San Patricio County, Texas

San Patricio County, Texas map

This profile is part of the San Patricio County, Texas One Place Study.

St. Patrick

First Settlement: 1829 by Irish Catholics from New York City

County Formation: 1845

Named For: Saint Patrick, patron saint of Ireland

San Patricio County Timeline

A. D. 1400: The Karankawa Indians moved into the area

1519: Álvarez de Pineda explored the bays behind Aransas Pass

1689-1691: Alonso De León's expedition sailed up and down the coast investigating bays and entered Aransas Pass. Jean Béranger's trips into the bays are well chronicled in his own journal.

1712, 1718: A party of French came ashore on St. Joseph Island, and later Ortiz Parrilla explored in the Nueces River valley. José de Evia made the field notes that turned into the Langara map, which features this area. Mexican sheepherders also camped in what is now San Patricio County before the era of colonization.

1940 Map of San Patricio County

1828: Empresarios John McMullen and James McGloin contracted with the government of Mexico to settle 200 Irish Catholic families on eighty leagues of land in the area.

1829: The first groups of families, recruited from the Irish population of New York, landed at El Cópano and Matagorda; two other groups soon followed. After a brief stopover at the old Refugio mission, the colonists proceeded to the north side of the Nueces River and established the town of San Patricio de Hibernia, named after the patron saint of Ireland.

1834: the colony was legally established as the Municipality of San Patricio in the Mexican state of Coahuila and Texas.

1836: eighty-four land grants had been made in the colony, and about 500 people were living there. The area was engulfed in fighting during the early stages of the Texas Revolution. Fort Lipantitlán, built in 1833 across the Nueces near the colony, surrendered to a company of the colony's settlers in 1835. In February 1836 a detachment of Texans commanded by Francis W. Johnson encountered a Mexican force in the town of San Patricio. All but four of the Texans were killed or captured. Most of the colonists subsequently moved to Victoria and other havens. San Patricio County was established in 1836 by the Congress of the new Republic of Texas. Far larger than the current county, the original San Patricio County included territory later incorporated into other counties. Its original residents were slow to move back into the area, however, for fear of the periodic Mexican incursions; a Mexican force under Gen. Ráfael Vásquez raided the San Patricio area as late as 1842. The county was officially designated a "depopulated area" by the government during most of this time, though traders, soldiers, and various adventurers traveled through.

1841: San Patricio County once again had a small number of more or less permanent residents.

1845: Gen. Zachary Taylor moved his army into the region after Texas was annexed by the United States. Taylor's army briefly camped near the site of present Rockport, and after the Mexican War began, reinforcements and supplies for the American army flowed through the county. In 1845 Corpus Christi was designated the county's seat of government and remained so until 1846, when San Patricio County lost all of its territory south of the Nueces River to the newly established Nueces County. That year the town of San Patricio became San Patricio County's seat.

1848: more new counties were formed, and the county was further reduced in size.

1850: the county was only beginning to recover from the turmoil and dislocations occasioned by the Texas Revolution. The United States census counted only 200 people, including three slaves, living in the area. With the threat of raids by the Mexican army removed and the Indians pushed out of the area, more people began to move into the county.

1854: John G. Hatch settled in the southeastern part of the county area, and the Engleside post office was soon established on the Cross S Ranch. Youngs Coleman established a ranch on Chiltipin Creek about the same time.

1856: The White brothers, Eddie and Frank, settled in the White Point area, and William Marshall Means established Meansville in the southern part of the county before 1860.

1858: the county was reduced in size one last time, and its present boundaries were established.

1860: the population had increased to 620, including ninety-five slaves. That year there were fifty-one farms and ranches (three acres or larger) in the area. Cattle continued to dominate the local economy. More than 48,000 cattle were reported in San Patricio County in 1860; almost 4,000 sheep, producing 6,440 pounds of wool, were also reported. The Civil War brought further changes. While the area was far removed from the main battle lines, it was on the "Cotton Road" to Matamoros, Mexico, which became a major center of cotton smuggling after the Union government imposed a blockade on the South. A Confederate fort was built at Aransas Pass, federal ships appeared in 1862 to harass smugglers, and federal raiding parties periodically came ashore near Ingleside, burning houses and confiscating livestock. During the war the county was also plagued by bands of rustlers who preyed on local herds. To avoid various threats to their well-being, many people living in the Ingleside area felt compelled to move to Goliad during the war.

1863: the hanging of Josefa (Chipita) Rodríguez demonstrated the prejudice many whites in the area harbored against Mexicans and Mexican Americans.

1870: Sidney G. Borden started Sharpsburg, which soon outstripped San Patricio in population and was the county's only port. By 1870 there were 602 people, including sixty-four blacks, living in San Patricio County. The agricultural census reported fifty-one farms and ranches, encompassing 52,000 acres, in the area; about 2,400 acres were described as "improved."

1871: Thomas M. Coleman and George W. Fulton joined with J. M. and Thomas H. Mathis in a partnership that formed the largest cattle firm in Texas. The Coleman, Mathis, and Fulton partnership, which held acreage in San Patricio, Goliad, and Aransas counties, flourished until an eighteen-month drought in 1878–79 wiped out much of its stock. When the partnership was dissolved in 1879 T. H. Mathis, who was awarded 64,000 acres of the firm's land, began plans to develop a townsite on his property.

1880: The remaining partners formed the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company. The ranch headquarters was established at Rincon, seven miles north of the site of present Gregory; the headquarters soon became a community with its own school. The United States census counted 1,010 people living in the county in 1880, but the area's ranching economy had been ravaged by the drought. There were only thirty-six farms and ranches in 1880, and fewer than 7,000 cattle were reported that year. About 1,200 acres were planted in corn, the county's most important crop at that time; six acres were planted in cotton.

1885: the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway was built to the newly laid-out Aransas Harbor.

1890s: towns such as Mathis, Sinton, and Gregory had been established along the railroad. Development of the area was significantly encouraged by out-of-state investors, especially David B. Sinton, a wealthy Ohio banker who was an old friend of Fulton's. Sinton and his son-in-law, Charles P. Taft, became major partners in the Coleman-Fulton Pasture Company. The ranch soon became known as the Taft Ranch.

1893: after the Coleman-Fulton company donated 640 acres for a townsite near the center of the county, the Sinton Town Company was formed to develop the site. The new town, called Sinton, became the county seat later that year.

1896: the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway began to build into the county.

1898: Rockport, established in neighboring Aransas County, was envisioned by ambitious developers as a deep-water port that would serve as the hub of an extensive transportation network. Land values in the area began to rise significantly, though the population was still growing very slowly; as new towns appeared in the county, old settlements like San Patricio and Round Lake began to fade away.

1900: there were 1,312 people living in the county. The agricultural economy recovered and grew during this period. By 1900 there were 190 farms and ranches, encompassing over 102,000 acres, in San Patricio County, and 34,000 cattle were reported in the area. About 2,000 acres were planted in corn that year, and 2,100 acres were devoted to cotton.

1909: land agents began to widely advertise San Patricio County property to prospective farmers. New towns such as Odem (1904), St. Paul (1909), Edroy (1910), Taft, and Sodville sprang up along the railroads, as hundreds of new farmers moved into the area from northern Texas and other states. Meanwhile, trainloads of laborers were brought in from Mexico to clear the land of mesquite and prepare it for farming; large numbers remained to work in the fields, shaping the cultural and social development of the area.

1910: The US Census reported that there were 470 farms and 7,307 residents. There were 1,626 farms in the county by 1930, but many of the new farmers did not own the lands they worked. Farm tenancy rates increased along with the expansion of cotton cultivation.

1920: The US Census reported that there were 757 farms, 11,386 residents

1926: a gas pipeline was laid from neighboring Refugio County gasfields to Aransas

1930: There were 1626 farms, 23, 836 residents; 1,128 of the county's farmers were tenants and 342 residents owned their own farms. Many farmers suffered during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Low prices, federal crop restrictions, and other factors combined to drive tens of thousands of acres out of production. Hundreds of farmers were forced off the land, and by 1940 only 1,089 farms (and only 557 tenants) remained in the county. These setbacks were offset to some extent, however, when the county's oil and gas industry grew significantly during the mid-1930s. In 1938, 6,087,000 barrels of oil were produced in the county.

1950: 28, 871 residents

1959: there were only 816 farms (393 operated by tenants) in the county. Though cotton production remained relatively high, sorghum became an increasingly important crop. The area's petroleum industry continued to flourish until the 1970s, when production began to decline significantly.

1960: Population, 35,842

1970: Population, 47,288

1980: Population, 58,013

1980s: Reynolds Metals operated a plant on Corpus Christi Bay to extract alumina from bauxite, which was shipped in from Africa, Australia, and Brazil. Dow and Occidental chemical companies also had large plants on the ship channel in the 1980s. Two of the world's largest marine rig builders operated on the bay, and Ingleside was designated the homeport for the United States Navy's Battleship Wisconsin battle group. Aransas Pass was home to about 300 shrimp boats and seafood landed in Aransas Pass and Ingleside earned more than $60 million annually.

2014: there were 66,915 people living in the county. About 40.8 percent were Anglo, 2.1 percent African American, and 55.4 percent Hispanic.

San Patricio County Incorporated Cities

• Sinton (population, 5,712), the seat of government
• Mathis (4,973)
• Odem (2,415)
• Taft (3,056)
• Gregory (1,926)
• Portland, (15,553, partly in Nueces County)
• Ingleside (9,605)
• Aransas Pass (8,305, partly in Nueces and Aransas counties)
• San Patricio (387, partly in Nueces County).

• Edroy and St. Paul are not incorporated.

Special events

• World Champion Rattlesnake Races held at San Patricio in March
• Fish-A-Rama held in Mathis each May
• Shrimporee held in Aransas Pass each May
• Taft hosts a Boll Weevil Festival in September
• Old Fiddler's Festival is held in Sinton in October

San Patricio County on WikiTree

• San Patricio County Cemeteries
• San_Patricio_County%2C_Texas%2C_Religious_Congregations
• San Patricio County Schools

San Patricio County Books

• Keith Guthrie, History of San Patricio County (Austin: Nortex, 1986).

Online Resources

• San Patricio County, Texas on Wikipedia
• County Website
• San Patricio County, Texas Genealogy on FamilySearch
• San Patricio County, TXGenWeb
• Texas State Historical Association; San Patricio County
• San Patricio County, Texas on Genealogy Trails
• San Patricio County History on Economic Development website
• San Patricio County on TexasEscapes
• San Patricio County on Genealogy, Inc.
• San Patricio County History on Facebook