Dickinson: Strawberry Capital of the Gulf Coast

Dickinson is one of the oldest surviving settlements on the Galveston County mainland. It takes its name from John Dickinson, who received a Mexican land grant nearby in eighteen twenty-four. A community had formed along Dickinson's Bayou by the late eighteen forties, and when the Galveston, Houston and Henderson Railroad cut through in eighteen fifty-seven, growth accelerated.

By the early twentieth century the town had earned a sweet nickname: the Strawberry Capital of the World. Rich Gulf Coast soil, reliable rail connections to Houston and Galveston, and a local land and improvement association that actively marketed the farmland all contributed. Today Dickinson is a suburban city of roughly twenty thousand, but a few strawberry fields still survive as a reminder of that earlier identity.