Rockport Pilot, The

The paper on this plaque keeps its own past in two places. Texas Tech's Southwest Collection holds digitized Pilot issues and dates the paper to 1916, when the Sparkman Publishing Company bought the Rockport Enterprise. Locally, the History Center for Aransas County opened a 2014 exhibit for the Pilot's 145th anniversary, a timeline from 1869 to 2014 that began with Bailey's Transcript. Mike Probst, editor and publisher since 1984 and tied to the Hartman family of newspapers, had written more than 1,500 weekly columns by then and gathered three decades of Pilot coverage into a book.

What the plaque says

Rockport Pilot, The The earliest newspaper in this area was "The Vaquero," published by Charles F. Bailey and Geraldo A. Beeman in St. Mary's in 1868. In 1869 Bailey moved to Rockport and founded "The Transcript," which continued in operation until 1886. Two years later "The Rockport Enterprise" began, and in 1916 it merged with the new "Rockport Pilot." Other local newspapers existed for short periods, but since its beginning "The Pilot" has been the area's primary news source, focusing on Aransas County issues and events. (1990)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fulton Mansion State Historic Site — 2.6 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

• Site of Aransas Hotel — steps away
• San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad in Rockport, The — steps away
• First Methodist Church of Rockport — steps away
• Sacred Heart Catholic Church — 0.2 mi