THOMPSONS, TEXAS. Thompsons is on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe line and Farm Road 2759, twelve miles southeast of Richmond in eastern Fort Bend County. Settlement in the area began around 1830, when Robert E. Bohannon moved to Texas from Alabama and was given a land grant under a program where the Mexican government contracted with empresario^qv Stephen F. Austin^qv to bring in settlers. When Bohannon died, his wife married Hiram Thompson, who named the community after himself. It became a station on the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe in 1879, and was granted a post office in 1888. The town at one time was called Thompson's Switch. By 1896 the community had an estimated 300 residents, who were served by a cotton gin, a general store, and two saloons. The community had a population of 104 in 1900. In 1903, the Thompson school district, surrounded by former plantations farmed predominantly by black tenants, had three black schools with 175 pupils and one white school with eight pupils. From the 1920s through the mid-1940s the town reported a population of seventy-five. The Cane Belt Railroad built a second line through the community in 1930, and in 1940 the town included a school, a cotton gin, a store, and two churches. In 1947 the community reported a population of 100; in 1972, 73; in 1982, 240; and in 1990, 167. The population was 236 in 2000. Thompsons incorporated in 1979.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: S. A. McMillan, comp., The Book of Fort Bend County (Richmond, Texas, 1926).

Mark Odintz