Brays Bayou is a slow-moving river in Harris County, Texas. A major tributary of Buffalo Bayou, the Brays flows for from the western edge of the county, south of Barker Reservoir along the border with Fort Bend County, east to its convergence with the Buffalo at Harrisburg. Nearly all of the river is located within the city of Houston; it is a defining geographic feature of many neighborhoods and districts, including Meyerland, Braeswood Place, the Texas Medical Center, and Riverside Terrace.
As a result of its central route through Harris County, the Brays Bayou watershed is heavily urbanized. Over 700,000 people reside within its drainage area, which contains of open-channel waterway, mostly from artificial drainage channels. This high level of development, combined with a relative lack of flood control infrastructure, means Brays Bayou is extremely prone to flash flooding events.
Name
The origin of the name Brays Bayou is unclear, and the alternate spellings Braes and Bray's have been used throughout its history, most prominently in Braeswood Place, a neighborhood which straddles the bayou southwest of Rice University, and Braeswood Boulevard, which runs along the river between Interstate 610 and Texas State Highway 288.
Braeswood may have originated from the Scottish word brae, for hill or slope. An early settler along Brays Bayou, Henry MacGregor (the namesake of MacGregor Drive in the Third Ward), may have coined the name.
The name Brays has been used to describe the river since the arrival of the Old Three Hundred at Stephen F. Austin's colony in the 1820s. In 1822, a man named Bray settled along the bayou, possibly providing its name.
Route
Brays Bayou has its source at an artificial stormwater detention basin south of Barker Reservoir in extreme western Harris County. It flows eastward, north of Mission Bend and parallel to the Westpark Tollway, into Alief. After briefly entering Westchase, the Brays turns southward, bisects the International District, and straddles the western edge of Sharpstown. After passing under Interstate 69, the bayou flows east-northeast through Meyerland, underneath the Interstate 610 loop, and past the Texas Medical Center and Hermann Park. The bayou passes under State Highway 288, enters the Third Ward, and exits into the East End after passing under Interstate 45. Significantly wider at this point, Brays Bayou then empties into Buffalo Bayou at the Houston Ship Channel and historic townsite of Harrisburg.
History
The confluence of Brays and Buffalo bayous was the original focal point for Anglo-American settlement in the region with the founding of Harrisburg in 1825. In 1836, Houston was founded upstream Buffalo Bayou at the confluence with White Oak Bayou. Harrisburg would remain the region's primary trade center until after the American Civil War, when economic momentum shifted to Houston.
Other early settlements along Brays Bayou included Riceville, founded in 1850, and Alief, founded in 1861. Frequent flooding along the Brays made its floodplain ideal for growing rice, which became a cash crop in Alief through the early 20th century. As a result of its familiarity with flooding, Alief was home to the region's first flood control district, which was created in 1909.
By the first half of the 20th century, suburbs of Houston had reached the banks of Brays Bayou. Rice University was established on a large plot of land adjacent to Harris Gully, a tributary of the bayou, in 1912, and the University of Houston was established just north of the bayou in the Third Ward in 1927. Harrisburg was annexed by the city in 1926. During the 1930s, Riverside Terrace, south of the Third Ward, became home to the large forested estates of Houston's wealthy Jewish community, which had been segregated out of River Oaks. The Texas Medical Center began in the 1940s with the construction of the MD Anderson Cancer Center. Meyerland, located immediately west of the southwest corner of Interstate 610, was opened in 1955 as one of Houston's first master-planned communities. Brays Bayou continues to serve as a greenway connecting these affluent neighborhoods and districts.