Tomball Roofing Home › Service Areas › Old Town Tomball
How the Town Began
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| Early 1907 | A station named Peck opens on the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway, one of forty on the line |
| December 2, 1907 | Peck is renamed Tomball for Thomas Henry Ball, at the downtown depot |
| 1908 | A post office and the first school |
| 1914 | About 350 people |
| May 27, 1933 | Oil struck southwest of town |
| July 6, 1933 | Incorporation, with 665 residents |
Tomball called itself Oiltown USA after the strike.
Sources: Texas State Historical Association, Handbook of Texas; City of Tomball, History of Tomball.
What That Means for the Roofs
A block here can hold an early wood-frame house, a 1950s cottage and something built last year. Expect:
- Plank roof decking on the older houses rather than plywood.
- Metal roofs, some of them old enough to have rust at the laps.
- Painted wood lap siding and trim, where the rot starts at the bottom edge.
- Pier-and-beam houses with skirting, and the Griffin House at the north end of Pine Street, built before 1860 and moved here in 1965.
More on this on the older buildings page.
Rules Here
Old Town is inside city limits, so a re-roof goes through the Building Office at 501 James Street: $50 residential roofing permit, contractor insurance certificate naming the city. The downtown core is zoned Old Town & Mixed Use; if a job changes what a front elevation looks like, ask the city first. Details on the permits page.
Older House Near the Depot?
Call and say what it is built of, if you know. The request goes to a contractor who works on older houses.
Call (346) 273-0697 Use the Form