Aransas Pass Light Station
N of Port Aransas on Harbor Island, Port Aransas, TXThe first aid to navigation on the Texas coast was a light vessel that was placed at Galveston in 1849. In the 1850s the federal government began erecting lighthouses to assist the mariner as he approached or coasted along the Texas shores. The first towers were at Bolivar Point at Galveston Bay and Pass Cavallo on Matagorda Island. The following year the Lighthouse Board erected towers at Point Isabel and at Brazos Santiago near the Mexican border. Then in 1854, the Board placed three 'small screw-pile lighthouses in Galveston Bay. Three years later the Board completed and lighted a brick light tower at Aransas Pass near Corpus Christi. Of these first lights on the Texas coast, only two -- Point Isabel and Aransas Pass -- survive.
Though today it is the second oldest lighthouse on the Texas coast, the Aransas Pass Light Station remained in service for a far longer period of time than did Point Isabel, going out of service in 1952, some 47 years after Point Isabel was extinguished for the last time. Moreover, Aransas Pass Light Station survives almost as it was during its active years; the oil house and the radio beacon are the only structures that do not stand today. All that remains of Point Isabel is the tower.
The Aransas Pass Light Station came into being in 1857. The need for a light at Aransas Pass had been long recognized. In 1851 Congress authorized a light there and the officer sent to locate a site for one recommended a lightship for the pass. In 1852 the group of officers and scientists that shortly thereafter came to constitute the Lighthouse. Board urged that a light be placed at Aransas Pass, and the following year, after the Board had received responsibility for this country's aids to navigation, it dispatched Lt. Commanding H. S. Stellwagen to that area to locate a site for a light station. Feeling that light was required at the pass to permit vessels to navigate safely the pass and to provide coasting vessels an "invaluable ... landmark on a coast where there is so much sameness as to make it almost impossible to distinguish one place from another," he recommended placing the light station "on the small island back of the pass" where it could serve both as a coastal guide and an aid to cross the Aransas Pass Bar.
The island "back of the pass" where the light station was placed was then called Low Island. In time its name was changed to Harbor Island Composed primarily of black mangroves and marsh grass, the island was but a foot or two above the surrounding water. On a higher portion of the island, the Lighthouse Service marked off 25 acres and erected a light tower and a keeper's dwelling. Though the Lighthouse Board began taking steps to build the light station in 1853, the station was not completed until 1857.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1977.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.