Part 2: The Houses Are Coming. Who Pays for the Roads, Water and Drainage?
The houses are only part of the bill. Part 2 follows the roads, drainage, utilities, special districts and property taxes behind the growth taking shape along FM 1488.
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The Jobs We Told Kids to Avoid May Be the Ones AI Can't Replace
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View all →Part 2: The Houses Are Coming. Who Pays for the Roads, Water and Drainage?
The houses are only part of the bill. Part 2 follows the roads, drainage, utilities, special districts and property taxes behind the growth taking shape along FM 1488.
Community
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CommunityYesterday
What Is Being Built on All That Bare Land Along FM 1488?
Part 1: The huge cleared tract along FM 1488 looks sudden. Public records show Longleaf has been moving through planning, platting and land deals for far longer than the bare ground suggests. Part 2 follows the infrastructure, taxes and money behind the growth.
CommunityYesterday
The History of Oak Ridge North, Texas
Oak Ridge North, Texas (ZIP 77385) started in 1964, when the Arkansas-based Spring Pines Corporation bought land in the Charles Eisterwall Survey, two miles north of Spring Creek, as Interstate 45 opened. The city incorporated in 1979 with about 2,445 people.
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Conversations with founders, operators, and local business leaders.
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He Told Himself the Truth in a Bathroom Mirror. Then He Went Looking for Purpose.
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The Homes Didn't Stop Selling. The Frenzy Did.
Lake Conroe, Conroe and The Woodlands are not watching one housing market collapse. They are watching three different markets learn how to behave after years when almost nothing about housing was normal.
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The Loan Is Gone. The Payments Aren't.
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The Junkyard Didn't Disappear. It Learned Your VIN Number.
The old junkyard was part store, classroom and mechanical treasure hunt. Today it may scan barcodes, ship parts nationwide and train workers to handle electric-vehicle batteries—but it still gives useful machines one more chance.
- August 20, 2026
He Is Not Building Five Companies. He Is Building One System.
Rockets, satellites, robots, chips and artificial intelligence are starting to look less like separate Musk ventures and more like parts of one machine, with Texas becoming its factory floor and the Sun becoming its intended power source.
Garden & Recipe
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Garden & RecipeThis Month
The Spring Garden Starts Now. So Does the Last Harvest of the Year.
August may look like the end of the garden in Southeast Texas, but it is actually the handoff between three gardens. Around Conroe, Montgomery and Coldspring, the last summer harvest, the fall planting window and next spring's soil preparation all overlap right now.
Garden & RecipeJuly 16, 2026
Before the Cider
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The Drought-Protected Garden for Texas Summer Herbs
By the time summer settles into Montgomery County, a lot of spring gardens start looking tired.
Faith
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FaithThis Month
Can You Measure Faith by Counting Churches?
America's religious map records buildings and attendance. It cannot fully record what happens around kitchen tables—or what people carry into the world afterward.
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They Didn't Leave God. They Left the Building.
Fewer young Americans belong to churches, but that does not automatically mean they stopped believing. Faith now moves through phones, arenas, campuses and kitchen tables — and the church of tomorrow may look surprisingly like the church at the beginning.
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Fruits of the Spirit: Love
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Fruits of the Spirit: Self-Control
Part 9 of 9 in our Fruits of the Spirit poetry series — a quiet meditation on self-control from Galatians 5:22–23.
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Fruits of the Spirit: Peace
Part 3 of 9 in our Fruits of the Spirit poetry series — a quiet meditation on peace from Galatians 5:22–23.
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The History of Richards, Texas
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Proclamations, Toll Road Updates, and Healthy Debate | Recap of Montgomery County Commissioner's Court, September 17, 2026
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The History of Dobbin, Texas
Dobbin, Texas (ZIP 77333) began as a post office called Bobbin in 1880, on the Central and Montgomery Railway in western Montgomery County. In 1909 the name changed because the office had moved to a new railroad crossing about a mile away. A 1962 map still prints both Dobbin and Bobville.
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The History of Cleveland, Texas
Cleveland, Texas (ZIP 77327) got its name in 1878, when Charles Lander Cleveland deeded 63.6 acres to the Houston, East and West Texas Railway and asked that the station bear his name. The town did not incorporate until 1935.
