Baytown, city in Harris and Chambers counties, southeastern Texas, on the Houston Ship Channel and numerous inlets of Galveston Bay. Baytown is heavily industrialized, with great petroleum refineries and petrochemical plants. It has a junior college. The area was settled by whites in the 1820s. The community grew around a trading post established here after the American Civil War (1861-1865), and it became a petroleum-producing and -refining center about 1918. The city was incorporated in 1948, with the consolidation of Pelly, Goose Creek, and Baytown. Population 56,923 (1980); 63,850 (1990); 66,430 (2000).
