Welcome to Aransas County, Texas | |
|
|
Texas Genealogy Trails ![]() |
This Aransas County Website is available for adoption. Our goal is to help you track your ancestors through time by transcribing genealogical and historical data and placing it online for the free use of all researchers. All data we come across will be added to this site. We thank you for visiting and hope you'll come back again to view the updates we make to this site. |
||
Aransas County Texas After Texas independence, the area became part of the newly formed Refugio County. Around 1832 James Power founded Aransas City on Live Oak Point near the site of the Aránzazu fort. A customhouse, a post office, and several stores were established at the settlement, which by April 1840 served as the de facto seat of government for Refugio County. Until the establishment of Corpus Christi, Aransas City was the westernmost port in Texas; its estimated population was several hundred. The town was raided by Comanche and Karankawa Indians on several occasions, and at least three times by Mexican bandits, in 1838, 1839, and 1841. At about the same time three local figures, Capt. James W. Byrne, George R. Hull, and George Armstrong, were developing another townsite, Lamar, across the pass on Lookout Point. After Mirabeau B. Lamar became president of Texas, he ordered the customhouse moved to the new town. During the Civil War the area that was to become Aransas County was the site of several engagements between Union and Confederate forces. In February 1862 marines from the USS Afton went ashore on St. Joseph's Island and destroyed Aransas. By the summer, civilians had deserted the islands. Vessels of the United States Navy under J. W. Kittredge blockaded the coast, using St. Joseph's Island as a depot to store captured cotton. On May 3, 1863, Capt. Edwin E. Hobby's Confederate company attacked the Union garrison there and killed twenty, but in November 1863 federal troops under T. C. G. Robinson succeeded in regaining control of the island. St. Mary's, which had been a prime focus for blockade runners, was attacked, and its wharves and warehouses were destroyed. Many of the town's leading citizens moved elsewhere, including Joseph F. Smith, who moved to Tuxpan, Vera Cruz, where he purchased a plantation and lived until his death. ![]() Photo by Larry D. Moore CC BY-SA 3.0
ARANSAS COUNTY COURTHOUSE
CITIES, TOWNS, AND POPULATED PLACES * Aransas City (Ghost Town) * ![]() |
||
Dust off your family scrapbooks! We're looking for DATA for this site!!! If you are interested in adding your families' information to this website, Email Us. We'll be happy to help your families' obituaries, news items and other historical data find a home here at Texas Genealogy Trails, where it will remain free for all to view. |
Submit an Obituary to Us for any of our county sites. |
If you would like to be kept informed of our state and county website updates, subscribe to any or all of our mailing lists Texas is covered under our "Southwestern States" mailing list. The Southwestern States List covers : |
Surrounding Counties
|
VISIT OUR GULF COAST REGION PAGE OR VISIT OUR TEXAS STATE PAGE OR VISIT OUR NATIONAL SITE Copyright ©Genealogy Trails 2025 |