The year was 1898, the man was 26-year-old Price Pruett, the place was a 298-acre ranch slapdab in the middle of what is now Baytown. The cowboy from Dayton -became a pioneer Baytonian .who left his brand on Baytown's birth certificate with son R.H. "Red" Pruett taking over the reins after he was gone. I Joined by their son, Rolland, Red and Jackie Pruett relaxed in their Gulf Street landmark home to reminisce about the family history. Price Pruett was born on a ranch near Dayton, where he learned to be a cowboy. In the 1880s being a cowboy was making a living. Price was an exception in his cowhand duties. Unlike most of his counterparts, he graduated from college -- Southwestern University in Georgetown. The business administration knowledge learned by cowboy Pruett would be put to use in his cattle dealings and later in a partnership with Ross S. Sterling. For years Price Pruett rode the range, rounding cattle from ranchers between Beaumont and Houston. Each rancher would be given a mark for each head of cattle and Pruett would return from the stockyard at Dayton to pay each one in gold.

He never used the same trail to return to a rancher's house because he was carrying from $15,000 to $18,000 dollars in gold coins. In 1898 hard work and good sense were the beginning of a new era for Price Pruett near the banks of Goose Creek Stream. In 1902 Price married Georgea Estelle Lawrence and the couple built their home where the Weingarten store building was later located near the corner of Lee Drive and Market Street. A fine home for its day, it had three bedrooms. The kitchen and, dining room were separated from the living quarters by a dog-run porch. The pasture covered a wide area. At the present site of Lee College, football games used to be played by high school boys. The area became widely known as "Pruett's Pasture " Price Pruett's barns were located where the pavilion in Bicentenial Park now stands. Where Sterling Library is today was once the bustling ranch house of Wiley Shriver, who was Pruett's partner until the mid1920s. The early 1920s found Price Pruett and Ross S. Sterling teaming up to start Goose Creek Realty. They created the downtown Texas Avenue area, adding a major chapter to the history of Baytown and its growth. On a 90-acre plot they sold lots and developed the streets in the vicinity of Texas Avenue.		Ten acres were given to the railroad for promotion of the area property and the venture proved to be successful. Pruett and Sterling built the Citizens Bank building in 1922 on the corner of Ashbel and Texas. At that time the bank was the only steam-heated building between Beaumont and Houston. The Texas Avenue oak tree was actually bigger in the early 1900s than it is today. Red Pruett remembers his father telling him that the tree was the oldest oak around these parts as far back as 1918. Asphalt and concrete choked the tree for years but never quite killed it. Thanks to the efforts of the Pruett family, the tree lives today. Although it is somewhat dwarfed and not up to par these days. the symbol -of the city still lives Its age has been estimated at more than 200 years. As Texas Avenue flourished and creeped closer to the Pruett ranch house, a corral gate was built to keep stock from roaming downtown. The gate was located about where the front door is to the former Culpepper Furniture building, which, incidentally, was constructed bv the Pruetts. Price and Georgea had two sons and a daughter born at the ranch house. Freeman "Potsy" Pruett was born in 1905 and died in 1970. Mavoureen "Polly" Taylor was born in 1910 and died in 1979 in Houston. The surviving son is Rolland Henry "Red" Pruett, who is as well-known in Baytown as the oak tree itself.

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