Indians roamed dunes of Mustang Island

T he Port Aransas of 2007 has little resemblance to the island

The Tarpon Inn in the early 1900s. where Karankawa

Indians roamed and cattle grazed.

Once an isolated camptown where only fishermen came to reap the bounty of the plentiful waters, Port Aransas has become a popular coastal destination for tourists from throughout the United States and the world.

Port Aransas, at the northern tip of Mustang Island, is one of a string of barrier sand reefs off the coast of Texas that stretches from Galveston to Mexico.

The first residents were the Karankawa Indians, a tribe of fierce nomad hunters rumored to be cannibals. They roamed the Gulf coast until Anglo settlers spelled their doom, making them extinct by 1860.

European explorers are known to have visited the area as early as the mid-1500s, but no permanent settlement existed until the 1800s.

This community was first known as Sand Point, according to an 1833 map, and until finally settling as Port Aransas in 1911, it was known by five other monikers: Star, The Pass, Mustang Island, Ropesville and Tarpon. It was the U.S. Postal Service that finally christened the community Port Aransas.

Totsy Millican won the first Tarpon Rodeo in 1932, but it was her husband's name that went on the trophy in keeping with the times. The old Aransas Pass Lighthouse, now called the Lydia Ann Lighthouse, was the first permanent structure in the area. It was built in 1855 to guide ships through the treacherous natural pass between San Jose and Mustang islands to Corpus Christi Bay. The first lighthouse keeper was appointed in 1856. After lying in darkness for 35 years, the lighthouse was recommissioned on July 4, 1988, as an operating lighthouse. It is still privately owned by Charles Butt and is maintained by lighthouse keeper Rick Reichenbach who assumed duties in June 2002.

During the turbulent years of the Texas Revolution and the Civil War, Mustang Island was used as a base for pirate raids and military expeditions.

Legend has it that the most famous buccaneer of the Texas Gulf Coast, Jean Lafitte, had camps on Mustang and San Jose islands where, it is said, there is buried treasure.

The original Horace Caldwell Pier when it was made of wood. The pass from the Gulf has long been a key tactical route from a military standpoint and played critical roles in the strategy of war.

When Mexico threatened to invade the new State of Texas in 1845, the U.S. responded. Gen. Zachary Taylor, with an armada of ships and soldiers, sailed through the pass and anchored at what is now Corpus Christi. A small fort was built on Mustang Island to guard the pass while Taylor and his men marched to the Rio Grande.

Several skirmishes took place during the Civil War in the vicinity of the pass. Once, Union troops attempted to seize the lighthouse in order to guide federal ships through the pass. However, Confederate men removed the lens and buried it in the marsh after failing in an attempt to blow up the lighthouse. Removal of the lens deprived the Union of a guiding light through the dangerous channel. The recovered lens is on display in the foyer of the Port Aransas Civic Center.

These bathing beauties brightened up the Tarpon Rodeo, now known as the Deep Sea Roundup. The first settler to build a home in Port Aransas was Robert Ainsworth Mercer, an immigrant from England via Alabama who arrived on the island to raise cattle in 1855.

Within 10 years, the Mercers had been joined by about 50 other settlers who also ranched on the island, and the roots of today's Port Aransas were firmly established.

During the late 1800s several meat packeries were in operation on the island to treat and render the cattle products that resulted from ranching. Deep draft steamships began plying the pass, bringing with them a new era of commerce for island residents.

Federal efforts to stabilize the pass in 1860, 1879 and 1884 failed for a variety of reasons, but in 1888, a stone jetty on the south side of the pass was successfully erected.

The present-day jetties, composed of huge pink granite blocks quarried from Granite Mountain near Marble Falls in the Texas Hill Country, were constructed beginning in 1906. The north jetty was completed in 1909, and the south jetty was finished in 1911.

One of the earliest structures on the island was the original Tarpon Inn, built in 1886. It was destroyed by fire in 1900, but it was soon rebuilt using lumber salvaged from the first inn.

The island's delicate position at the edge of the Gulf has been tested by storms often over the centuries, and hurricanes in 1916 and 1919 did much damage to Port Aransas. However, island residents rebuilt their community including the venerable Tarpon Inn, after each storm, up to and including Hurricane Celia in 1970.

Despite the hardships and often harsh weather, Port Aransas residents knew that the island town would be an ideal tourist haven.

To that end, the sport fishing industry was cultivated and touted throughout the country.

In the mid-1920s, people who had heard of the bountiful fishing and long, clean beaches of Port Aransas began asking for automobile access to the island. A car-train system was developed to bring cars on a flatbed railroad car from Aransas Pass to Harbor Island, and from there to Port Aransas via ferryboat.

The first Port Aransas ferry, the Mitzi, carried six cars per crossing.

By 1931, a roadway connected Aransas Pass to the ferry crossing and causeways connected Flour Bluff to North Padre Island and North Padre Island to Mustang Island.

One of the milestones in Port Aransas history came in 1931 when longtime islander Barney Farley organized the first Tarpon Rodeo. The Tarpon Rodeo, which evolved into what is now known as the Deep Sea Roundup, became one of the most popular fishing tournaments on the Texas Gulf Coast and firmly established Port Aransas as the center of the state's sport fishing industry.

The most famous of all sport-fishing tourists to visit Port Aransas in 1937 was President Franklin D. Roos- evelt, who caught a tarpon during an excursion to the waters off the coast of Port Aransas. A souvenir from that visit, a tarpon scale signed by Roosevelt, hangs today in a place of honor in the lobby of the Tarpon Inn.

This story and others are recounted by Farley in his book, "Fishing Yesterday's Gulf Coast", published posthumously in the fall of 2002.

By 1940, the population of Port Aransas had grown to about 500, a number that was doubled by military personnel stationed on the island during World War II. Reports of German U-boats off the Texas coast led the military in 1942-44 to build two gunnery emplacements, each on a high sand dune overlooking the Gulf. The remains of the bunker are still visible today near the University of Texas Marine Science Institute.

Port Aransas was a booming mecca for booze, girls and gambling in the late 1940s and 50s. Isolated from the authorities, the illicit activities went unchecked until Hurricane Carla swept over the island in 1961. Most of the illegal joints were destroyed by the storm and never rebuilt.

With the advent of new transportation technology, the old lighthouse was decommissioned in 1952. In addition, a road connecting Port Aransas with the Padre Island Causeway was completed in 1954, providing direct vehicular access. Today, in addition to the road connecting Port Aransas to Padre Island and what is now called the John F. Kennedy Causeway, Port Aransas is served by six 20-car ferries that bring more than one million cars to the island each year.

Port Aransas has continued its growth as a tourism center.

Although the tarpon population dwindled drastically in the mid-1900s, the popularity of sport fishing continued to grow in the 1960s. There are now fishing tournaments, targeting species other than tarpon, every weekend during the summer and a few scattered through the fall.

Condominium development began in 1965 with the completion of Sea Isle Village, and the condominium business boomed through the 1970s and early 80s.

Tourism reached a peak in the 1970s and into the 80s with summer holidays, weekends and the annual spring pilgrimage of thousands of students boosting the island's reputation as a top vacation spot. In addition, the annual migration of Winter Texans from northern states has brought yet another season of tourism to the island.

The oil bust of the mid- to latter- 1980s put a temporary cap on the development of the tourism industry in Port Aransas.

The Texas economy began a rebound in the 1990s that continues into the 2000s. Port Aransas' population after the 2000 census was 3,370, and the community has nearly as many voters because many property owners who are part-time residents register to vote here.

Eco-tourism, including bird watching, began drawing greater interest as the 21st Century dawned, and Port Aransas, in the late 1990s, took on the Celebration of Whooping Cranes and Other Birds as an annual event drawing birders from across the nation. The city has placed emphasis on its birding centers, particularly the Leonabell Turnbull Birding Center on Ross Avenue, and the Joan and Scott Holt Paradise Pond Birding Center off Cut-off Road.

The city is in the process of developing a nature preserve in an area known as Charlie's Pasture on the east side of the island.

In the past 25 years, the growth of Port Aransas has seen a new public library and public safety building built, city services expanded to include recycling, a computer center, revitalized parks and recreation department, reconstruction of streets with curbs and gutters, expansion of the city marina to include floating docks and bulkheading along the Corpus Christi Ship Channel to curb erosion.

The community also has been booming with residential and commercial development. Where there once was one doctor and at times no doctor, two doctors now practice here. A pharmacy serves the community as do expanded retail operations that cater not only to tourists, but fulltime residents as well.

Port Aransas is also home to the official Texas Sand Sculpture Festival, called SandFest. Each spring it draws thousands of visitors to watch and participate in the competition that includes master sculptors from across the country and Canada.

Volunteers are plentiful enough, and audiences are regular enough to have supported the construction of a new building for the Port Aransas Community Theater. PACT offers productions year round, but enjoys its most enthusiastic audiences when the Winter Texans are here.

Port Aransas is also home of the thriving Art Center for the Islands created by artists from Mustang and Padre islands. The non-profit center offers classes and seminars and sells art by its member artists. First Friday receptions honor artists of the month whose work is featured for the month. Corporate sponsors help sustain the center.

The Port Aransas Preservation and Historical Association (PAPHA) was formed in November 2002. In 2004 and 2005, the organization held a Story Fest with "old-timers" gathered in the courtyard of the old Catholic church regaling with stories about the "good old days". In 2006, PAPHA held the first Old Town Festival complete with more storytelling at older retail establishments in "old town", a parade route that wound past historic sites, and a street dance. In 2007, the second festival was held in spite of inclement weather.

A historical museum is in the process of being created by PAPHA out of an early 1900s house it acquired. The house, known as the Mercer house, was built from a kit ordered from a Sears and Roebuck catelogue. In late April, the structure was moved from its location on Oleander at Roberts where it was awaiting permanent pilings to secure it adjacent to the Community Center on Alister Street. It will eventually be a place to display Port Aransas historic memorabilia.

Meanwhile, the city continues to balance maintaining the ambiance of Port Aransas with inevitable growth and development.