton to worked as farm and ranch help for the local cattle ranches and pecan groves.

The next event shaping Simonton history was the advent, around 1888, of the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad. It’s said the company wanted the track to run through Pittsville (near what is now Fulshear) where the terrain was more level. However, the landowners in that area refused to sell the railroad a right-of-way because they believed the trains would scare their cattle. So the line was laid across the hills and creeks between Fulshear and Simonton. Water was as necessary as coal for the steam-powered locomotives, and Simonton became one of the main watering stops. With the tracks, came the people. With the tracks also came the opportunity to ship the area’s farm produce to other parts of the country.

In subsequent years, Simonton developed into a robust agricultural community. Snap shots of this historical has been noted in several oral historical accounts:

Gradually by 1957, Simonton had changed from a busy small town to a quiet crossroads community. Then came the beginnings of a new stage in the life of the town. Vernon Evans, owner of the nearby Rue Ranch, and his son-in-law, A.E. “Snake” Bailey, bought 850 acres of land along FM 1093 to be developed as a western community with stables and a small arena and club house, the hub around which houses would be built. The development was called Valley Lodge. Valley Lodge subdivision was the first subdivision out of the city of Houston within commuting distance.

In the months following the Sino-US normalization, China’s Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping visited the United States for nine days in 1979, visiting Washington, Atlanta, Houston and Seattle. On February 2 during his visit to Houston, he spent an evening in Simonton at the Roundup Rodeo. In 1963 the Round Up was built on FM 1093. Also the brainchild of “Snake” Bailey, it is a large indoor rodeo arena in full swing every Saturday night, drawing people from Houston and elsewhere for a taste of the “real west.” He rode in a stagecoach, and later a barrel racer gave the premier a cowboy-style duster and a ten-gallon hat, both of which he donned and displayed before the crowd.

Deng’s visit to the Simonton rodeo is considered to be the tipping point in the thaw of US-China relations.

The Simonton Rodeo closed by 1997 when it was bought and restored by Benchmark Wireline, an oil services company. A China Daily Global video captures the memories of this visit, including Katie Van Dries whose father Luke owned the rodeo at that time.

The photographs of Deng in the cowboy hat appeared in American newspapers, displaying a distinctly human side to a previously mysterious Chinese leader. As Ezra F. Vogel, a biographer of Deng, put it, the

In 1979, the community incorporated as the City of Simonton. The population grew to 603 in 1980 and 718 in 2000. In 2010 the population was 814.

Simonton is located in northwestern Fort Bend County at 29°40′47″N 95°59′25″W / 29.67972°N 95.99028°W / 29.67972; -95.99028 (29.679783, –95.990302). The center of town is 2 miles (3 km) east of the Brazos River and 16 miles (26 km) northwest of Rosenberg. Downtown Houston is 38 miles (61 km) to the east. According to the United States Census Bureau, Simonton has a total area of 2.0 square miles (5.2 km²), of which 0.004 square miles (0.01 km), or 0.24%, is water.

Almost all of the City is located within the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 100-year floodplain of the Brazos River. See the FEMA Preliminary Map 2017.1.30 panel 80 and FEMA Preliminary Map 2017.1.30 panel 90. Real-time river gauges for the Brazos River are available here.

Simonton has been plagued by repeated flooding due to being located one mile east of the Brazos River, and it considered to located in the 100-year floodplain of the Brazos River. The most significant Brazos River flooding recorded were:

While plagued by flooding, the City of Simonton purchased two drainage pumps for $95,000 that has reduced the impact of the Brazos River flooding. These pumps were partly paid for by a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP).

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 647 people, 229 households, and 188 families residing in the city.

As of the census of 2000, there were 718 people, 264 households, and 206 families residing in the city. The population density was 354.4 people per square mile (136.6/km²). There were 282 housing units at an average density of 139.2/sq mi (53.6/km). The racial makeup of the city was 91.64% White, 5.01% African American, 0.28% Asian, 0.14% Pacific Islander, 1.95% from other races, and 0.97% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.13% of the population.

There were 264 households, out of which 34.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 71.6% were married couples living together, 3.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 21.6% were non-families. 18.6% of all households were made up of individuals, and 7.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.72 and the average family size was 3.07.

The city population is evenly spread: 25.9% is under the age of 18, 4.7% is between 18 and 24, 29.0% is from 25 to 44, 30.4% from 45 to 64, and 10.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 41 years. For every 100 females, there were 102.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.3 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $72,833, and the median income for a family was $81,905. Males had a median income of $51,842 versus $30,333 for females. The per capita income for the city was $30,669. About 2.5% of families and 5.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 7.9% of those under age 18 and 5.8% of those age 65 or over.

Fort Bend County does not have a hospital district. OakBend Medical Center serves as the county’s charity hospital which the county contracts with.

The United States Postal Service operates the Simonton Post Office at 35608 Farm to Market Road 1093.

Fulshear’s Bob Lutts Fulshear/Simonton Branch Library, located in Fulshear, is a part of the Fort Bend County Libraries system. The branch, which opened in May 1998, was the third branch built with 1989 bond funds. The land currently occupied by the library was previously the Fort Bend County Precinct 4 headquarters. Bob Lutts, the precinct commissioner, offered the land to the library system. The Fulshear City Council asked the county to name the library after Lutts. The library is now within Precinct 3.

Simonton is zoned to schools in the Lamar Consolidated Independent School District.

Private schools

The designated community college for LCISD is Wharton County Junior College.

Simonton is one of the key towns featured in the 2009 documentary “The Heart of Texas Movie”