Site of Aransas Hotel

The man who put up this block-long hotel was a Dallas land investor and former state senator. John Henry Traylor, born in Virginia in 1839, was a Confederate scout and sharpshooter, wounded three times, and was a few yards from Stonewall Jackson when his own troops shot him. In Texas he was Hood County sheriff, then a legislator who helped cut railroad fares to three cents a mile and helped secure Texas pink granite for the Capitol. As Dallas mayor from 1898 to 1900 he helped devise commission government. He settled in Rockport in 1907.

What the plaque says

Site of Aransas Hotel Built in 1889 by civic leader and politician John H. Traylor, the Aransas Hotel covered this city block. The three-story structure, a major tourist attraction in Rockport, had about 100 rooms and a massive open dining room with a 200 person capacity. Guests were entertained by orchestras, plays, a mounted bird display, and beach facilities. They could also cruise in Traylor's yacht, or tour in surreys from the livery stable. Remodeled and named the Del Mar in the mid-1890s, it was sold in 1910. Deteriorated by 1906 and unused during World War I, the hotel was destroyed by fire in 1919. (1996)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fulton Mansion State Historic Site — 2.7 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 — 8.7 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.
• USS Lexington Museum on the Bay — 25 mi
  An Essex-class carrier of 1943 moored off North Beach, the Blue Ghost that Tokyo Rose kept reporting sunk, and the Navy's training carrier for nearly three decades after.

More markers nearby

• Rockport Pilot, The — steps away
• San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad in Rockport, The — steps away
• First Methodist Church of Rockport — steps away
• Baylor-Norvell House — 0.2 mi