"Texas Gulf Coast Oil Well - Tri City Area Near Baytown and Goose Creek, Texas."

Goose Creek, on Galveston Bay in eastern Harris County thirty miles southeast of Houston, was named for a nearby stream.

After the Goose Creek oil field was opened in 1915 a boomtown known as Old Town grew up on Goose Creek. That same year a well explosion buried Old Town, and the residents moved further inland. The new site was originally called Newtown, but by 1916 the name Goose Creek had been adopted.

Though there were several attempts to consolidate Goose Creek with two adjoining oilfield towns, Pelly and Baytown, wrangling over which settlement was established first prevented the consolidation until January 24, 1948. The three communities, known as the Tri-Cities, were unified long before that, however, in their employment, schools, churches, and newspapers.