Clear Lake City, Houston, Texas
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Clear Lake City is a master-planned community located in southeast Harris County, Texas. The majority of the community lies in the corporate limits of Houston, while a small eastern portion is in the city limits of Pasadena. Clear Lake City was originally developed by the Friendswood Development Company on land sold to Humble Oil and Refining Company (later Exxon Company) by James Marion West in 1938.
The portion of Clear Lake City in Houston's extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) was annexed by the city of Houston in 1977 despite a grass-roots campaign by its residents to stop it. For several years after the annexation, Clear Lake residents were paying Houston taxes but receiving no services, such as fire and police protection. Later on, the eastern portion in Pasadena's extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) was annexed by the city of Pasadena. The culture in this area is still separate from the general Houstonian culture. The community is home to NASA's Johnson Space Center, as well as other major aerospace companies including Boeing and Lockheed-Martin. Clear Lake City is a very diverse area, and has one of the largest Asian American communities in the city of Houston. The University of Houston-Clear Lake is also located within the community. Clear Lake City and its neighbors have a high concentration of engineers due to both NASA and the local petro-chemical industries.
Clear Lake City is named for a lake south of the Johnson Space Center that separates Harris County from Galveston County and connects Clear Creek to Galveston Bay.
The West mansion is still located on NASA Parkway overlooking Clear Lake.
The neighborhood became the focus of worldwide attention in the summer of 2001 when Andrea Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub in their Clear Lake home.
External links
- University of Houston-Clear Lake (http://www.uhcl.edu/)