Quiz: How much do you know about the hometown with a heart?

2 out of 7 - being a resident of Houston was no leg up, obviously

I don't actually live there, but I do have a Tomball mail address. I've worked there for fourteen years.

AMAZING

I got 0 out of 7!

you would have thought I'd have gotten a least a couple correct by pure chance.

3 out of 7

tried to post my results but couldn't

i got the towns former name, the name of the highway and the first mayors middle name right

TOMBALL, TEXAS. Tomball, Harris County's northernmost town, is thirty miles north of downtown Houston. It is at a higher elevation than most of Harris County and encompasses nine square miles. Before 1850 the area was the site of a farming community on a land grant given to the heirs of William Hurd in 1838. The settlement was named Peck, after a prominent civil engineer, in early 1907 and was one of forty train stations between Fort Worth and Galveston on the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway. Peck had a freight terminal, a telegraph office, a water station, two section houses, stock pens with water and chutes, and a five-stall roundhouse. These facilities made the settlement an agricultural trade center for the area. On December 2, 1907, Peck was renamed Tomball in honor of Thomas Henry Ball,qv who had been instrumental in routing the railroad to the community. From 1907 to 1933 the people of Tomball were primarily involved in farming and ranching activities. A post office began in 1908. The town acquired its first school in 1908 and in 1913 its first electric lights and telephone service. In 1914 Tomball had a population of 350, a bank, a blacksmith, several stores, six hotels, and two cotton gins. Charles F. Hoffman was an early settler who operated the first general store, and J. J. Trichel was postmaster. In 1933 Tomball became a boomtown when, on May 27, drillers struck oil west of town on the property of J. F. W. Kob. In 1935 the original contract negotiated between Tomball and the Humble Oil and Refining Company (now Exxon Company, U.S.A.qv) gave free water and natural gas to Tomball residents for ninety years in exchange for drilling rights within the city limits. On July 6, 1933, Tomball, popularly known as "Oil Town U.S.A.," was incorporated with a population of 665. With the discovery of oil, however, this figure tripled. Soon there were twenty-five to thirty oil and gas companies producing within a five-mile radius of Tomball. Humble built camps, housing developments, and recreation facilities for its workers. The town was featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not as being the only city with free gas and water and no cemetery. In 1960 the population was 1,173, and by 1984 it was estimated at 5,000. Tomball has a mayor-council form of city government,qv a police department, and a volunteer fire department. Most of the light industry in the city supported the oil and gas industry,qv agriculture, and the building trades. A community college, Tomball College, opened in 1988. In 1990 the town's population was 6,370. A museum complex established by the Spring Creek County Historical Association included historical homes, a farm museum, and the Trinity Evangelical Church. Throughout the 1990s Tomball continued to grow with the addition of many retail and computer-related businesses. The town also served as a bedroom community for Houston commuters. In 2002 Tomball had a population of 9,544 and more than 1,700 businesses.

That's pretty good guesswork, I think.

the towns former name was total guess work, the highway seemed to make sense, and thomas henry just sounded right for the years given

i was tempted by four corners for the highway question, as it sounded kinda down south casual but luckily heade for the parkway instead

Four corners is the intersection of Hwy 249 and Main Street (2920). There used to be a Stop n Go grocery and a whole raft of ramshackle resale shops along there, on the one side, and a Safeway grocery on the other. All gone, in the name of progress.

I got 2 right, although I had never even heard of Tomball!!!

Before the boom of progress on our fair town, even folks in Houston would ask me questions, like, "Tomball? Is that even in the United States?" A few years back, it was predicted a milluion people would move to this general area. Not what I wanted to hear. When I moved to my home eleven years ago, it was almost a rural setting. Over the past two years, every speck of undeveloped ground has been covered or targeted for construction. A retail area to rival Tomball's has appeared like magic right up the street, with Walmart at the center. To make it worse, our street has become a major thoroughfare, connecting the Woodlands to Houston. One would think they would have widened it by now, but it is just one lane either way, and I have no light to get out during rush traffic. A few years ago, I could drive all the way to work and often not see another car. Now, I wait in line and follow creeping drivers doing less than the speed limit.

I got 2 right. Four Corners sounded right to me too. Oh well.

Somebody thought this important enough to place online. How does it strike you?


Major ancestry groups reported by Tomball residents include:


· German - 19%
· Irish - 12%
· English - 10%
· Mexican - 9%
· French (except Basque) - 6%
· Black or African American - 5%
· Italian - 3%
· Scotch-Irish - 3%
· Polish - 3%
· Other Hispanic or Latino - 2%
· Scottish - 2%
· Dutch - 1%
· Swiss - 1%
· French Canadian - 1%
· Czech - 1%
· American Indian tribes, specified - 1%
· Danish - 1%
· Swedish - 1%
· Welsh - 1%
· Subsaharan African - 1%
· European - 1%

5 out of 7.

Completely random guesses. And by "random guesses", I mean that I clicked randomly on the screen 7 times before I hit submit.

I'm awesome.

(The ones I got correct: current mayor, old name of the city, original owner of the land, other name of 249, and largest employment sector.)

smog
yer a genus.

i no i no ino rite