Lake Jackson is unusual among Texas Gulf Coast towns: it was designed from scratch in the 1940s as a company town for Dow Chemical, and its layout reflects modernist town planning principles rather than the organic growth that shaped most Texas communities. The result is a city of curving streets, circular road patterns, and substantial shade trees — quite different from the grid-plan towns nearby.
The Alden B. Dow Office and Lake Jackson City Hall, a historic landmark on the National Register of Historic Places, represents the town's modernist origins. Dow designed the building in a flowing, horizontal style influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright, using brick and glass in a composition that seems to grow from the site rather than sit on it. The building is still in use and can be viewed from the street. Walking or driving through Lake Jackson's older residential neighbourhoods gives a sense of the planned-community aesthetic that Dow brought to this corner of Texas.