First Presbyterian Church of Rockport

When this congregation moved to Live Oak Street in 1949, Aransas County had become oil country. Oil was found in the county in 1936, and thirteen wells were producing by 1946. On July 7, 1947, the discovery well of the Fulton Beach field came in, drawing on Frio Formation sands 6,800 to 8,350 feet down along a faulted anticline, and development went on steadily after. The 1953 tidelands settlement added 208 square miles of submerged land to the county. By 1990 it had produced more than 77 million barrels, while Rockport still lived mainly on fishing and tourism.

What the plaque says

First Presbyterian Church of Rockport This congregation traces its history to 1869. Although deactivated in 1879, it was reorganized with twenty charter members in 1889. The members met in facilities provided by other churches until their first house of worship was completed at Market and S. Magnolia streets about 1906-07. After surviving several hurricanes, the church moved to this site in 1949. An integral part of local history for over a century, First Presbyterian Church counts among its members many community leaders and descendants of its founding families. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fulton Mansion State Historic Site — 2.3 mi
  A French Second Empire house of 1874-77 on Aransas Bay, paid for with hides and tallow, with gas lights, central heat and hot running water no other house nearby had.
• Goose Island State Park — 8.4 mi
  A bayside park between St. Charles and Aransas bays, home of the Big Tree, the state champion coastal live oak, thought to be more than a thousand years old.
• Port Aransas — 13 mi
  The fishing town at the north end of Mustang Island, reached by a free state ferry that crosses the ship channel day and night, with a university marine lab begun in a one-room shack.
• Aransas National Wildlife Refuge — 25 mi
  Blackjack Peninsula's refuge on San Antonio Bay, winter home of the only wild migrating flock of whooping cranes, which fell to about fifty birds and now numbers over five hundred.

More markers nearby

• St. Peter's Episcopal Church — steps away
• Aransas County — steps away
• First National Bank of Rockport — steps away
• Jackson Family Maritime Companies — 0.2 mi