Richmond, Texas - A Local Area Guide
How Richmond began, the history it holds, and who calls it home today
More about this in Richmond
Richmond is the seat of Fort Bend County, sitting on the Brazos River about 30 miles southwest of downtown Houston. It is one of the oldest towns in this part of Texas, and its history runs far deeper than most of its faster-growing neighbors. This page is a plain guide to the place. For the full record, the Richmond, Texas page on Wikipedia is a good starting point.
A history that goes back to 1822
Richmond's story starts in 1822, when colonists brought over by Stephen F. Austin built a fortified settlement called "Fort Bend" near where the city sits today. The town took the name Richmond, after Richmond, England, and was formally incorporated in 1837 — one of just 19 cities chartered under the Republic of Texas in its earliest years. Few communities in this part of the state can point to a town charter that old.
The people history left behind
Richmond's cemeteries hold some genuinely significant figures from Texas history. Jane Long, remembered as "the Mother of Texas," is buried there, along with the frontiersman and interpreter Deaf Smith and Mirabeau B. Lamar, the second President of the Republic of Texas. Walter Moses Burton, the first Black person elected sheriff anywhere in the United States, is buried in Richmond as well. The city was also the site of the "Battle of Richmond" on August 16, 1889, the violent final clash of the Jaybird-Woodpecker War, a bitter post-Reconstruction political feud that shaped local politics for years afterward.
Schools and the county library
Lamar Consolidated Independent School District serves Richmond's corporate limits, though high school students from Richmond attend campuses located in neighboring Rosenberg rather than within Richmond itself. Richmond is also home to the George Memorial Library, Fort Bend County's central library, a 77,000-square-foot building that has served as the county's flagship library location since it was established in 1986.
A city on both banks of the Brazos
Richmond straddles the Brazos River, with the bulk of the city on the southwest bank and a smaller section, Richmond Landing, on the northeast bank connected across the water by US Highway 90A. US Highway 59 also runs through the city, and Rosenberg borders Richmond directly to the southwest. Richmond operates under a commission-manager form of government.
Who lives in Richmond today
The 2020 census put Richmond's population at 57.1% Hispanic or Latino, 35.7% White, and 17.6% Black or African American. The city's population has held essentially flat for the past decade, a contrast with the rapid growth happening in newer Fort Bend County communities nearby.
That is Richmond: a county seat with roots back to 1822, home to some of the most significant burials in Texas history, and still the anchor of Fort Bend County today.