Santa Fe (English: Holy Faith) is a city in Galveston County, Texas, United States. It is named for the Santa Fe Railroad (now part of BNSF Railway) which runs through the town alongside State Highway 6. The population of Santa Fe at the 2010 census was 12,222.^[5] In 1877, the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway was built through the western part of Galveston county.^[6] By the turn of the century, three small, unincorporated towns had formed along the railway: Alta Loma, Arcadia, and Algoa. The Santa Fe Independent School District which was named after the railway, was established shortly afterward to serve the area.

In the mid-1970s, the neighboring city of Hitchcock attempted to annex an area in eastern Alta Loma known as the Morningview neighborhood. Amid intense opposition to becoming part of Hitchcock, residents began a petitioning effort to incorporate the area into a new city. On January 21, 1978, a ballot proposal to incorporate Alta Loma and parts of Arcadia passed by a wide margin and the city of Santa Fe was born. Santa Fe has since grown to include all of Arcadia and parts of Algoa, and ironically is now twice the size of Hitchcock.