OAK RIDGE NORTH, TEXAS. Oak Ridge North is on Interstate Highway 45 ten miles south of Conroe in southern Montgomery County. It originated in 1964 when Arkansas-based Spring Pines Corporation purchased a large tract of land two miles north of Spring Creek in the Charles Eisterwall Survey-patented in the mid-nineteenth century-and proceeded to build a subdivision. Interstate 45, which runs through the development, was completed just as the subdivision was launched and quickly became an axis for economic and population growth. During the late 1960s and early 1970s increasing numbers of Houstonians, attracted by the beautifully wooded site, its accessibility, and lower tax and insurance rates, began taking up residence in Oak Ridge North. United Diversified, Incorporated, took over the development in 1969, and Associated Properties Company, which added more acreage, became the chief developer in 1971. The community was incorporated in 1979 with an estimated population of 2,445 and elected a mayor and city council. By the late 1970s it had four churches. In 1994 it was served by four schools in the Conroe Independent School District. The town's growth, however, was brought to a halt by the energy-based regional recession of the 1980s, and in 1990 the population was estimated as 2,454. By 2000 the population was 2,991.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Montgomery County Genealogical Society, Montgomery County History (Winston-Salem, North Carolina: Hunter, 1981). Barton A. Smith, The Role of The Woodlands in the Economic Development of Montgomery County (MS, Special Collections, Texas A&M University, 1990).

Charles Christopher Jackson