Beginning about 1910, figs were grown on thousands of acres across a nine-county area stretching 150 miles along the Gulf Coast from Winnie to Bay City and 50 miles inland. This included Friendswood, where fig orchards ranging from 5 acres to 500 acres lined the main street and covered large nearby tracts. The area that is now Stevenson Park was once Vincent Stevenson's home site and fig orchard. The present-day 900 block of S. FM 518 was the site of a typical main street orchard owned by Quakers Edie and Zue Stevenson Bales. The entire block back to the creek remained the Bales and Glines family farm into the 1940s, and the whole family, including grandchildren, helped with the orchard work.