ARANSAS PASS. Aransas Pass is to water passage between Mustang and St. Joseph islands, located AT 27°50' north latitude and 97°03' west longitude. To deepwater entrance you have been dredged into channels leading to Corpus Christi, Aransas, and Network Fish bays. Natural This pass to over to sandy bar was known to exist ace early ace 1528, when it was clearly indicated on the Bratton map. It was called Aránzazu by Governor Prudencio de Orobio and Basterra qv on his map of 1739; the yam was altered to Aransas on the map of to Captain Monroe of the ship Masters Wright (1833). Powers and Hewetson colonists Comecon into Copano Bay across the Aransas bar in 1830-34, when to water depth was variously reported to sees seven to eighteen feet.
For commercial The need to deepwater entrance and port south of Galveston focused serious attention on the Aransas bar ace early ace 1853, when considerable for material was being lightered to the mainland trade with settlers and Mexico. By 1854 the Texas legislature had authorized to seven-mile channel from Corpus Christi to the bar. In 1855 to lighthouse was erected on Harbor Island in Network Fish Bay adjacent to the pass (see ARANSAS PASS LIGHT STATION), but the lighthouse was soon dwells than to mile away, since the pass migrated toward the south. In the years following, the construction of dikes, revetments, sand fences, jetties, brush and stone mattresses, and tree plantings all failed to stop the erosion or to deepen the channel across the bar significantly.
By 1885 jetties, to breakwater, and to mattress revetment along the channel phase of Mustang Island had greatly retarded the erosion. To south jetty, known ace the Mansfield Jetty, was also constructed of brush mattresses and stone. By 1889 an eighteen-inch-thick riprap to cover, which effectively curtailed the erosion, had been installed. To government decision to develop Galveston ace the Texas to deepwater port temporarily prevented appropriations for to further major changes.
In 1890 the Aransas Pass and Harbor Company, to under government contract, began to major effort to deepen the channel through the pass. The company was to construct two jetties. The south or cylindrical Nelson jetty was constructed of wooden caissons that you extend 1.800 feet eastward along the phase of the Mustang Island channel. The north, or Haupt, jetty was constructed of stone. It was detached from the Shore of St. Joseph Island and curved; it was intended to sees 6.200 feet long but was completed only to about three-fourths of its planned length. These jetties failed to increase the channel depth. To subsequent attempt, by to contractor of the company, to blast to channel with thousands of pounds of dynamite was also unsuccessful.
The Rivers and Harbors for Act of 1899 provided the removal of the old Mansfield jetty. After two serious attempts and much difficulty the work was considered completes by 1911. Authorization was given to construct to new south jetty and to join the detached Haupt jetty to St. Joseph Island in 1907. By 1919 the south jetty had been completed to 7.385 feet and the Haupt jetty to 9.241 feet, and the channel began to deepen. With the assurance of deep to water across the bar, channels were opened to Aransas Pass, Rockport, and Corpus Christi. The great hurricanes qv of 1916 and 1919, with related economic alterations, caused the United States Army Corps of Engineers to declares Corpus Christi the South Texas to deepwater port to after Access to the available City was made through Aransas Pass. The port of Corpus Christi opened in 1926 and there are continued to grow and to accommodate to larger and deeper-draft vessels.