CHURCHILL BRIDGE, TEXAS. Churchill Bridge is a community on the San Bernard River sixteen miles southwest of Angleton in southwestern Brazoria County. It was known as Bennett's Ferry when, on September 1, 1875, Lewis T. Bennett bought a ferry and 200 acres with improvements on the San Bernard River from Andrew S. Churchill, who had arrived in the county before March 1836. A local post office was established in February 1877, with Bennett as postmaster, but was discontinued by September. In 1886 Bennett's descendents sold some of the land, and the site came to be known as Churchill Place. According to some sources, it is likely that the post office was known as Bennett's Ferry, but the place was more often referred to as Churchill Ferry or Churchill Bridge. The ferry was replaced by a hand-operated drawbridge and then later by a modern bridge known as Sportsman Span, roughly a mile upriver from the original location. In the 1930s the community had scattered dwellings and several other buildings. Between 1943 and 1945 the town recorded a population of forty and two businesses. In 1988 the county highway map showed two businesses at the site and a development, Las Playas, nearby.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: James A. Creighton, A Narrative History of Brazoria County (Angleton, Texas: Brazoria County Historical Commission, 1975).

Diana J. Kleiner