In 1906, the Kempner family of Galveston, under the leadership of Isaac H. Kempner, and in partnership with Logan J. Copenhaver, purchased the Ellis Plantation, one of the few plantations in Fort Bend County to survive the Civil War. The Ellis Plantation had originally been part of the Jesse Cartwright league; Will Ellis had operated it after the Civil War by a system of tenant farming, made up mostly of African-American families who were previously enslaved on the land.
