#TBT: Port Aransas tarpon fishing drew FDR for a 1937 presidential vacation
Port Aransas has always had an influx of visitors in the summer, enjoying the beach and fishing opportunities. But May of 1937 saw one of their most famous visitors, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt dropped in for a week of tarpon fishing.
Roosevelt was in the midst of political fight over federal judiciary retirements and age limits when it was decided some time outside of Washington D.C. was in order. Elliot Roosevelt, one of the president’s sons, lived in Fort Worth and had visited Port Aransas the previous year. He suggested they take a trip down to the coast and do some tarpon fishing, and the president accepted. Roosevelt was a lifelong angler and sailing enthusiast, particularly after contracting polio in 1921 limited his mobility.
In a 2014 column, Murphy Givens wrote of the visit based on information found in “Fishing Yesterday’s Gulf Coast” by longtime Port Aransas guide Barney Farley, who took the president on his tarpon fishing excursions, along with information from the president’s daily logs at the Pare Lorentz Center of the FDR Library and copies of the log of the presidential yacht USS Potomac at the Port Aransas Museum.
The president and his fishing party, which included Marvin McIntyre, appointments secretary; Admiral Ross McIntire, Roosevelt’s doctor; Edwin “Pa” Watson, his military attaché; and Paul Bastedo, naval attaché, left DC by train on April 28 headed to New Orleans. From there they boarded the destroyer USS Moffett, escorted by another destroyer the USS Decatur and headed into the Gulf of Mexico.
More: #TBT: Pleasure Pier was Corpus Christi's downtown hotspot before the seawall
The Potomac was anchored in the channel near Aransas Pass, waiting to meet the president, and locals eagerly awaited word of the president’s arrival. The party arrived on Saturday, May 1, and as the luggage was unloaded, Roosevelt took a small boat to fish on the jetties, where he caught a king mackerel. He then attended to some presidential duties – signing letters and documents brought by a Navy seaplane – and following dinner, fished from the quarterdeck of the Potomac.
On Sunday, the group met with guide Barney Farley before going out for some tarpon fishing. Farley wrote of the meeting, that though the president’s legs were weak, “his handshake was not. When I told him he could catch a whale with a grip like that, he laughed.” That first day the party caught nine tarpon, but the president only got a few strong tugs.
Farley took the group out again on Monday, and Roosevelt hooked a tarpon this time. He fought the fish and nearly reeled it in, but Farley realized when it surfaced that the hook had torn a large whole in the fish’s mouth: as soon as the leader was grabbed, the hook would fall out. Farley wrote, “I told Mr. Roosevelt I was about to experience the most embarrassing moment of my life. ‘I am going to lose your first tarpon.’ Sure enough, the fish jumped and shook the hook out. The only thing he said was, ‘You called that right.’” But luckily for both, Roosevelt hooked another tarpon and landed this one, a 4-foot, 8-inch silver king. Pilot Don Farley brought the boat near the south jetty so local photographer Doc McGregor could snap a photo, now a widely known image. Roosevelt had previously promised to “put one on the line” for McGregor, and carried through. McGregor even gave away copies of the photo to customers who developed a roll of film with McGregor Studios.
On Tuesday, the group sailed down to Port Isabel to visit a friend of Vice President John Nance Garner, then returned to Port Aransas the following day for another fishing trip led by Farley, this time hosting Elliot Roosevelt’s friends. Thursday was more presidential paperwork from another Navy plane, and Friday included a trip to visit Sid Richardson, a Fort Worth oilman and supporter of Vice President Garner who owned St. Joseph Island (San José Island) across from Port Aransas. Farley explained the experience of transferring the president’s wheelchair from the boat to the island, which had no dock.
More: #TBT: Babe Ruth made quick stop in Corpus Christi in 1946
“Sid didn’t have any way to unload him,” Farley explained. “He didn’t have a dock for that. But he did have a cattle chute. We pulled alongside the chute and Sid explained he was going to roll him down.” Roosevelt said, ‘What in the world, Sid, do you mean you’re going to roll me down that bull chute?’ Richardson, unfazed, said, ‘Mr. President, you’re the biggest bull that ever went down that chute.’”
The group fished one more time on Saturday, May 8, where Roosevelt landed another tarpon. And this time newsreel photographers caught photo and footage of the president with his catch. The FDR Library has the newsreel footage in its collection, which can be viewed on YouTube. The tarpon was taken to taxidermists Roberts and Brundrett in Port Aransas for mounting, and picked up before their return to DC. That mount is on long-term loan to the FDR Library.
The president’s party headed back up the Gulf on Sunday, taking a leisurely cruise to Galveston where he spent his last two days of his “piscatorial vacation,” as the Associated Press dubbed it, before heading back to the rigors of Washington politics.
Allison Ehrlich writes about things to do in South Texas and has a weekly Throwback Thursday column on local history.
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: #TBT: Port Aransas entertained FDR in 1937 with tarpon fishing
