Aransas City is a

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

on the tip of the Live Oak Peninsula in

Aransas County, Texas Aransas County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. It is in South Texas and its county seat is Rockport. As of the 2020 census, its population was 23,830. Aransas County comprises the Rockport, Texas micropolitan statistic ...

, United States, near present-day Fulton. It served as a port on

Aransas Bay Aransas Bay is a bay on the Texas Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast, approximately northeast of Corpus Christi, Texas, Corpus Christi, and south of San Antonio, Texas, San Antonio. It is separated from the Gulf of Mexico by San José ...

at its confluence with

Copano Bay Copano Bay is a northwestern extension of Aransas Bay, west of Rockport, Texas in Refugio and Aransas counties. It is supplied with seawater from the Gulf of Mexico via Aransas Bay, and fed freshwater from the Aransas River, Mission River and ...

during the 1830s and 1840s, but declined following its loss of a

Republic of Texas The Republic of Texas (), or simply Texas, was a country in North America that existed for close to 10 years, from March 2, 1836, to February 19, 1846. Texas shared borders with Centralist Republic of Mexico, the Republic of the Rio Grande, an ...

customhouse A custom house or customs house was traditionally a building housing the offices for a jurisdictional government whose officials oversaw the functions associated with importing and exporting goods into and out of a country, such as collecting ...

to the rival port of Lamar.

History

Prior to the

Texas Revolution The Texas Revolution (October 2, 1835 – April 21, 1836) was a rebellion of colonists from the United States and Tejanos (Hispanic Texans) against the Centralist Republic of Mexico, centralist government of Mexico in the Mexican state of ...

empresario An empresario () was a person who had been granted the right to settle on land in exchange for recruiting and taking responsibility for settling the eastern areas of Coahuila y Tejas in the early nineteenth century. Since ''empresarios'' attract ...

James Power constructed his house on the northern tip of Live Oak Peninsula at the site of the former Spanish fort of

Aránzazu Arantzazu (Spanish language, Spanish ''Aránzazu'') is a town and Municipalities of Spain, municipality located in the province of Bizkaia, in the Autonomous Community of Basque Country (autonomous community), Basque Country, northern Spain. To ...

, which guarded

to the west. Power later founded the town in 1837 in what was then Refugio County and partnered with former Texas Governor Henry Smith to organize and advertise the town to potential settlers. Afterwards, several stores were established and the population reached 500. The town was incorporated in 1839, included a

for the

, and served as the county seat of Refugio County until 1840. The town was attacked by the

Karankawa The Karankawa were an Indigenous people concentrated in southern Texas along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, largely in the lower Colorado River and Brazos River valleys."Karankawa." In ''Cassell's Peoples, Nations and Cultures,'' edited by Joh ...

and

Comanche The Comanche (), or Nʉmʉnʉʉ (, 'the people'), are a Tribe (Native American), Native American tribe from the Great Plains, Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the List of federally recognized tri ...

Indians several times and was raided by the Mexican irregulars in 1838, 1839 and 1841. After the founding of Corpus Christi by former Aransas City-resident

Henry Kinney Henry Lawrence Kinney (June 3, 1814 – March 3, 1862) was an American politician, military officer, and later filibuster known for founding what became the city of Corpus Christi, Texas. Born in Pennsylvania, Kinney moved to Texas in 1838 and se ...

, the port was no longer the westernmost in Texas. It soon lost its customhouse to the rival port of Lamar in a controversial decision that contributed to the town's demise: Lamar had been founded in 1839, on the other side of the present day Copano Bay Causeway (on Lamar peninsula) by settler James Byrne, who had been affiliated with Power. The town was named after the newly elected President Mirabeau B. Lamar, whom Byrne lobbied, to relocate the Aransas City customhouse. Lamar complied with the request, ignoring an Aransas City petition that opposed the move, and soon Aransas City was stripped of its designation as the county seat. The events mirrored the political feud between Lamar, who was supported by Byrne, and former President

Sam Houston Samuel Houston (, ; March 2, 1793 – July 26, 1863) was an American general and statesman who played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution. He served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and was one of the first two indi ...

, whom Power backed. Power moved on to Copano, and by 1847, Aransas City was largely abandoned and no longer had a functioning government.

References

{{Aransas County, Texas Populated places in Aransas County, Texas Ghost towns in South Texas 1837 establishments in the Republic of Texas