Queen Isabel Inn
Port Isabel, Cameron County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built by 1906 to lodge Rio Grande Railroad Company passengers and tourists, especially fishermen and hunters, the Queen Isabel Inn was first known as "Point Isabel Tarpon & Fishing Club". The hotel hosted family train excursions from Brownsville as early as 1907. Prominent visitors to the inn included president-elect Warren G. Harding in November of 1920. By 1930, indoor plumbing, electrical service, and a popular dining room made the hotel an attractive destination for vacationers. The Rio Grande Valley Fishing Rodeo was organized here in the summer of 1934 to promote tourism. The hotel was the headquarters for the contest, later renamed the Texas International Fishing Tournament. Hurricanes in 1933 and 1967 removed the hotel's original porches and pitched roof. The hotel has served as the site for many important civic and social events and has been associated with the lives of persons significant to Port Isabel's history. The Queen Isabel Inn sparked the beginning of the hotel and tourism industry in the area and endures as an important landmark business in Port Isabel history.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built by 1906 to lodge passengers of the Rio Grande Railroad—especially fishermen and hunters—the hotel began life as the "Point Isabel Tarpon & Fishing Club." It hosted excursion trains from Brownsville and welcomed notable guests, including President-elect Warren G. Harding in 1920. By 1930 modern plumbing, electricity, and a popular dining room had made it a vacation destination, and in 1934 it became headquarters for the contest that grew into the Texas International Fishing Tournament.
Why it matters
The Queen Isabel Inn launched the hotel and tourism industry on the lower Texas coast, turning Port Isabel's fishing waters into a destination for travelers.
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Related people
- · Warren G. Harding
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Port of Brownsville
Brownsville, TX
For centuries, shifting sandbars at Brazos de Santiago Pass frustrated large ships hoping to reach South Texas, despite shipping through the pass dating to the 1500s. A campaign begun in 1906 by Point Isabel fisherman Louis Cabolini eventually convinced federal engineers that a deep-water port was practical. After Brownsville formed a navigation district in 1929, a ship channel was dredged between 1934 and 1936, opening the modern Port of Brownsville.
Frank Rabb
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Born in 1866 to Texas ranching pioneers, Frank Rabb settled with his wife Lillian on the twenty-thousand-acre San Tomas estate near the Rio Grande. He built one of the area's first irrigation systems, helped charter the Chatfield Irrigation Co., and lobbied to bring the railroad that by 1904 turned Valley land into booming farmland. A leader in the south Texas Progressive Democrat machine and a figure in the turbulent Mexican Revolution, he also offered the government a sabal palm grove in 1917 that decades later became a wildlife sanctuary.
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Bagdad-Matamoros, C.S.A.
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