Freeport, Texas

In the late 1930’s Alden Dow was called upon by his older brother Willard, who was running The Dow Chemical Company to design housing for Freeport, an emerging city on the gulf coast of Texas.  With much of Europe at war and America being on the cusp of entering it, Dow Chemical engineers were sent to the gulf area to create ways to extract elements, primarily magnesium, from the ocean that would be used in the production of war goods.  With a growing work force needed to sustain the ever-multiplying plants, housing was needed.  Texas was already experiencing a housing shortage even before new industry was created.  Alden Dow’s ideas of low cost, modular construction were put to the test to create housing for this growing workforce. 

Initially, Alden Dow created a one-story motel with twenty-three guest rooms that was constructed in three weeks time in 1940.  Dow developed plans for modular three- and four-bedroom houses that could be adapted to include other amenities such as screen porches and garages.  There were a total of 53 of these houses constructed in addition to a hospital, school and a six-family apartment building that was similar to the original hotel.  He also designed a “worker's camp” that was known as Camp Chemical.  Creating prefabricated wall, roofs and floors, roughly two-thousand carpenters turned out one cottage every ten minutes, six every hour, sixty each day.  Roads paved with oyster shells, covered a modern water and sewer system.  Construction began in February 20, 1942, and just a month later, a new town was open for business.  This company town, big enough for as many as twenty thousand, blossomed in the Texas salt marsh. 

Lake Jackson, Texas

In late 1941, the Dow Chemical Company was trying to attract permanent employees to its Freeport operation.  Most people were not excited to live in the storm-prone coast city of Freeport.  Dow Chemical purchased 5,000 acres north of Freeport in an area that was part of the former Abner Jackson Plantation.  Alden Dow’s dream was to create an ideal residential community where a rewarding home life would be separate from industrial labor. Construction began in 1942 and by April 1943, Lake Jackson was a running city.  Alden Dow would design every element of the city; road ways, housing, commercial structures, civic structures, schools, and churches.  Residential areas were planned out so that each piece of property was garden-like and created ultimate privacy.  Primary streets were designated as drives, while roads leading to the commercial area, which was set off by itself, were called ways.  About five hundred single-family homes and another two hundred duplexes were built in a garden setting of trees, parks and lakes.  The Federal Government subsidized the duplex apartments and offered FHA loans for homeowners.    

Lake Jackson was a chance of a lifetime for Alden Dow to design an entire city while showing how innovative and efficient he could be in designing functional, pleasing structures for people to live, work, worship, and learn.          

(For photography credits, see the photographer page.)