Porter Heights, Texas - A Local Area Guide
How Porter Heights grew, how it's governed, and the storms that have marked it
More about this in Porter Heights
Porter Heights is a small, unincorporated community in Montgomery County, a census-designated place rather than a city with its own government. It sits along FM 1314, northeast of Houston near the town of Porter, and it's easy to drive through without noticing where it starts or ends — which is part of why this page exists, as background before anything else on this site. For the full record, the Porter Heights, Texas page on Wikipedia is a good starting point.
A community counted since 1980
Porter Heights first showed up as its own census-designated place in the 1980 U.S. Census, and it's grown slowly and steadily in the decades since rather than through a single large development. The population moved from 1,490 residents at the 2010 census to 1,903 by 2020 — modest, gradual growth typical of a CDP that fills in lot by lot rather than subdivision by subdivision.
The road that defines the place
Farm to Market Road 1314, also known as Conroe Porter Road, forms the community's northeastern boundary. It runs from Porter in the southeast to Conroe in the northwest, and it's also the road that connects Porter Heights to the Grand Parkway, the outer loop around Houston. For most residents, FM 1314 is the road they use to get anywhere else.
Two school districts, one community
Porter Heights sits split between two school systems. Part of the CDP is zoned to New Caney Independent School District, sending students to Crippen Elementary, White Oak Middle School and Porter High School, which opened in 2010 — before that, New Caney ISD students in the area attended New Caney High School instead. The rest of the community is zoned to Conroe Independent School District, attending San Jacinto Elementary, Grangerland Intermediate, Moorhead Junior High and Caney Creek High School. Both halves of Porter Heights fall under the Texas Legislature's designation for the Lone Star College service area.
An airfield that's gone now
A small general-aviation field called North Houston Airport once sat inside the CDP. It was sold to a property developer and permanently shut down in 2021, closing out one of the more distinctive landmarks in the immediate area.
A community that's taken hard weather
Porter Heights has had a rough run of severe weather in recent years. On December 28, 2024, an EF3 tornado with peak winds of 140 mph tracked directly through the community, tearing the roof off at least one brick home and destroying multiple mobile homes along its path — one of the more severe tornado tracks recorded in Montgomery County in recent memory.
That is Porter Heights: a quietly growing CDP split between two school districts, tied together by FM 1314, that has weathered some of the worst storm damage in this part of Montgomery County.