Docks, boathouses and bulkheads on the Willis side of Lake Conroe.

Willis was founded in 1870 when Galveston merchants Peter J. and Richard S. Willis donated a townsite to the Houston and Great Northern Railroad. Rail arrived in 1872, and in 1874 the town launched a long and unsuccessful campaign to take the county seat away from Montgomery. In the late nineteenth century this was the leading tobacco-growing area in Texas, supporting as many as seven cigar factories until the tariff on Cuban tobacco was lifted. Willis incorporated in 1937 and adopted a home rule charter in 2008.

Timber has been the steadiest engine here for a century, but the modern growth curve is the lake's. The city's own account is unambiguous: growth resumed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as the construction of Lake Conroe began five miles to the west on the West Fork of the San Jacinto River. Population went from an estimated 891 in 1968 to 1,457 in 1970, then 6,431 at the 2020 census. Note the direction — Willis is east of the water; sources placing it west have it backwards.

SJRA defines its own ground as reaching up to a contour line 201 feet above mean sea level, and 201.0 is also the conservation pool. Below that line an owner is building on the authority's land, not their own, and the authority's General Statement is blunt about it: the right to build and maintain private structures, marinas, bulkheads and other encroachments on the reservoir or Authority Land is not an inherent right that comes with control or ownership of waterfront property. Above 201 the ground is generally private, but SJRA holds recorded flowage or flood easements from 201.0 up to 207.0 mean sea level — worth locating before anyone grades a bank or plans a wall above a dock.

The vocabulary matters too. A residential dock or boathouse is licensed; a bulkhead or any dredging is permitted. The license application is completed by the property owner rather than the contractor, with plans drawn to scale showing the structure's measured distance from the adjacent properties. Once issued, a legible copy must be posted at the job site and be visible from the water until the work is inspected and tagged by SJRA staff. The fee is annual and based on size and location — a recurring license, not a one-time charge.

The local layer here is unusual. Point Aquarius is served by its own Municipal Utility District — a political subdivision of the State of Texas rather than an HOA committee, with an elected five-member board serving four-year terms under TCEQ supervision, covering Point Aquarius, Pelican Bay, Pelican Island and Lakeside Place. The board meets the third Tuesday of each month at 5:00 PM. The community also runs an Architectural Control Committee, keeps a manned gate, and posts a 25 MPH limit that applies to anything hauling equipment in. The POA office is on 936-856-4927.

Its water access comes in two parts: the Point Aquarius Marina, described by the community as a private marina nestled in a protected cove off Marina Loop, and a separate west-side boat launch on Pegasus Drive. Marina slips are individually owner-owned and traded through the POA office, and lifts are allowed in the slips with approval of the Marina Committee — a committee item, not an owner's unilateral call. Seven Coves, near FM 830, differs again: its marina is owned and operated by the homeowners association itself rather than a commercial operator. City permits apply only inside Willis city limits, which these subdivisions largely are not, so most addresses fall to Montgomery County — the same buildability question asked everywhere else.