Copano Bay - History

History

Copano Bay was inhabited by the nomadic Aransas Indians, who constructed camps along the shore, 4,000 years ago. The Aransas people left the area approximately 700 years ago, and were replaced around 1400 CE by the Copane Indians, for whom the bay is named. The Copane were one of five groups making up the Karankawas, hunter-gatherers who occupied the mid-Texas coast.

Cabeza de Vaca is thought to have been the first European to sight the bay in the early 16th century, evidenced by the descriptions in his logs that match the detail of the area. In 1766, Spaniard Diego Ortiz Parrilla is believed to be the first European to explore the bay. He named it Santo Domingo (Saint Dominic), but it was later changed to Copano, after the port of Copano was officially opened in 1785 on the northwestern shore. The port later served as a strategically important locale during the Texas Revolution and the American Civil War, and was the site of a settlement that is now completely abandoned. The town of St. Mary's of Aransas was founded southwest of Copano and thrived as a port and wood mart, until numerous shipwrecks caused by the bay's hidden reefs concluded its use in 1875. Like Copano, it is now abandoned.

Further to the southwest, at the mouth of the Aransas River, the town of Black Point was established in the 1840s. The site was attacked by Indians several times before the settlement was abandoned. However, it was reestablished in the early 20th century as the present-day city of Bayside. Bayside developers aimed to attract fruit and vegetable growers to the plots made available and advertised nationwide, but large amounts of land were purchased by speculators, raising demand and forcing further annexation. The 2000 census reported that 360 people lived in the city. The cities of Fulton and Rockport were established on Aransas Bay in the late 19th century, and later expanded development along most of the eastern shore of Copano Bay. Such developments include Copano Village, which registered 210 residents in 2000, and the 1,000 resident Holiday Beach community just west of Goose Island State Park on Lamar Peninsula.