Channelview

Channelview, an oil refinery suburb of metropolitan Houston, is at the site where the San Jacinto River forms Old River, south of Interstate Highway 10 and the Missouri Pacific Railroad and eight miles southeast of Houston in eastern Harris County. It was named for its location on the northeastern curve of the Houston Ship Channel and was populated by blue-collar oil refinery workers and their families after oil discoveries in the area in 1916. After 1910, schools for both black and white students opened as ship channel industries grew. Beginning sometime before 1916 and continuing as late as 1942, the McGhee School served black students. The local white school had thirty-one pupils in 1925.