Kendleton is a small city in southwestern Fort Bend County, Texas, set along the San Bernard River, which forms its western boundary and marks the line between Fort Bend and Wharton counties. U.S. Route 59, a four-lane divided highway, runs through the city, placing it about fifteen miles southwest of Rosenberg and roughly forty-five to fifty miles from downtown Houston. Kendleton holds a significant place in Texas history. It was founded in 1869 as a Freedmen's town, when planter William Kendall divided his plantation into small farms and sold the land to formerly enslaved people. The community was named Kendleton in his honor. In the decades that followed, the settlement grew into an African American agricultural community, with schools, churches, and a strong local identity. Powell Point School, one of the oldest historically black schools in the state, operated in the community for generations, and the town continues to honor that educational and civil rights legacy through preservation and memorial efforts. Kendleton remained small and rural through the twentieth century. The 2020 census counted 343 residents, and the community has historically ranged in the low hundreds, preserving its quiet, agricultural feel even as Fort Bend County around it has grown. Today Kendleton is served by the Lamar Consolidated Independent School District, following the closure of the local Kendleton Independent School District in 2010. The town's identity as one of Texas's historic Freedmen's communities, combined with its riverside setting and its position on U.S. Route 59, gives it a distinctive place within the greater Houston region.