DOUBLE BAYOU, TEXAS. Double Bayou is between the two forks of the Double Bayou and just north of the junction of Farm roads 1985 and 562, fifty miles southwest of Beaumont in west central Chambers County. James Jackson settled the area in 1847, establishing a ranch of 26,000 acres. Though most operations of this type used the open range, the Jackson ranch was fenced at an early date. The local general store, established by John Jackson before 1900, served as the center for community life at Double Bayou. A sugar cane mill and cotton gin also provided gathering points for the widely scattered settlers of the region. The Double Bayou post office operated from 1860 to 1866 and from 1876 to 1919. Traveling on Double Bayou and Trinity Bay, boats remained the locale's primary means of communication with the outside world well into the twentieth century. The flooding that accompanied the hurricane of 1915 caused severe hardships for the people of Double Bayou, as it did for many residents of the upper coastal prairies of Texas. The largely black population of the isolated rural area was estimated at between 150 and 300 during the 1930s. Churches, a number of residences, and a school marked the Double Bayou community on maps in the mid-1970s. The port at Double Bayou handled 26,136 tons in 1981. The community's population was reported as 400 in 1990 and 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Jewel Horace Harry, A History of Chambers County (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1940; rpt., Dallas: Taylor, 1981). Ralph Semmes Jackson, Home on the Double Bayou: Memories of an East Texas Ranch (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1961).

Robert Wooster