Port Aransas is a city in Nueces County, Texas, United States, on Mustang Island, across Aransas Bay from the City of Aransas Pass. The population was 3,370 at the 2000 census. Port Aransas claims to be one of the most popular vacation spots in Texas.
History
Early history
Karankawa Indians played a key role in the early development of the Texas Gulf Coast. The Karankawa Indians inhabited the Gulf Coast of Texas from Galveston Bay all the way to Corpus Christi Bay. The Karankawa Indians led a nomadic existence, migrating from the mainland to the coast. One of the places they lived in on the coast was a small fishing village known as "Sand Point" on what they called "Wild Horse Island", later known "Mustang Island."
They were living that nomadic existence when Spaniards, lead by Alonso Álvarez de Pineda, probed the coast in 1519. Governor Francisco de Garay of Jamaica had commissioned him to explore the Gulf Coast from Florida to Vera Cruz. In the summer of 1519, Piñeda, took a fleet of four ships east to west around the Gulf Coast exploring and mapping five passes along the Texas Coast line, including what is known today as Aransas Pass.
In 1720 the French explorer Pierre-Jean de Béranger was commissioned to explore St. Bernard Bay 'Matagorda Bay' to establish a colony for France along its shores. Jean took an old Spanish ship that had been captured in Florida during the war with Spain, christened it St. Joseph, and his travels resulted in the rediscovery of the Aransas Pass.
In 1739, Governor Prudencio de Orobio y Basterra named the pass Aránzazu Pass on his map of 1739, because it served the Aránzazu fort. The name was altered to Aransas on the map of a Captain Monroe of the ship Amos Wright in 1833.
Pirates of Port Aransas
Port Aransas was a favorite of pirates in the early 1800s. Capt. Jean Lafitte and his hearty band of buccaneers spent lots of time on the Texas coast. Galveston would owe its start to him and Mustang Island was one of his favorite haunts. From about 1800 to the early 1820s, the seas, including the Gulf Coast, were full of pirate ships searching for fame and riches. Some of the pirates had no hesitation at all when it came to living a bit aside of the law. Capt. Jean Lafitte and many other pirates used Mustang Island as a place to make camp and, according to legend, a place to hide their treasure.
Local lore tells of pirate treasure buried in Port Aransas. The treasure chest is supposedly marked by a Spanish silver dagger. It's believed the dagger is laid on its side with silver spike driven through the hilt, securing the location.
European settlement
The first recorded permanent settler in Port Aransas was Capt. Robert Ainsworth Mercer of Lancaster, England. He established a sheep and cattle ranch known as El Mar Rancho in 1853 or 1855. Huge herds of wild horse "mustangs" rambled over plush rangelands of the island when Mercer first settled there.
By 1854, the Texas Senate sanctioned a seven-mile (11 km) channel from Corpus Christi to the Aransas Pass bar to better serve the Port of Corpus Christ. Also in the 1850s, a regular steamship service route for cargo and passengers would be established between New Orleans and Mustang Island. As the pass was brought into permanence, local pilots were needed to guide the ships safely across the bar. For this, permanent structures would be required in order to house the pilots, including docks, a lighthouse, storage, jetties, and a general store.
Life Saving Station and the Lighthouse
In 1850, the United States Life-Saving Service built the 8th District United States Life Saving Station in Port Aransas. The station was built for the aid and rescue of shipwrecked mariners and was manned by full-time crews during the period when wrecks were most likely to occur. The Life Saving Station was administered by the United States Revenue Marine (later renamed the United States Revenue Cutter Service) and was run with a volunteer crew, much like a volunteer fire department.
1.5 acres (6,100 m 2 ) of land was bought from the State of Texas for $750.00 by the federal government and the Life Saving Station was built on the same site which the United States Coast Guard station stands today. The Life Saving Station initially included a dock that stretched from the boathouse into the channel. The boats were hauled onto rails, and pushed into the boathouse when not in use. Initially the small fleet of boats included: a 16 ft (4.9 m) skiff, a 24 ft (7.3 m) surf boat, a 26 ft (7.9 m) whale boat and a 27 ft (8.2 m) whale boat for rough surf.
Designated keeper in charge of the 8th District Life Saving Station on Mustang Island was John G. Mercer. John Mercer, Robert's brother was also one of the local bar pilots, and was appointed sometime in September 1880.
After the announcement of a regular steamship service route between New Orleans and Port Aransas, the United States Congress commissioned $12,500 for the construction of the Aransas Pass Lighthouse. Haggling over what type of lighthouse was needed would mare things down and another survey was done, the pass was slowly moving southward as rushing northern water currents banked sand on the north bank of the pass which is the south end of Saint Joseph Island. It was then advised that a lightship be used to mark the pass. More surveying was done, more talk and then a proposition was accepted to erect a screw-pile lighthouse of brick.
In December 1855, the ship transporting the bricks struck, and then stuck, on the bar. The crew mates were all rescued but the ship and its cargo went to the bottom of the sea. New bricks arrived in 1856, soon followed by the lantern room that would be set on top, and lastly a fourth-order Fresnel lens. There was also need of a lighthouse keeper's dwelling, a small storage room and docks. The construction would be complete by mid 1857 and the illuminated lens would lighten the dark night, guiding ships through the pass later that year.
The Lydia Ann Channel Lighthouse was deactivated in 1952 after a major channel shift left the station a mile from the channel entrance. To better mark Aransas Pass, a new light was established in 1952 at the Port Aransas Coast Guard Station, and the Aransas Pass Lighthouse was deactivated, just a few years shy of a century of service.
The Civil War
Sometime right before or right after the start of the American Civil War, the lens was taken out of the lantern room of the lighthouse and hidden in the vast marshlands somewhere behind the structure. This lighthouse was of utmost importance because it controlled the nighttime pass; whoever governed the light beacon regulated the night time passageway. Without that light, the Union ships could only traverse the treacherous pass in the daytime, limiting Union ship movement in the blockade of the coastline.
The harbors in the Corpus Christi, Rockport-St. Marys, Copano Bay area and Mustang and San Jose islands were all supplying the Confederate Army with much needed beef, salt, seafood and cotton supplies for the troops fighting the North, and the Union was bent on stopping those shipments. Around November 1861, as expected the Union Navy started a campaign of coastal blockade. Then, Marines off the Navy vessel USS Afton surged ashore on San Jose Island and leveled the small town of Aransas, burning most of the houses, structures, warehouses, piers, docks and wharf sometime in February 1862. The small town was all but wiped out, but remnants of it can still be found today when the area is searched well. Jurisdiction of the lighthouse traded back and forth between the Confederate and Union detachments throughout the war.
Though Lt. J. W. Kittredge attempted the expropriation of Corpus Christi from the Southern forces, Maj. Alfred M. Hobby and troops sent the Union ships sailing away. By early that summer, southern civilians had forsaken the islands rather than be under the rule of the North. United States Navy vessels under J. W. Kittredge (before he was captured) besieged the coast, using St. Joseph's Island and the few remaining structures on it as a depot to store captured cotton.
On Christmas Day of 1862 a bold move was made by Confederate General John B. Magruder, who authored a detachment of troops to commence the ruination of the lighthouse tower. Gunpowder kegs were clustered inside the tower and lit on fire. It resulted in the damaging of 20-25 feet of brickwork, the glass housing case and the round stairwell.
The next significant stage in the war for this arena was on May 3 , 1863 , when Capt. Edwin E. Hobby's Confederate company assaulted the Union garrison set to protect the lighthouse and killed twenty soldiers. On the May 8, the Confederates once again maintained a battery on Mustang Island; later in the month, they pushed Union forces off St. Joseph's Island. But their victory wouldn't be long-lived as the Union comprehended
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