WILLOW CREEK (Harris County). Willow Creek rises near Rose Hill in northeast Harris County (at 30°04' N, 95°43' W) and follows an east-northeast course for eighteen miles to its mouth on Spring Creek, at the Harris-Montgomery county line (at 30°07' N, 95°29' W). The stream flows through an area where coastal prairie is interspersed with forested areas of pine, oak, and a number of other native Big Thicket^qv trees. The landscape is flat to rolling terrain with local escarpments and dissections, surfaced by deep to shallow sandy and clay loams. Among Stephen F. Austin's^qv second colony grants was a league of land along Willow Creek granted to Elizabeth Smith, a widow, in 1831. French immigrants began to settle along the creek, and the Willow Creek area became known as the French settlement. The first of these settlers was Claude Nicholas Pillot, who began farming in the area in 1837.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: The Heritage of North Harris County (n.p.: North Harris County Branch, American Association of University Women, 1977).