During Reconstruction former slaves founded a community known as the Settlement on land platted by Judge William J. Jones for purchase by freedmen. Before that, a number of cattlemen had moved to the area with their slaves. During the Civil War, George Washington Butler was placed in charge of a containment camp and used slave labor from there to drive cattle for the Confederate Army. After the war, Butler remained in the cattle industry and hired freedmen as cowboys, some of whom lived in the community first known as Highland Tank. The first settlers were Kneeland and Slyvia Britton, and Albert and Priscilla (Britton) Phillips. Calvin Bell, Thomas Britton, and David Hobgood were area cowboys and pioneers of the community. By 1870 the Rev. Israel S. Campbell helped begin a church, and residents built a sanctuary and school the following year in a community called Campbellville for the Reverend. Pioneering families, however, called it Settlement, shortened from “Our Settlement,” to declare the importance of freedom and owning land. The African American community prospered throughout the late 1800s. Many male residents worked on Butler Ranch or as farmers, and the community also had a high literacy rate for the time. By the early 1900s residents worked in railroad occupations and later in industry. In 1911 an interurban line came through the community, and Highland Station opened; the Settlement was known as Highlands and La Marque until it was incorporated into the city limits of Texas City in the 1950s. The community began to decline in the 1960s, when many young people left to work in an integrated society. Rodeos and trail rides, however, have been held as reminders of this once flourishing and self-sufficient community founded by African American cowboys.