Most early Texas homes and towns were built along streams that provided water for people and livestock, and travel for boats said to be capable of "floating on a heavy dew". Oyster Creek served, 1822-1861, as such a homesite-highway. Its boat landings were piled high with sugar, cotton, cane and other products of some of America's richest plantations. Chocolate Bayou was an area of early-day cattle raising. These were 2 of 50 streams and 10 bays that made this coast a network of useful waterways. (1968)