City History

The first people to discover Aransas Pass were the Karankawa Indians. They used dugout canoes and fished with bows and arrows, but by 1830 there were very few Karankawas left. Around 1850, the white settlers started moving in and Aransas Pass became a sleepy little town. Even in later years it was still a laid back city.

Just as our neighbor, Corpus Christi, took its name from Spanish Catholic Missionary influence during Spanish explorations of the New World, certainly our modified 'Aransas' also came from visits to the Texas coastal plains by the Spanish and the naming of the natural Aransas Pass from the Gulf of Mexico to inland Laguna Madre and Redfish Bay.

The City of Aransas Pass was founded in 1909 by a promotion of a great land lottery. It developed as a fishing village and the first shipment of shrimp to San Antonio was in 1912. At this time it was the homeport for about 300 large shrimp trawlers, which annually net millions of pounds of shrimp.

Aransas Pass is a perfect retirement paradise. Recreational activities to enjoy include birding, duck hunting, fishing, boating, and kayaking.