Notes

In the beginning it was only a wide open prairie, the hunting ground of the Karankawa Indian tribes, the winter feeding grounds of great herds of buffalo and large flocks of wild ducks, geese, sandhill and whooping cranes, and numerous other game birds, and home to longhorn cattle, deer, and wolves.
Earliest settlement of the community known as Cane Island, for Cane Island Creek that runs through it, was in 1872.
The townsite of Katy was laid out and platted by J. O. Thomas, L. C. Luckel, and R. M. Cash in 1895, supposedly named for the M-K-T Railroad that runs through it. The City of Katy was formally incorporated in 1945. Katy has always been a traditional family style community; however, it also played a major role as a rail hub, a rice farming and agricultural center, and one of the largest gas fields in this part of Texas.
Ancestral Homes of Katy were researched and historical markers erected by the local Texas Sesquicentennial Committee in 1986. The historical markers can be used as a guide for a walking or driving tour of more than a dozen historical homes and buildings in downtown Katy.