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History of Port Mansfield
This Port Mansfield history was compiled by Ed Glaze III. Some of the following is from a
report written by Thomas West Jr. for a Texas History class in 1984. Articles
referenced include The Houston Chronicle Magazine of Sep. 1948 and Wall Street Journal of
July 14, 1965. Personal recollections come from Dell Shelton, Frank Bell, Roger
Robinson, Janine Tankersly, Mae and Marvin Biggs, and thanks also to other members of the
Port Mansfield community who contributed.
Port Mansfield is located on land dating back to the San Juan de
Carricitos land grant given by the King of Spain to Jose Narcisso Cavazos. In that
day and time, the land grant recipient had to undergo a ritual of taking ownership of the
land. This meant the owner must physically go onto the land and, in front of witnesses,
pull some grass, break some twigs, gather some dirt, scoop up some water, and scatter all
to the four winds. Cavazos did this at “Tanke de Carricitos” a cistern for
rainwater still located about five miles northwest of present-day Port Mansfield.
About 1880, Captain Richard King acquired this land, making it a part of the famed King
Ranch. At that time, Redfish Landing (as the Port Mansfield area was then called)
was just a beach on the Redfish Bay area of the Laguna Madre used for fishing.
Judge Mead of Santa Margarita remembered his first trip in 1905 to what
was to become Port Mansfield. He left Lyford, Texas in a horse-drawn wagon and at the end
of the first day his party had reached the El Sauz ranch house, where they spent the
night. The following afternoon, after riding all day, they stopped at Tinnereas
(twin windmills) for water. Having traveled a distance of some 27 miles, they
finally reached the bay on the afternoon of the third day. Here they caught redfish
four-feet long and trout “so big I hesitate to say the size for fear of being called
a liar.” On the way back, they intersected the Old Alice Trail and saw an old
red brick house used as a stagecoach relay station which was also the site in 1895 of the
first telegraph station in the Valley. The Old Alice Trail was a stagecoach run from
Brownsville north to Alice, Texas. This trail led them back to the El Sauz Ranch and
Lyford.
The Judge also remembered that it was in 1907 when the first car visited
Redfish Landing. It was a two-cylinder, high wheel Holsman owned by W. S. Thompson
of Agawam, Oklahoma. They had come down the northern part of the
“hug-the-coast” highway, which is now U.S. 77, which ended at the King Ranch
fence. After coming down Highway 281 to the “Red Gate” (south of San
Manuel) they made it to Raymondville. Ed Raymond (the founder of Raymondville) sent
two cowhands on horses to escort Mr. and Mrs. Thompson and Judge S. L. Gill, who went
along for the ride, on their trip to the coast. The cowhands had to tie ropes from
their saddle horns to the front axle of the car to help pull it through the deep sandy
spots where the car lacked the power to move itself forward. They called it Redfish Bay.
You could ride your horse out into the shallow saltwater and catch all the tasty
game fish you wanted. It was just an insignificant bay, embraced by miles of flat,
brush-covered land. Redfish Landing continued as merely a beach for fishing and
swimming until 1932, when a crew of ten men was sent by the Reconstruction Finance
Corporation to drag the beach to improve it for swimming and boating purposes. At
this time the land was owned by Henrietta M. King, the widow of Richard King (owner of the
King Ranch). On March 1, 1933 the executors of Mrs. King’s estate leased for
one dollar about 197 acres of coastal land to the American Legion of Willacy County.
Stipulations in the contract were that the land was to be held in trust by the officers of
the American Legion Post; the land was to be used only for park and recreational purposes;
no liquor was to be sold, given away, or brought onto the premises; no firearms would be
allowed; the land was not to be sold, leased, or transferred; and a fence was to be
maintained around the property. (The stipulation forbidding alcohol is one reason that
Raymondville still has no hard liquor sales to this day.)
In September of 1933 a hurricane hit the Valley. It lasted for 38
hours and brought 135 m.p.h. winds and dumped 13 inches of rain. Eighteen people
were killed and about 500 were injured. Waves were estimated to be between 15 and 20
feet high. Eleven people were at Redfish Landing at the time and had to ride out the
storm in the twenty cottages built there. Only one person was drowned, although as
waves collapsed the cottages four boys jumped into an ice box floating by and were finally
grounded nearly two miles inland after having been washed over the King Ranch fence.
Lee Harris, who was to become Harbormaster at Port in the 1960s, said that he had
to hang on to the King Ranch fence during the storm. In the 1930s, the W.P.A. began
working on the road to Redfish Bay. The previous trail had been over hills and down
gullies of a prairie terrain. During wet weather travelers got stuck in the mud and during
dry weather they got stuck in the sand. In late 1933, the C.W.A. work program
allocated $7,000 for construction of a road to Redfish Landing. The W.P.A. program
helped with the construction of an all-weather road. The hard black dirt was taken
from the low spots and piled on the high sandy spots, while sand from the high spots was
used to fill in the low spots. Workers were paid a dollar a day, while engineers
were paid a dollar and a half. Two of the engineers working on this road built the
original subdivision at Redfish Landing. It was a long struggle to end the virtual
transportation “blockade” to the rich alluvial triangle at the tip of Texas for
the people of Cameron and Willacy counties, backed up by the support of residents all over
the Valley. In 1927 began the dredging of a channel from Port Isabel to the Arroyo
Colorado, a semi-navigable waterway thought to be an old mouth of the Rio Grande which
runs westward some 25 miles to Harlingen. In 1937 the jettied channel through Padre
Island at Brazos-Santiago Pass gave access to the Gulf of Mexico and led to the
establishment of the deep sea ports at Brownsville and Port Isabel. In 1941 a direct new
highway through the “forbidden land” of the big King Ranch was opened from
Brownsville to the north. And in 1945 began the resumption of work to complete the
Intracoastal Canal on the 121-mile Laguna Madre section from Corpus Christi to
Brownsville. This would give Raymondville a barge canal port which would also be a
port of service and refuge for through coastal traffic and would provide an outlet for the
rich agricultural and petroleum resources of growing Willacy County.
But, perhaps, the person that looms greatest behind the new development is
that of the “Granddaddy of the Valley”—Nat Wetzel of Raymondville.
For it was Nat Wetzel who stood with that small group of pioneers in 1907 and
dreamed of the port that “they didn’t need.” It was Nat Wetzel who
served on the original committee with William Marsh Rice and Col. Tom Ball that
pushed through the dredging of Buffalo Bayou from Houston to the sea back around 1912.
That was another port “they didn’t need.” It was Nat Wetzel who
worked with Judge W. O. Huggins in pushing the Hug-the-Coast Highway through the King
Ranch to the Valley—the road “they didn’t need.” And it was Nat
Wetzel who argued, encouraged, worked with and inspired those around him until the
Intracoastal Canal and the new Valley ports are brilliant stars in the not-too-distant
future.
Redfish Bay even contributed its part to the war effort in the early
1940s. About four miles south of the harbor in the back bay, large round pilings were
placed in the shape of an aircraft carrier with canvas stretched between the posts.
The Air Force planes stationed in Harlingen used these targets for their bombing and
machine gun practice. Even nearby houses and fishermen were occasionally the target
of the airmen disposing of spent shells and cartridge cases. One fisherman claimed
he had a bait bucket shot out of his hand while he was in his boat fishing. For
years when wade fishing near the targets, one had to beware of holes, up to ten feet deep,
left by those exploding bombs. Until the late 1940s, a person could practically walk
across the shallow Laguna Madre to the sandy beaches of Padre Island. Hurricane
Allen in 1980 finished filling in the holes and swept away what pilings were left, but to
this day that area is called “the targets.” It’s probable that there
would be no Port Mansfield or Willacy County Navigation District, as we know it, were it
not for Charles R. Johnson. Who was Charlie? He came to Lyford in 1919 wearing his
marine maritime uniform. He plied the trades of mechanic, journalist and real estate
developer. He laid, platted and developed the town site of San Perlita, named after his
wife, Pearl. He held offices in Willacy County and while county judge they dug the
first drainage ditch in the county. As Tax Assessor–Collector he added many
taxable items, much to the chagrin of taxpayers. Charlie even owned a weekly
newspaper in Willacy County. While mayor, the City of Raymondville paved its way out
of the mud and put uniforms on the police department.
The Willacy County Navigation District (Port of Mansfield Authority) was
created on February 14, 1948 to take advantage of the county’s location in regard to
the Laguna Madre Bay and Gulf of Mexico. Charlie Johnson was instrumental in
establishing the W.C.N.D. as a governmental entity. At the time there were only
about three dozen fishing shacks and summer houses along the coast of Redfish Bay and a
few fishing piers. Charlie was very active throughout much of the growth of Redfish
Bay and Port Mansfield, and held every office from port director to a seat on the district
board. After becoming the port director he worked to have the roads paved to and in
Port. He was also involved in the designation of Farm to Market Road 606, the
securing and designation of a post office, the building of the airport, and other
community improvements. Almost everything Charlie was ever involved with seemed to be
controversial, yet most of his life was spent as a public servant. Though Charlie
never lost an election, few ever openly admitted to voting for him. Along the way,
he made friends in the state congress, which eventually led all the way to Washington,
D.C. As a state senator, Lyndon B. Johnson had visited at Charlie’s house. Once
after L.B.J. had become President, Bob St. John, a Raymondville real estate broker, and
Charlie were trying to resolve a matter pertaining to Port Mansfield, when Bob challenged
Charlie to call the President to see what light he could shed on the problem.
Without hesitation, Charlie picked up the phone, dialed a number and spoke, “let me
speak to Lyndon. Tell him it’s Cousin Charlie calling.” Shortly,
L..B.J. was on the phone speaking with Charlie. In March of 1950 the Navigation
District acquired 1,760 acres of land immediately surrounding the port facilities of
“Red Fish Bay” by instituting legal proceedings to have the land
condemned. The case was won by the District, which agreed to pay the American Legion
three dollars an acre for the land it owned. The small fishing park was renamed Port
Mansfield in honor of state Senator Mansfield from Columbus, Texas, who headed the
Commission that pushed legislation through the U.S. Congress to have the Gulf Intracoastal
Waterway extended from Corpus Christi to Brownsville.
In June of 1950 the Board of Navigation and Canal Commissioners authorized
$500,000 in bonds to begin work on the harbor and the large Navigation District barn was
built. The original harbor facilities of Port Mansfield were completed in phases
from 1950 through 1956. In 1954, construction began to dredge a channel from the
Laguna Madre Bay east through South Padre Island and to construct a jetty system at the
outlet to the Gulf of Mexico. This channel to the Gulf would provide the new Port
with recreational opportunities and enhance its commercial uses. However, it used
the infamous tetra pod jetties which were large concrete objects, looking somewhat like
children’s toy jacks. They were set down with three legs touching the bottom
and the fourth leg sticking straight up. There was no footing laid down, and with nothing
below but Padre Island sand, it was not long before this jetty sank out of sight.
October 1957 saw the dedication ceremonies of the harbor, with everyone going by boat to
the channel, out for a ribbon-cutting. Also dedicated were 77 boat stalls.
Charlie Johnson had succeeded in having Port Mansfield declared a “Port of
Refuge” to be used by small boats caught by storms in the Gulf of Mexico. Being
the only one between Port Isabel and Corpus Christi, Mr. Johnson hoped this would be
useful in getting the Corps of Engineers to help with maintenance of the harbor and
channel. At this time Charlie was the port director and Port Mansfield was often
spoken of as his “baby.” The single road to Port was made of concrete and
only 18 feet wide—so narrow that when big trucks, or even two cars with boat
trailers, meet one had to ride the shoulder off the edge of the road.
In June of 1962 the dedication of a 2,600 foot airport runway took place
(it has since been lengthened to 3,200 feet and lighted). In July of 1962 the Corps
of Engineers built a new jetty of granite boulders to protect the channel through Padre
Island and the newly deepened the channel, 18 feet, to the Gulf and the harbor facilities
to allow larger vessels access to the Port. The government had assumed maintenance
of the jetties, channel, harbor, and navigational aids. The Port Mansfield Gulf
Channel, now known as the East Cut, provides a much needed access to the protected
Intracoastal Canal and provides access by boat to Padre Island.
In 1962, Charlie Johnson was also trying to get a U.S. Coast Guard unit
stationed at Port Mansfield. However, the unbending policy of the Coast Guard was that
they be allowed to purchase the land on which their buildings are located. An exception
was granted, because of state legislation dated 1957, and in September 1963 a new Coast
Guard light and rescue station was dedicated on land costing approximately $100,000. In
1964, the Coast Guard bought additional lots for housing purposes. The U.S. Coast Guard
and the Willacy County Navigation District are the only two entities that actually own
land at Port Mansfield. All other homes and businesses are built on land under long-term
lease from the Navigation District. By an act of the Texas Legislature, the Port
Mansfield Public Utility District was created in February 1963. In May of that year, the
Navigation District and the P.M.P.U.D. agreed to let the Utility District assume all
contracts and obligations involved in obtaining an adequate water supply for Port
Mansfield. Charlie’s optimistic promoting of the potential for Port Mansfield
was indeed glowing, especially when soliciting money to fund its growth: He predicted that
within a few years over a million tons of commerce
would be moving through the port annually—petroleum, cotton, grains, fish and shrimp,
fruits from the tropics. Mr. Johnson reckoned that much of the cargo would be attracted
from such ports as Corpus Christi, Houston and New Orleans. One plan was to even bring
tuna fish thousands of miles from the Pacific through the Panama Canal to process it at
Port Mansfield and dispatch it over the country. Uncle Sam, quite eagerly, and local
taxpayers often grudgingly are footing the bill to create “Port Mansfield” as a
public entity. In 1964 the Government Accounting Office even investigated the
propriety of claims made by Mr. Johnson in getting Federal help to build the port and
reported that it found no evidence of wrong-doing or exaggeration. By 1965, of the
nearly $9 million in public money that has gone into developing the port, Charlie Johnson
had succeeded in getting half of it from the Federal Government. That funding also
included an Ionics Demineralization Water Plant which opened in January of 1966 to use
electrical power and reverse osmosis to purify brackish water to create a water supply for
the Port’s residents. The telephone system which was put in was estimated to cost
$10,000 per phone. The tax burden fell heavily on the 18,000 people living in the Willacy
County Navigation District and they had 49 cents of every $1 they paid in county taxed
going to support the port and to retire bonds and Federal loans. But Charlie Johnson
took his opposition with his customary calm. “These big ranchers and landowners who
are against me live in their own little world. They don’t understand the operation or
possibilities of a port. One of these days Port Mansfield will be recognized for what it
is—the economic salvation of this area.” If Charlie envisioned a great
coastal city rising above the brackish bay he fished by horseback in the 1920s, he was
wrong. It hasn’t happened. But Redfish Bay has become a port, and although it
certainly will never be one of Texas’ busiest channels, it’s growing.
Dredging of the cut through Padre Island also brought up some treasure.
Evidently, mixed in with the dredge material was some Spanish doubloons. Tom Johnson, the
grandson of Charlie, claimed that the north jetty was placed atop of a Spanish galleon.
Who knows? The north end of Padre Island became a National Seashore and it was illegal to
look for treasure; although at least one resident made frequent trips to the island for
many years and was known to show a few silver doubloons from time to time. The state
antiquities group even stored some equipment in the Navigation District’s barn for
quite a while.
In early 1966 there were now about 200 residents of the town made up of a
hundred or so summer cottages, many of them in disrepair, a motel, two grocery stores, and
a couple of bars. Nevertheless, most Port Mansfield residents were enthralled with all the
attention their community was getting and a group of residents formed the Port Mansfield
Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber building, located at the end of FM 606, had several
owners, including Charlie Johnson, before the Chamber of Commerce formed. The building has
served as a community center ever since. Hurricane Beulah, in September of 1967 did
extensive damage to Port Mansfield when its eye passed about 3 miles east of Raymondville.
Wind gusts of 136 miles per hour were reported during Beulah’s passage and rains of
10–36 inches over much of the area south of San Antonio resulted in record-breaking
floods. Beulah is the third largest hurricane on record and spawned 115 tornadoes, all in
Texas, the greatest number of tornadoes on record for any hurricane. In September
1969 bonds were sold to build a seafood processing plant on the north side of the harbor.
A grant of over $300,000 was obtained from the Economic Development Administration of the
U.S. Department of Commerce. The dedication of the seafood plant was held in August 1971.
Additions to the plant and renovations to its refrigeration system were made later. A
“nitrogen tunnel” costing $25,000 was installed for the fast freezing of
seafood, though it soon broke down and disappeared under what some residents think
“questionable circumstances.” The processing of the catch of shrimp boats and
crabbers was done at the seafood plant for several years until the shrimp boats quit using
Port Mansfield. It is now used mostly as a collection point for commercial fishermen
and as the recycling drop off point for the community. It even served as fishing
tournament headquarters, though it was not well suited for that use.
In 1974 the first Port Mansfield Fishing Tournament was held. It replaced
the 4th of July Fishing Tournament which ha been an annual event. What made the PMFT
different from so many other tournaments was that it offered many prizes of merchandise or
services to each contestant. These prizes were solicited from and generously donated by
Valley businesses. The annual tournament is held in late July and quickly became the
primary fund-raiser for the Chamber of Commerce. Proceeds from the tournament have allowed
the Chamber to do many things, including providing street name signs for the town and to
build a park with both tennis and basketball courts. To promote Port Mansfield and its
businesses the Chamber also puts out brochures, postcards, business lists, and does dome
magazine advertising. The tournament headquarters has been in several places over its more
than 20-year history but the best has been the Navigation District’s big barn which
has lots of room and also catches the breeze to make it comfortable inside for the
volunteer workers, the many fishermen, spectators, the media and others that attend. The
docks allow room for the big boats to bring in their fish and for bleachers for the
watching crowd. One year a state record 722-pound blue marlin was caught during the
tournament. Larger blues have been caught since and the record is now well over 800
pounds. Another year the only blue marlin caught in Texas was the one caught at our
tournament.
For decades residents had to pick up all their mail at the small grocery
store coming into town. In 1976 a filling station building was donated by Slim and Connie
Cranfell and it was relocated to became the post office. Mail to Port Mansfield was simply
sent “general delivery.” The post office was staffed by a contract and much of
our little post office’s growth was due to the efforts of Ima Steussy, postmistress
for many years. We still have the same building, but it is now air conditioned and offers
the full range of postal services. Most residents now have keyed PO Boxes and who knows if
we’ll ever get street delivery of mail. Port Mansfield is at the end of the route for
the truck that delivers the mail and after the morning drop-off it waits till the
afternoon to start the route in reverse picking up mail in the small towns and delivering
it to the main post office in McAllen.
“With the new 200-mile limit recognized by the U.S. and Mexico, Port
Mansfield is really the southernmost port for blue-water Gulf fishing,” said Tom
Johnson, the grandson of the man who made it all possible and Port Director in the
mid-’70s. Port Isabel’s effective fishing waters have been cut greatly by
it’s proximity to Mexican waters, he said. “I don’t think many people are
going to risk getting caught by a Mexican gunboat.”
Starting around 1977, changes in the trot lining laws, stricter
enforcement of gill netting, size and limit reductions for trout and redfish, plus the
outlawing of the sale of trout and redfish in Texas just about killed Port
Mansfield’s commercial fishing industry. The fishermen did not take these changes
lightly and we had some very vocal residents who were prominent in the media for a while.
There was even a boat blockade by commercial fishermen which made the national news.
In 1978, Port Mansfield residences and businesses finally were able to get rid of
their septic tanks when the new sewer system got up and running. The new system was
designed with growth in mind and supposedly has a capacity to handle 5,000 residents. Port
Mansfield gets its water from the North Alamo Water Supply and through Raymondville.
In 1979, Rollie and Betts Melville started work to provide Port Mansfield with its own
library. The original library building was a small frame house used as a filling station
and live bait stand on the north side of the harbor, about where the Mansfield Club stand
today. With many contributions of books, money and service the library, next to the post
office, was opened in January, 1980. It is staffed by volunteers a few hours a week and
makes its books available to residents and visitors to Port Mansfield. Books are sorted
onto shelves but there is no card catalog to help look up a specific title. In 1982
another room was added to the library to house the growing collection of reading material
and a bathroom was also added. In 1983, as yet another fund-raising project, the library
published The Port Mansfield Seafood Cookbook, which it sells for only $7 and has over 200
recipes—copies are still available.
On August 9, 1980 the eye of Hurricane Allen passed over Port Mansfield.
An evacuation of the estimated 300 residents was ordered so there was no loss of life;
however, property damage from the high winds and 10-foot storm surge was extensive. The
wind gauge at the Harbormaster office was blown down at 128 m.p.h. One man chose to ride
out the storm in a trailer on the south side; when others were able to return to Port a
few days later he was found to be okay, but he said he would evacuate next time. A
waterfront duplex at north end of town had its lower story completely destroyed while its
upper story floated over against a house on the next street. The towels were still dry and
the plates in the cabinets were unbroken—the floor of the house was mopped and it was
relocated and is still in use as a rent house today. But hurricanes and storms have not
deterred the slow growth of Port Mansfield. Since Hurricane Allen, Port Mansfield has also
continued to increase its commercial and recreational facilities. Damaged houses and piers
were rebuilt, with the notable exception of the Redfish Motel and its pier at the harbor
entrance. Condominium complexes have been built on the harbor, numerous houses have built
on the north side of town and a new residential subdivision, called Port South Estates,
has been created on the south end of town.
In 1983 bonds were sold by the Navigation District for the construction of
its new Small Craft Basin Facility. This 135-boat capacity marina with concrete stalls and
tear-away roofs replaced the older marina constructed in 1957. Commodities shipped through
the harbor facilities include supplies for oil and gas production; though the oilfield
traffic has been significantly reduced following the “Oil Bust” of the early
’80s. The oilfield business in Port Mansfield did fairly well for a while. In the
early 1980s the large crew boats and service boats regularly came into the harbor to load
up with equipment, men, and supplies to service the offshore platforms in the Gulf and the
shallow water rigs in the bay. A number of oilfield companies had dock space including
Mobil, IMCO, Halliburton, Magcobar, Dowell, and Brown & Root. Helicopters and planes
regularly flew into our little airport and the big trucks hauling pipe and drilling
materials drove into town frequently. These companies did a lot for the town, including
hiring a number of locals to work for them. Alas, Port Mansfield’s small share of the
Texas oil boom was lost along with much of the rest of the industry during the mid-1980s.
The oilfield companies moved out of town and our harbor area is almost bare.
One of the unfortunate things about their leaving was that Brown &
Root was planning to rebuild its docks and they only got as far as tearing out the old
dock and its pilings. However, in the process a mystery was solved. While the crane was
removing the old dock it hit upon a car buried under water. This definitely was something
unexpected. The car was lifted out of the water and the proper authorities called.
Needless to say when something unusual happens in normally quiet Port Mansfield all the
area law enforcement agencies converge. There the car sat on dry land for the first time
in who knows how long and none of the law officers wanted to dig around inside to see if
there was the remains of a body. All the interior door handles and dash knobs had corroded
away and the search was likely to be messy. Ed Glaze III, a worker for Brown & Root at
that time, volunteered. Leaning in the wet and muddy car through where its rear window had
been, Ed rummaged in the floorboards for some evidence of what had happened. A few bones
were found, could they be human? Then came a skull. Yes, someone had died in this car. The
officers wanted more, so Ed felt around the floorboard till a wallet was found. Relatives
were notified and the story was revealed. It turns out that the person in the car had been
missing for about seven years since a New Year’s Eve night when he did not return
home. He was not a Port Mansfield local but had come to town to party and evidently, late
at night, had missed the turn and driven his car through the field out into the water
underneath the dock. Later the harbor hand been dragged but somehow the car under the dock
was missed.
Anyway, the dock was not rebuilt and much of the dock space is gone for large boats
visiting Port Mansfield.
A recurring rumor of development that might lead to some explosive Port
Mansfield growth has been that someday a causeway will be built through town to the
island. In 1977, Tom Johnson was seriously planning to build a causeway from Port
Mansfield to South Padre Island. Harold Hickman, the harbormaster at that time said,
“I’d like to build a fence around Port Mansfield, but Tom, he’s a little
more industrial minded. I sure hope they never put any big industrial stuff here.”
The main reason he hoped that is because Port Mansfield has the most pristine marine
environment on the Texas coast. “The King Ranch has not allowed any industry, and
that’s the only thing protecting us from pollution. If they ever open it up,
fishing’s gone in the Laguna Madre,” Hickman said. A causeway is still very
doubtful, though in 1989 the rumor mill started all over again when a group of Japanese
investors talked about building a large complex on Padre Island south of the jetties.
In late 1980s came a couple of freezes, fish kills and some problems with
algae blooms (brown tide) that hurt fishing in Port Mansfield. In 1989 came a freeze that
killed many fish in the Texas coastal waters, including Port Mansfield. The temperature
went down into the teens and it stayed cold for awhile. The fish caught in shallow waters
didn’t have a chance. It was very depressing to walk along the shoreline and see so
the fish—of many types and sizes—dead because you knew that fishing in the
future was going to suffer. And suffer it did. Fishing was so bed that the size and catch
limits of trout and redfish were adjusted by the state to allow more fish to survive and
to help the depleted fish population. But time has healed the damage and by the mid-1990s
the fisheries have recovered and fishing in again fun—not so much skill is required
as to when, where, and how to fish using what bait.
In 1994, due to changes in environmental laws, the landfill just out of
town had to be closed down. Now the municipal wastes must be trucked to a landfill in
Harlingen.
In 1995, the Utility District built a warehouse on the property near the
old water plant to store equipment and provide an additional work area. A public restroom
facility was built near this warehouse with the cost shared by the Chamber of Commerce and
the Navigation District.
A cleanup effort and enforcement of lease maintenance and appearance
ordinances has resulted in the Port looking better than it ever has. Unusable, old boats,
cars and trailers have been removed from yards. Numerous trees have been planted and
various landscaping projects undertaken, primarily by Chris Means, the son of the Port
Superintendent Junior Means. In 1997, the Navigation District financed the paving of
the caliche roads and the resurfacing of several roads needing it. This cost the District
over $110,000 but due to a paving crew already in town to resurface the airport runway
some savings on costs were obtained. The paving also generated much goodwill from the
residents who had grown very tired of dealing with blowing caliche dust and rough roads.
Try as it might, the little port has failed to come even close to
realizing Charlie Johnson’s dreams. Harbor revenues come mostly from renting dock
space to pleasure boats and the sale of gasoline and other supplies. The recreation
facilities at the Port are expanding more than the commercial, as the oilfield and
shrimping industries no longer make much use of our harbor.
Port Mansfield is still recognized as one of the top fishing locations in
Texas. To boaters and fishermen it offers an uncrowded access to the Laguna Madre, Padre
Island and the Gulf of Mexico. There are about 60 businesses in town, most dealing with
fishermen. Accommodating the fishing and tourist activity there are three RV parks, two
motels, many houses and condos available for rental, two marinas, two small stores, five
boat storage barns, and many fishing guides. But it seems that the most difficult business
to keep going in Port may be a restaurant—perhaps due to the small local population
and the seasonal nature of sport fishing. Many restaurants have come and gone. The
Windjammer Inn, a very popular restaurant and bar which had been open about 15 years,
closed in early 1996 for a remodeling which many believe may never come. A couple small
restaurants are still open to feed the visitors and fishermen and the Fisherman’s Inn
recently reopened part-time as a seafood restaurant.
Port Mansfield’s population is estimated by most residents at under
700 people, though somehow the US Census in 1990 thought we had almost 800 residents.
Maybe we do. Or maybe they checked on a Summer weekend when the parking lots were filled
up with boat trailers and the rental units full of visiting fishermen. There is certainly
a season for good business in Port—it is when the weather is warm and the fish are
biting. The rental houses and condos fill as out-of-town owners visit their vacation homes
and the fishermen spread out over the Laguna Madre and into the Gulf to catch their limit
of fish. Few would be surprised if the population did not briefly double under those
circumstances.
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