History of Crabb, Texas: From Settlement to Modern Day
Published: 1952
Updated: August 10, 2020
Crabb (Crabb Switch) is on Farm Road 762 below the bend of the Brazos River five miles southeast of Richmond in Fort Bend County. The area was originally owned by Old Three Hundred colonists Joseph and Abner Kuykendall. After the death of Joseph Kuykendall in the 1870s, his widow Eliza Jane married John C. Crabb. In 1879 the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway built through the site, and the town got its name because Eliza Jane Kuykendall Crabb owned the property the railroad used as right-of-way. In 1896 the town had a gin, a district school, a Methodist church, two fruit growers, two doctors, and a population of 400. The next year the community had a school for black students. The settlement acquired a post office in 1894 but lost it in 1900. Despite the fact that Crabb was served by the railroad, its population dwindled, and by 1933 it was reported as 100. In 1936 Crabb comprised two churches, one business, and several dwellings along a paved road. Its population was listed as fifty by 1953, and as about forty from the mid-1960s until the mid-1980s. In 1988, 1990, and 2000 Crabb's population was reported as 125.
Bibliography:
Clarence Wharton, Wharton's History of Fort Bend County (San Antonio: Naylor, 1939).
Places:
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Stephen L. Hardin, “Crabb, TX,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/crabb-tx.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
TID:
HNCAF
- 1952
- August 10, 2020
