Point Comfort Began as an ALCOA Company Town

Point Comfort sits across Lavaca Bay from Port Lavaca, but it did not grow from an old port or courthouse square. ALCOA began the community in 1949 as housing for plant workers. Streets, water lines, storm sewers, and sanitary sewers went in before the first 48 houses.

Another 56 homes were finished in 1951, and a third building phase followed later in the decade. Point Comfort incorporated in 1953. The next year, ALCOA planned a small shopping center with space for groceries, dry goods, mail, medical care, and barber and beauty shops.

That order of work still explains the town's shape. Utilities came first, then matching groups of homes, then a civic and shopping center. Point Comfort is a local example of a company town built by plan, one phase at a time, on the industrial side of Lavaca Bay.