I wish I had the original aerial photo. This one comes from a Belknap Realty brochure that Jackie James let me scan. (Many thanks to her.) Although it lacks the quality of an original, this reproduction gives you a good picture of Sugar Land's development in the early 1960s. (I don't have an exact date for this photo.)
You can see at the top that the Southwest Freeway doesn't extend past Sugar Creek Boulevard. In fact, Sugar Creek doesn't exist. There is nothing but pasture land east of Eldridge Road. (You can see the 2nd Laura Eldridge Hospital & the Methodist Church, but nothing else sits on Eldridge Road, or KPRC Road as it was known then.)
The back of Venetian Estates is undeveloped - in fact, Savoy doesn't exist yet.
Brookside is open land except for development starting on Azalea, Bluebonnet, & Borden.
I threw in the 2nd picture to prove that cotton fields covered Brookside long ago. It shows a crop growing in the field between the drainage canal & the end of Venice St. (I don't have a date for this photo either, but it's probably several years earlier than the aerial photo.)
