Aransas County

People have lived on these bays for 6,000 to 8,000 years. Archeologists name a later coastal culture the Aransas, whose campsites, some about 4,000 years old, run from Copano Bay south to Baffin Bay; its nomadic hunter-gatherers seem to have left the coast around A.D. 1200 to 1300. After about a century with no inhabitants, the ancestors of the Karankawas arrived around 1400. Alonso Álvarez de Pineda may have explored Aransas Bay in 1519, and in 1766 Diego Ortiz Parrilla named Copano Bay Santo Domingo and today's St. Joseph Island Culebra Island.

What the plaque says

Aransas County Created out of the coastal portion of Refugio County in 1871, Aransas County is the second smallest county in Texas. Within its boundaries are three bays of the Gulf of Mexico: Copano, St. Charles, and Aransas. The area was the site of early Indian inhabitation and Spanish exploration, as well as Anglo colonization efforts of the 1830s and 1840s. Aransas County communities are supported by such industries as fishing, agriculture, off-shore oil production, bird watching, and tourism. The county is home to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, created in 1937. (1990)

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Jackson Family Maritime Companies — steps away
• San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad in Rockport, The — steps away
• First National Bank of Rockport — 0.2 mi
• Rockport Marine Laboratory — 0.3 mi