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Brightwater History

The first Anglo-American colonists were brought to Texas by Stephen F. Austin and received a Mexican land grant from 1824 to 1827 that was known as “The Old 300”.  Fifty-six (56) of those 300 colonists received their grants in what is now Fort Bend County and one of those was W.M. Stafford; he received his grant on August 16, 1824.

Most of the land was later identified as part of the SMADA plantation ("Adams" spelled backwards).

In 1890, R.M. Cash and L.E. Luckel bought a large tract and began advertising it in St. Louis, Missouri as land “of genial sunshine and eternal summer.”  The property was near what was later to be known as the village of Stafford.

W.R. McElroy bought 80 acres nearby and began promoting his property as the new town of Missouri City to capitalize on the advertising of Cash and Luckel.  It was recorded as such in Harris County on October 3, 1894 and in the Fort Bend County records on September 28, 1895.

In 1962, the land which now includes the Lakes of Brightwater was a part of 903 acres owned by J.M. Frost, Jr.   In 1974, ownership was shown to be in the name of J.M Frost, III.  The Frost property was bounded by Stafford-DeWalt Road on the east and Oyster Creek on the west; it stretched from about where Avenue E is located on the north side to Cartwright on the south.

The lake was shown as one elongated area, rather than the horseshoe-shaped lake we have today.  The smaller lake surrounding Brightwater Estates did not exist.