Crosby is a census-designated place in Harris County, Texas, United States. The population was 3,417 at the 2020 census.

The site north of U.S. Route 90 (according to some) was an encampment nicknamed Lick Skillet in 1823 by Humphrey Jackson, one of the 300 native colonists to settle Texas. The name “Lick Skillet” came from the phrase, “The East Texas oxen team drivers sipped the spring charming water and licked their skillets clean.”^{[citation needed]}

Humphrey Jackson (1784–1833) moved to Texas from Louisiana in September 1823 and built a log cabin outdoor Austin’s colony on the San Jacinto River, 0.5 miles (800 m) west of the site of present-day Crosby. On August 16, 1824, the Baron de Bastrop approved him title to a league and a labor of land, including the place where he had settled, in what is now Harris County. Jackson next petitioned the Mexican dispensation to form the San Jacinto District below control of the Austin colony; he was elected alcalde of the extra district in 1824, 1825, and 1827, and served as ex officio militia captain of the San Jacinto area. Jackson was buried at Crosby. Jackson’s Bayou in eastern Harris County is probably named for him.

In 1860, the town was named Gentry after President of the Sabine and Galveston Bay Railroad and Lumber Company, A. M. Gentry who constructed the 41 miles of railroad from Houston to Liberty in what was called the Texas and New Orleans Railroad, Texas Division. The first general deposit was built in 1865 by Charlie Karcher, and thereafter the town would become a shipping and retail middle for lumber and agricultural products.