Barrier to the Bays: The Islands of the Coastal Bend and Their Pass

by Mary Jo O'Rear

Overview

Mary Jo O’Rear rounds out her coastal bend trilogy with a deep and engaging look at the prehistory and history of the Texas barrier islands. In Barrier to the Bays, O’Rear captures the deep time of the islands (Mustang, Padre, and San José), the bays (Aransas, Corpus Christi, Copano, Redfish, and Nueces), and Aransas Pass. From the earliest human settlements to the twentieth century, O’Rear explores the complex interplay between people and economies struggling to survive in a region dominated by indifferent forces of nature.

Barrier to the Bays opens with the natural formation and development of the barrier isles and the arrival of Native Americans, Spanish castaways, French explorers, and Catholic missionaries. European settlements on the mainland eventually led to rich commercial development of the area and its bounty as ranching, fishing, and transportation took hold. By the early twentieth century, the people of the Coastal Bend began wrestling with a new drive to create deep-water harbors along the coastline in the face of the ever-present hurricane threat. O’Rear shows that by World War II the region had settled into a kind of “practicality” as tourists and traders took their place among the denizens of the islands and bays.

In addition to the stories of familiar historical figures, Barrier to the Bays stresses the importance of technology in the settlement and development of the region. “Nothing could have been achieved among the barriers and bays of the Coastal Bend without the right tools.” O’Rear underscores the importance of properly designed sailing vessels and the centrality of navigation technology as an integral part of the barrier isle story.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781623499402
Publisher:	Texas A&M University Press
Publication date:	05/05/2022
Series:	Gulf Coast Books, sponsored by Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi , #35
Pages:	280
Sales rank:	717,834
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

MARY JO O’REAR is the author of Bulwark against the Bay: The People of Corpus Christi and Their Seawall and Storm over the Bay: The People of Corpus Christi and Their Port, a finalist for the 2010 Most Significant Scholarly Book Award, presented by the Texas Institute of Letters.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Part I Early Days

Chapter 1 Prehistory 3

Chapter 2 Humans 7

Part II Explosive Days

Chapter 3 Horse Marines 21

Chapter 4 Sad Havoc 27

Chapter 5 Harbingers 35

Chapter 6 Hellfire 43

Part III Entrepreneurial Days

Chapter 7 Herders and Hiders 57

Chapter 8 Helmsmen 63

Chapter 9 Harvesters 76

Chapter 10 Hustling with Hope 83

Chapter 11 Hard Tracks and Haupt 88

Chapter 12 Hydrodynamics and Dynamite 99

Part IV Enterprise Days

Chapter 13 Harbor Home 111

Chapter 14 Hunters and Hard Hulls 121

Chapter 15 Hurricanes 132

Part V Expansion Days

Chapter 16 Hall's Bayou Enhanced 151

Chapter 17 Holding Firm 161

Chapter 18 Hawsepipers 169

Chapter 19 Henrys Goodbye 175

Notes 181

Bibliography 223

Index 239

Editorial Reviews

Mary Jo O’Rear’s new book is a broad-ranging, lively, efficient account of the barrier islands along the Texas Coastal Bend near Corpus Christi. The research is stunning, even better than in her two first-rate volumes on the Port of Corpus Christi and the Corpus Christi Seawall, and her writing deftly paints pictures of the places and peoples and events she is describing.”—Alan Lessoff, author of Where Texas Meets the Sea: Corpus Christi and its History

Alan Lessoff

Once again, O'Rear highlights the under-researched areas of South Texas. She mines through primary documents and maps, and then analyzes her findings, making her book the only serious work which examines the islands and the barriers to the bays.”— Cecilia Gutierrez Venable, author of Historic Photos of Corpus Christi and Remembering Corpus Christi

Cecilia Gutierrez Venable