Queen Isabel Inn

President-elect Warren Harding came to Point Isabel in November 1920 to rest after his election, and the inn's plaque counts him among its visitors. Local accounts say he stayed as the guest of Brownsville Republican R. B. Creager on the bluff over the Laguna Madre, fished for tarpon, and played golf at the Brownsville Country Club with high-school caddies. He spoke at Fort Brown on Armistice Day to a crowd estimated at 20,000, then left Brownsville on November 17 for New Orleans and a cruise to Panama.

What the plaque says

Queen Isabel Inn Built by 1906 to lodge Rio Grande Railroad Company passengers and tourists, especially fishermen and hunters, the Queen Isabel Inn was first known as "Point Isabel Tarpon & Fishing Club". The hotel hosted family train excursions from Brownsville as early as 1907. Prominent visitors to the inn included president-elect Warren G. Harding in November of 1920. By 1930, indoor plumbing, electrical service, and a popular dining room made the hotel an attractive destination for vacationers. The Rio Grande Valley Fishing Rodeo was organized here in the summer of 1934 to promote tourism. The hotel was the headquarters for the contest, later renamed the Texas International Fishing Tournament. Hurricanes in 1933 and 1967 removed the hotel's original porches and pitched roof. The hotel has served as the site for many important civic and social events and has been associated with the lives of persons significant to Port Isabel's history. The Queen Isabel Inn sparked the beginning of the hotel and tourism industry in the area and endures as an important landmark business in Port Isabel history. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Port Isabel Lighthouse State Historic Site — steps away
  A 72-foot brick tower finished in 1852 for the Brazos Santiago shipping lane, dark from 1905 until a reproduction lens was lit in 2022, and the only Texas lighthouse open to the public.
• Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge — 14 mi
  A coastal refuge set up in 1946 for wintering redhead ducks, with 417 bird species recorded and, by the Fish and Wildlife Service's account, the largest ocelot population in the United States.
• Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park — 18 mi
  A flat coastal prairie north of Brownsville where Taylor's army and Arista's Army of the North fought the first major battle of the Mexican War on May 8, 1846, now interpreted from both sides.
• Stillman House Museum — 22 mi
  The 1850 Greek Revival house of Charles Stillman, who laid out Brownsville in 1848 beside the army's Fort Brown, and for a century the home of the Treviño family.

More markers nearby

• Port Isabel (Old Point Isabel) — steps away
• Charles Champion — steps away
• Point Isabel, C.S.A. — steps away
• Port of Matamoros — steps away