The City of Baytown provides municipal government services to the residents, businesses, and guests of the Baytown Community.
The city now known as Baytown was originally three separate towns. The first of these was Goose Creek, named for the bayou of the same name where Canada geese wintered and whose name is still reflected in the area's Goose Creek CISD, whose establishment dates back to before 1850. With the discovery of the Goose Creek Oil Field, the neighboring communities of Pelly in the late 1910s, and East Baytown in the early 1920s, developed as early boomtowns.
Serious talk of merging the three cities began shortly after World War I, but the community of Baytown was opposed to this idea. However, in 1947, the three cities finally agreed to consolidate. The citizens settled on the name Baytown for the new combined city. Baytown as it is known today was officially founded January 24, 1948.
