Katy, Texas

Katy is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, approximately centered at the tripoint of Harris, Fort Bend, and Waller counties. The population was 21,894 at the 2020 census. It is the center of the urban Greater Katy area, itself forming the western part of the Greater Houston metropolitan area.

First formally settled in the mid-1890s, Katy was a railroad town along the Missouri–Kansas–Texas (MKT) Railroad which ran parallel to U.S. Route 90 (today Interstate 10) into downtown Houston. Katy obtained its name when the MKT Railroad dropped its Missouri waypoint and the junction became known as the "KT stop". The fertile floodplain of Buffalo Bayou, which has its source near Katy, and its tributaries made the city and other communities in the surrounding prairie an attractive location for rice farming. Beginning in the 1960s, the rapid growth of Houston moved westward along the new Interstate 10 corridor, bringing Katy into its environs.

Today, Katy lies at the center of a broader area known as Greater Katy, which has become heavily urbanized. Homes and businesses may have Katy postal addresses without being in the city limits. While largely subsumed into Greater Houston, the town of Katy is still notable for Katy Mills Mall, Katy High School and its football dominance, and the historic Katy town square along the former right-of-way of the MKT railroad.

The City of Katy sits on Karankawa tribal lands. European colonist's first record of contact with tribe is in 1528. Over the next 250 years the area was trafficked by French and Spanish European colonists seeking land and trade opportunities. By 1779, the Karakawa were at war with Spanish settlers. In 1790 the war ended and shortly after settlement begins.

In the early 1800s Katy came be to be known as "Cane Island", named for the creek that runs through the area, a branch of Buffalo Bayou. The creek was filled with tall cane, not native to the area. It was presumed to have been planted by either the Karankawa Indians or Spanish explorers to aid in fur trapping until the 1820s.

In 1845 James J. Crawford received a land grant that included this area. The hot summers and thick clay soil made it difficult to attract settlers to the area. Freed slaves and their families including Thomas (Mary) Robinson and Milto McGinnis, along with Mr. Crawford, Peter Black, and John Sills were the only recorded residents of Cane Island in 1875.

In 1895, James Oliver Thomas laid out a town, and in January 1896 the town of Katy was named through Thomas's post office application. The name "Katy" was derived from the MKT Railroad Company, which was commonly referred to as "the K-T" (also its stock exchange symbol). This common designation soon evolved into "the Katy", and since the railroad company and its trains held a key depot station located today's city, the general location came to be known as Katy.

The anticipations of prosperity would bring growth to the new town which was developed around the original train stop and railroad tracks. By the early 1900s many families had come by train and wagon to establish Katy. Cotton and peanuts and corn were the first successful crops, but rice soon became the primary commodity crop. Katy later became known for rice farming; the first concrete rice driers in the state of Texas were built here in 1944 and still stand as landmarks. The farming community well supported local businesses as several hotels, stores, livery stables and saloons were prospering.