TAYLOR BAYOU, TEXAS. Taylor (Taylor's) Bayou was on Taylor Bayou ten miles south of Beaumont in central Jefferson County. The name referred to widely scattered settlements throughout much of the area between the sites of present Sabine Pass and Fannett. Although settlers had arrived during the 1830s, the community and bayou were apparently named for James G. Taylor, who purchased land there in 1841. Early residents were predominantly Catholic; many Louisianans were attracted by the fertile soil's sugar cane yields. Cattle were also important to the area's economy. The Taylor's Bayou post office was established in 1876, and by 1880 the estimated population numbered 250.
In 1886 Edgar Caruthers, Dan Wingate, and Louis Bordages produced commercial quantities of rice in central Jefferson County. Rice cultureqv became a major industry five years later with the construction of a small pumping plant on Taylor Bayou for irrigation. In 1903 Taylor Bayou mail was rerouted to Fannett, a change that reflected the growing importance of the newly constructed Gulf and Interstate Railway. Scattered residences remain in the area once known as Taylor's Bayou; larger numbers of inhabitants live in the nearby communities of LaBelle, Hamshire, and Fannett. Small quantities of oil were discovered at the East and South Taylor Bayou fields in 1973.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: L. I. Adams, Jr., Time and Shadows (Waco: Davis Brothers, 1971). W. T. Block, A History of Jefferson County, Texas, from Wilderness to Reconstruction (M.A. thesis, Lamar University, 1974; Nederland, Texas: Nederland Publishing, 1976).
Robert Wooster
