1978 Looking Back, Pre-Traffic

As Ann West fights the South Belt traffic in an attempt to get to and from her home on Sagewood, she can well remember a day when there was no traffic problem, as there was no traffic; in fact, there were no but two or three streets.

The George West family has watched Sagemont grow from a five-home water district to the large subdivision it is today.

When the West family moved here in July of 1964 and purchased the first home for sale after the water district had been established there was no Sagemont Park, Scarsdale, Wood Meadow, Sagemeadow, Kirkwood South, Kirkmont, or Sageglen.

Ann reminisced, "We were really out in the boon docks. We were the first family to start living here except for five water district houses, way back on Sageville.

When the Wests moved in there were about 12 houses under construction on Sagewood and Sageville.

They all shared a common backyard for a year or two before fences went up.

At that time, Sagemont was blessed with the first bit of landscaping. Two and three foot trees were planted.

Ann stated that "there was absolutely nothing out here that even looked like a tree or grass or flowers. Only a few shaggy scrubs that the builders planted in front of each home and called landscaping."

It was kind of lonely being the "first" in Sagemont.

They only company the Wests' had for the first month (until the next door neighbors moved in) were "field mice, crickets, and millions of other species of bugs" which Ann related that she had never seen before in either Alaska or California, where they had previously lived.

One of the inconveniences suffered by the "first families" of Sagemont was lack of proximity to everything except the "wide open spaces."

Even the mailman would not venture into this pioneer area!

Residents of the area has to go to the old post office (which was located on Old Galveston Road at Almeda-Genoa) to either pick up or send off mail.

The trip was quite a pilgrimage in those days, not the quick jaunt that we know today. 

South Belt was not completed under the freeway, so to get to Old Galveston Road, residents had to go along the feeder road to McHard Street (now called Scarsdale Boulevard) across over the freeway and go back along the feeder to Broadway and then to Old Galveston Road; not hear the simple trip to today's Sagemont residents make to their own mailboxes.

This same route, as far as Broadway (not to be mistaken with the Broadway near Park Lace) had to taken every time there was grocery shopping to be done. 

The Wests did most of their shopping at Weingartens and stores located at Gulfgate, as fourteen years ago the shopping area at Edgebrook was not yet developed.

 . . . . They would don their backpacks and head out for the wild deserted countryside. 

That "deserted" area today is known as Stucherry and Thompson schools. 

Things have certainly changed during the last 14 years, reflects Ann. "Sagemont has grown from one family to over 2200 with many more surrounding subdivision and my nine-year old baby is a physical education teacher at Jessup Elementary. 

If the latest studies are correct, Sagemont's growth in the area is only the beginning and Ann has no hope that the traffic which makes it difficult for her to get on and off her street will improve.