Old Ocean is located at the intersection of Farm to Market Road 524 and Texas State Highway 35, 5 mi (8.0 km) northwest of Sweeny.

His family and their 250 slaves arrived here and settled on a league of land donated by Charles Breen, on the southern boundary of this grant.

A post office with the name Old Ocean was established in 1945 and was located inside a commissary on Sweeny's plantation.

The 1936 county highway map showed Bethlehem church, several other buildings, and several scattered houses in the area.

[3] Some settlers of the community included Mills M. Battle, M. Berry, Thomas H. Borden, Charles Breen, Benjamin C. Franklin, Freeman George, Henry W. Johnson, Oliver Jones, Imla Keep, David McCormick, Zeno Philips, Thomas Walker, John Williams, and Robert Harris Williams.

Before the American Civil War, Sampson Brown was brought here as a slave from Maryland by Joseph McCormick in 1837.

The town is currently being redeveloped into an industrial facility and both State Highway 35 and FM 524 have been bypassed around the townsite.