#TBT: Seaside resorts flourished in Rockport, Aransas Pass in 1890s
In the 1890s, a trip to the seaside was a grand occasion, and towns around the Coastal Bend built showcase hotels to attract the vacationers.
Aransas Hotel in Rockport
Col. John H. Traylor built the Aransas Hotel on the Rockport waterfront in 1889. Traylor was president of the Aransas Land Company, a group of Dallas investors who purchased all the available land around Rockport and then auctioned it off in lots. Traylor later served as mayor of Dallas for two years, and then in the Texas House and Senate.
Traylor built the hotel as part of a deal with the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway Company. The railroad would extend the line to Rockport if an investor built a hotel in the town worth at least $50,000. Traylor had longleaf heart pine brought from Orange, Texas, to build the $52,500 structure, and it was the largest frame-structure building in the state for a number of years.
The Aransas, which was renamed the Del Mar Hotel in the mid-1890s, took up an entire city block, had 100 guest rooms, and a central dining room with capacity for 200 diners. The first and second floors had verandas that circled the entire building, and parlors throughout the hotel had live music while visitors enjoyed card games. The dining room had a dance floor, and every Saturday was “Big Dance Night,” where many of the locals joined the guests for the entertainment and dancing.
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Traylor’s yacht was made available for guests to use, and surreys and hacks carried guests to Bailey’s Pavilion for shaded bathing spots, and to attend shows performed by traveling theatrical troupes and performers.
The hotel was abandoned sometime after 1910 and sat vacant except for some small adjoining buildings used as insurance offices. On April 15, 1919, the old hotel burned down. The Aransas Pass Progress newspaper wrote in the April 18 edition:
“The old Del Mar Hotel at Rockport, that degenerated from one of the finest hostelries on the gulf in the early ‘90s to a bat rookery and crap shooter resort of the present day, was totally destroyed by fire Tuesday morning … It has long been a fire menace which has kept insurance rates at a maximum.”
Hotel Hoyt in Aransas Pass
The Hotel Hoyt was built by T.B. Wheeler and B.H. Wilson on South Commercial Street in Aransas Pass. The lessee, A. Marie Hoyt, opened the grand hotel named after herself in September 1891. Hoyt, described as “a lady of great wealth and enterprise,” came from her home in Denver to inspect the hotel, telling the Aransas Harbor Herald newspaper she was “very glad of the opportunity to enjoy for a time the delicious sea breezes,” and the hotel was “not only the best furnished, but it will be conducted in first-class style.”
The three-story structure had a gabled roof, and could house 150 guests. Advertisements from the time boast of the excellent hunting and fishing in the area, an unparalleled menu and dining experience with fresh vegetables even in the winter, and a climate “highly favorable to the treatment of catarrh and pulmonary troubles.”
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The hotel closed for a time, then was purchased by land agents E.O. Burton and A.H. Danforth. They held what San Patricio County historian Keith Guthrie described as “the last great land lottery” in December 1909, with the hotel as part of the prize. Tickets representing one lot of land in the town sold for $100 each, with 6,000 tickets sold. Purchasers were told to stop bidding at $100 but postal inspectors, who suspected the sale of being an illegal lottery, bought tickets and purposely overbid to muddy the waters, prompting lawsuits.
The hotel opened briefly again, this time as the Bayview Hotel, before shutting down again a few years later. The September 1919 hurricane wiped out the once-grand hotel on Commercial Street, another relic of the ‘90s resorts gone from the seaside.
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: Seaside resorts flourished in Rockport, Aransas Pass in 1890s
