Port Lavaca
Port Lavaca, Calhoun County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Founded in the aftermath of a Comanche raid on the nearby settlement of Linville, the town of Lavaca ("the cow") was established in 1840. The busiest port in the Matagorda Bay area and a major center for over-land export of cattle and other goods, Lavaca was an able successor to Linville. Lavaca was the first Calhoun County seat from 1846 to 1852, when Indianola assumed the role. The county seat was returned to Lavaca briefly during the Civil War, when the town withstood fire from Federal gunboats, then returned to Indianola. In 1886 Indianola was ravaged by a hurricane and Lavaca was again county seat. With railroad expansion in Texas, Lavaca moved away from cattle and turned to seafood. Called Port Lavaca from the late 1880s, the village boomed. Tourism and the population increased; several factories were opened; the town became a general law city in 1909. The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway was connected to Port Lavaca in 1913 and a seawall was completed in 1920. Shrimp and frozen seafood became major items for export. Natural gas and oil were discovered in 1934 and 1935. From the late 1940s major manufacturing began to contribute to Port Lavaca' s growth. Port Lavaca became a home rule chartered city in 1956, and a deep water port was located here in 1965. Port Lavaca celebrated 150 years of rich history in 1990. (1998) Incise on base: Erected by Calhoun County Historical Commission; George Fred Rhodes, Chairman
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1840 after a Comanche raid wiped out nearby Linville, Lavaca—"the cow"—grew into the busiest port on Matagorda Bay and a hub for driving cattle to market. It traded the county seat back and forth with Indianola for decades, weathering Federal gunboat fire during the Civil War. As railroads reshaped Texas, the town turned from cattle to seafood, oil, and manufacturing, thriving as Port Lavaca into the modern era.
Why it matters
Port Lavaca's survival while rival Indianola was erased by hurricanes shows how geography and luck decided which Gulf Coast ports lived to shape Texas commerce.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Calhoun County Hurricanes
Port Lavaca, TX
Hurricanes have shaped Calhoun County's history as powerfully as any human event, their high winds, rains, and tidal surges repeatedly reordering life along Matagorda Bay. Entire towns vanished to 19th-century storms, including Indianola—a major Gulf seaport and the county seat—and the Republic-era port of Saluria on Matagorda Island. Alongside the loss of property and life run enduring stories of survival and rebuilding.
Clark Cemetery
Port Lavaca, TX
This burial ground served the Clark family of the vanished Chocolate community, named for nearby Chocolate Creek where Sylvanus Hatch and his brother Joseph settled in 1846. Residents raised cattle and horses, farmed, and worshipped at St. Paul's-on-the-Prairie, whose building also housed the school. In the mid-1850s John Clark arrived and built stock pens known as Clark's Station along the Indianola Railroad, letting area farmers ship crops and cattle to market; he deeded this cemetery in 1899.
Kamey Community
Port Lavaca, TX
John William McKamey, born in Arkansas in 1878, graduated from Baylor University in 1899 and returned to Texas to help run his family's cotton farm. With relatives and a partner he acquired more than 8,000 acres that became the Kamey Community, moving there in 1912 to raise cattle, cotton, and grain sorghum with his wife Maude. A rail depot, a one-teacher school, a post office, and a long-lived general store grew up around the family, whose descendants still work the land.
The Great Camel Experiment
Indianola, TX
In 1856 and 1857 some seventy-five camels waded ashore at Indianola, imported from North Africa and the Middle East for a bold U.S. Army experiment. Championed by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis and approved by Congress in 1855, the animals were meant to serve as pack beasts across the deserts of the Southwest, and townsfolk gawked as they were led through the streets. Used to survey wagon roads and patrol West Texas, the herd passed to Confederate hands at the Civil War's outbreak and was eventually auctioned off.