Name: Rockport, Texas
Address: Rockport, TX

Rockport, TX RoadyGoat

Rockport is more than just a pretty face on Aransas Bay. Sure, there's that artistic vibe that settles over you like the Gulf breeze, and those live oaks that stand defiant even after the worst storms. But there's a history woven into the very fabric of this place, a connection to people who left their mark on the world.

Rockport, TX RoadyGoat

Rockport’s name, well, it’s pretty straightforward. Look around, and you'll see the reason why. Unlike some towns with fanciful tales behind their names, Rockport was simply named for the obvious: the distinctive rock formations that lined Aransas Bay. These weren't towering cliffs, mind you, but substantial, noticeable outcroppings – enough to make an impression on the early settlers back in 1867. They needed a name for their burgeoning community, and "Rockport" stuck. It’s a name that speaks to the very foundation of the place, literally and figuratively. Those rocks are more than just a geographical feature, they're a reminder of resilience. Like the live oaks that stubbornly cling to the coastline, even after a battering from a storm, Rockport has always been a place defined by its relationship with the elements. Hurricane Harvey certainly tested that relationship, reshaping the shoreline and leaving its mark. But the spirit of Rockport, like the rocks themselves, remains.

Key Allegro, TX RoadyGoat

Key Allegro, nestled right there on Aransas Bay, isn’t some ancient settlement, but its story is still tied to the ebb and flow of the Texas coast. It began as mostly undeveloped land, part of the larger sweep of islands and peninsulas that define this part of the Gulf. The real transformation came in the mid-20th century, a period of post-war prosperity that fueled a desire for waterfront living and leisure. Developers saw the potential, and through dredging and careful planning, they reshaped the land, carving out canals and creating the residential community we know today. What was once largely marshland became a network of canals and waterfront homes. It's a testament to how people can reshape a landscape, driven by the dream of coastal living. Of course, being on the coast means being vulnerable. Hurricanes have always been a part of life here, leaving their mark with storm surges and high winds. But each time, the community rebuilds, adapting and reinforcing, a constant cycle of challenge and resilience that defines the spirit of Key Allegro.

Hagar, Connie

1886

(June 14, 1886 - November 29, 1973) Born Conger Neblett in Corsicana, and married to Jack Hagar in 1926, Connie Hagar received early training as a musician. She and her sister became interested in birds and worked as volunteers with the U.S. Biological Survey. The Hagars moved to Rockport in 1935, shortly after Connie made her first visit here. She became a self-taught authority on Texas birds, and her expertise was sought by professionals and amateur ornithologists from around the world. In 1945 the Texas Legislature designated this waterfront property as the Connie Hagar Wildlife Sanctuary. (1990)

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Hagar, Conger Neblett

1935

Conger (Connie) Neblett Hagar, the "Texas bird lady," daughter of Robert S. and Mattie (Yeager) Neblett, was born in Corsicana, Texas, on June 14, 1886. She graduated from Corsicana High School in 1903, studied voice and piano at Forest Park College in Saint Louis, and took postgraduate music training at the University of Chicago and the American Conservatory. Although offered employment as a professional singer, she declined, believing such a pursuit improper. After World War I she became a bird bander for the United States Biological Survey. She was married briefly to a naval officer, but the marriage was dissolved in 1921. In April 1926 she married Jack Hagar, a Bostonian who had come to Texas because of his interests in oil and real estate. The couple had no children. In 1935 the Hagars moved to Rockport. Connie Hagar spent the rest of her life as an amateur bird-watcher in Rockport and gained the respect of professional ornithologists in Europe and the United States. She added over twenty new species to the avifauna list of the state and was the first to report numerous species of migratory birds, including several that were thought to be extinct. In addition to the snowy plover, buff-breasted sandpiper, ash-throated flycatcher, and mountain plover, she identified nine different species of hummingbird; the annual movement of these birds down the Texas coast had been unobserved until she discovered it. She reported more than 500 bird species in the Aransas Bay area, nearly three-fourths of all the bird species known between Canada and Mexico. Throughout her life Mrs. Hagar was a conservationist, teacher, and tireless bird-watcher. She spoke to numerous schoolchildren, garden clubs, and other groups and kept detailed notebooks. Her observations were published in several ornithological journals, and her work brought amateur and professional birders to the Gulf Coast from throughout the world. Perhaps because of her diminutive size-she was under five feet tall-and the fact that she regularly wore starched linen to go birding, photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt complained that she did not look like a bird-watcher when he photographed her for Life magazine in 1956. Mrs. Hagar played the organ regularly for the Aransas Pass Christian Science Church, but she was not a member of that or any other church; she claimed to prefer nature's sermons to man's. She was a member of the Rockport Women's Club, the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs , the Texas Ornithological Society , and the American Ornithologists' Union. She received a special citation in 1962 from the National Audubon Society, which convened in Corpus Christi that year largely to be near Rockport's flyways and to allow the seventy-six-year-old "bird lady" to attend. Connie Hagar died on November 24, 1973, in Corpus Christi, after two years of hospitalization and blindness. She was buried at Rockport Cemetery, in a spot overlooking the bayfront named Conger Hagar Wildlife Sanctuary.

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Mathis, Thomas Henry

1859

Thomas Henry Mathis, tobacco merchant, founder of Rockport, and rancher, was born in Stewart County, Tennessee, on July 14, 1834, the son of James and Isabella (Boyd) Mathis. During his boyhood and adolescence he worked on a farm. At the age of twenty he left home to attend a school conducted by his cousin, Joshua Thompson Mathis, in southern Arkansas, where he subsequently stayed for fifteen months as a teacher. In 1856 he organized a school of his own at Warren, Arkansas. The following year he attended Bethel College, and in 1858 he taught school in Murray, Kentucky. In January 1859 he moved to Southwest Texas. In the following months he and his cousin J. M. Mathis and two other men made a successful trading trip into Mexico. In 1861 Mathis moved from Gonzales to Victoria and enlarged his business. As a result of the blockade of Gulf ports by the Union Army at the beginning of the Civil War , he was forced to close his business, but began to run tobacco and managed to elude the blockade successfully. Also, in the spring and summer of 1862, he had great success in forwarding supplies from Texas to the soldiers of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department. Mathis joined the Confederate Army in the fall of 1862. He was a member of Company E, Duff's Regiment. After the war he resumed his tobacco trade between Tennessee and Texas. In February 1867 Thomas and J. M. Mathis built the first wharf in Rockport. The firm of J. M. and T. H. Mathis chartered the Prince Albert , the first steamboat ever to enter Aransas Bay for commercial purposes. After the loss of the Prince Albert at sea, the firm persuaded the Morgan Lines to run its ships into Rockport and became the agent for that company. In 1869 J. M. and T. H. Mathis gave $5,500 for the improvement of the pass into Aransas Bay between St. Joseph and Mustang islands to provide access to the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico. They built the Orleans Hotel and a number of other prominent buildings, constructed bridges, made county roads, and were active in securing other public improvements. The Mathis cousins joined with three other ranchers in 1871 to form the Coleman, Mathis, Fulton Cattle Company ( see COLEMAN-FULTON PASTURE COMPANY ). It was one of the first cattle firms in the state to fence a large pasture. In 1879 the cattle company was dissolved, but J. M. and T. H. Mathis continued in business together for another year. Thomas Mathis contributed to bringing the Western Union telegraph, the first telephone line, and the first meat-refrigerating plant in Texas to Rockport. He was also one of the leaders in introducing blooded cattle and horses into Southwest Texas. His own ranching operations were extensive. In later years he owned 24,000 acres of fine land on the Nueces River in San Patricio County, all well fenced and well stocked with thoroughbred and graded cattle and horses. His total investment in real estate and personal property at this time was about $240,000. Mathis was married first to Mrs. Cora Linda Lampkin Caldwell, who died of typhoid shortly after the marriage. On August 26, 1875, he married Mary Jane Nold in Murray, Kentucky. They made their home in Rockport and had eight children. Mathis was a Democrat. He died in Rockport on March 19, 1899, and is buried there.

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Fulton, George Ware, Sr.

1837

George Ware Fulton, Sr., founder of the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company , the son of George and Ann (Ware) Fulton, was born in Philadelphia on June 8, 1810. He became a schoolteacher, watchmaker, and maker of mathematical instruments and lived in Indiana in Montezuma and Terre Haute. He organized a company of sixty men who started in a flatboat down the Wabash River heading for New Orleans to fight in the Texas Revolution , but they arrived in Matagorda Bay in February 1837, after the battle of San Jacinto . Fulton received a commission as second lieutenant in the Army of the Republic of Texas and for his services was entitled to a grant of 1,280 acres of land, which he took in San Patricio County. He resigned from the army and was commissioned by John P. Borden , first commissioner of the General Land Office , to convey all of the ancient land archives from San Antonio to Houston. He formed a friendship with Henry Smith and on March 12, 1840, married Smith's eldest daughter, Harriet G. He was appointed customs director of the Aransas District on June 18, 1838, and served until January 1839. During this time he helped promote Aransas City on Live Oak Peninsula as well as several other properties along the coast. The Fultons left Texas in 1846 and settled in Steubenville, Ohio, his old home, and later in Baltimore. He worked for the Baltimore Sun and then for several railroads. When Smith died in 1851, Fulton was appointed executor of his estate, which included a considerable amount of land in the Aransas Bay area. In 1867 a suit that had clouded the title of Smith's land was settled, and the Fulton family returned to the Texas coast. Fulton used his knowledge of land titles to purchase land certificates, grants, land scrip, and so on, to add to the Smith land, and put together 25,000 acres to form the Aransas Land Company, which promoted the Fulton Town Company. He joined with Youngs L . and Thomas M. Coleman and J. M. and Thomas H. Mathis in organizing the Coleman, Mathis, Fulton Cattle Company in 1871, which became the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company in 1879, when the Mathis cousins dropped out. Fulton's expertise as a surveyor, engineer, businessman, and inventor led to the development of the company as a leader in slaughtering cattle for hide and tallow and later in shipping cattle to New Orleans by boat. He received United States patent No. 92,035 for shipping beef under artificial cooling and also one for a steam-engine modification. The mansion that he built in Fulton in 1874–77 has been restored and is managed by the Texas Historical Commission ( see FULTON MANSION STATE HISTORIC SITE ). Fulton introduced new crops and set in motion various changes in agriculture and livestock breeds that still mark South Texas. The Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company built some of the first range fences in the area; one made of wooden planks enclosed 2,000 acres near Rockport. One of the first telephones in the area linked Rockport, the Rincon Ranch headquarters, and Tom Coleman's home in 1878. After giving land to the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway , Fulton laid out the towns of Sinton and Gregory; later he saw the plans made for Portland, and after his death the town of Taft was also established on company land. Thus the company had a direct hand in establishing four towns in San Patricio County and set a pattern for turning ranchland into individual farms. Fulton worked tirelessly to bring a deepwater port to the coast. He was a Republican and a Thirty-second-degree Mason. The Fultons had six children, including George William ( see FULTON, GEORGE WARE, JR. ). An earlier child bearing the name George Ware, Jr., had died in 1853. George Ware Fulton died on October 31, 1893, at his home in Fulton and was buried in Rockport. In 1936 the Texas Centennial Commission placed a monument to him at his home in Fulton.

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Mathis House

1868

John M. Mathis (1831-1922) had this home built for his family in 1868-69. Instrumental in platting the town of Rockport, he served as its first mayor in 1870. In 1880 he deeded the house to his cousin, Thomas H. Mathis (1834-1899), a leading rancher, shipper, and banker. Exhibiting Italianate, Classical, and Greek Revival details, the raised cottage features a center passage plan, arcaded basement, and entry portico with paired fluted columns. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1989

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Sorenson-Stair Building

1886

Simon Sorenson, a native of Denmark, bought Brunner's Merchantile at this site in 1886. The building was originally two stories, rebuilt after an 1895 fire. The Sorensons received weather reports by telegraph, posted updates in the display windows and raised warning flags as necessary. Hurricane Celia damaged the building and stock in 1970. In 1978 the Estelle Stair Gallery and the Rockport Art Association were housed here. Stair nurtured the growing art community. The load-bearing masonry building features a distinctive five-bay brick façade, with brick entry arches and pilasters capped along the stepped parapet. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-2008

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Rockport, Texas

Music in Rockport

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History of Rockport

Rockport, TX RoadyGoat

Rockport, TX RoadyGoat

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Hagar, Connie

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Mathis, Thomas Henry

Fulton, George Ware, Sr.

Mathis House

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