Indianola

Indianola was a working port first and a ghost town after. It began in August 1846 as Indian Point on Matagorda Bay, and the Mexican War made it a deep-water army depot; for thirty years it supplied the frontier forts of West Texas. When Charles Morgan made it the bay terminus of his New York steamship line, the town stretched three miles down the beach to Powderhorn Bayou and became the second port of Texas, the chief door through which European and American immigrants reached western Texas. It was the Calhoun County seat from 1852 to 1886. In July 1869 the Morgan steamer Agnes carried the world's first shipment of mechanically refrigerated beef from here to New Orleans, and rail service inland began in 1871.

That was the peak: more than 5,000 people when the hurricane of September 1875 came ashore. The town rebuilt smaller and was almost obliterated by the hurricane of August 20, 1886, and the fire that followed. By 1887 it was abandoned, and the county seat went back to Port Lavaca.

What you can visit now is the shore. Storm erosion has taken most of the townsite into the bay, and a granite marker stands on the beach at the point nearest the 1859 Calhoun County Courthouse, whose site is now about 300 feet out in Matagorda Bay. Indianola today is a small fishing village, and the cemeteries and the 1936 La Salle monument are a short drive away.