Fulton Volunteer Fire Department

The plaque credits Oysterfest with keeping the department funded; the festival itself has become Fulton's big March weekend. It runs Thursday to Sunday, with bands, a carnival, a Saturday parade on Fulton Beach Road, a decorated-oyster contest and live auction, shucking, and separate men's and women's raw-oyster eating contests. The 2026 edition was the forty-seventh. In 2022 Chief Jackie Mundine put the festival at about a quarter of the department's budget, and said it paid for most, if not all, of a new brush truck.

What the plaque says

Fulton Volunteer Fire Department In 1947, an agricultural brush fire quickly accelerated and destroyed a large part of Fulton, starting in Copano Village, crossing the highway and destroying businesses, homes and acres of live oak groves and thickets. Soon after, citizens of Fulton expressed the need for a fire department able to respond to their community quickly. Fifteen men gathered and decided to form the Fulton Volunteer Fire Department. The men trained with the Aransas County Emergency Corps to become firefighters. The first meetings in 1948 were held in the Fulton Schoolhouse at the corner of Third and Cactus streets. The department used a 1937 ford truck, donated by the city of Rockport, as their first fire truck. With help from local carpenters and boat builders, a stall for the fire truck was constructed using lumber from the old school. Later, an office and meeting room were added. For many years, the fire department budget was mainly derived from community donations and support until 1979 when Oysterfest began. From its beginnings as a fundraiser for the department's "Jaws of Life" equipment, the festival has been a strong source of funding. Members of the fire department engage in many hours of training, in-house as well as traveling to fire training field schools. Along with training for the firefighters, the fire department partners with the community for fire prevention training and participates in the annual Fulton Christmas Celebration and Fulton National Night Out. The Fulton Volunteer Fire Department continues to work closely with the community to preserve Fulton's rich heritage. (2017)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fulton Mansion State Historic Site — 0.7 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 — 5.9 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 — 16 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 — 22 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

• Fulton — 0.2 mi
• Fulton Community Church — 0.4 mi
• Site of Marion Packing Co. — 0.5 mi
• Home of George W. Fulton — 0.8 mi