Site of a ranch settlement, owned by Don Rafael Garcia, called "El Fronton de Santa Ysabel" (Bluff of Saint Isabel) about the year 1828. The Mexican custom station was located here in 1844, after the villages of Brazos Santiago and Boca Del Rio were swept away by storms. Goods landed here were at once freighted inland to Matamoros. After the Mexican War (1846-1848), the United States Post Office of "Point Isabel" was created on April 9, 1849. Efforts to build a railroad line to Brownsville in the 1850s did not succeed, but after the Civil War, in 1866, public demands for a rail line to Brownsville were met by Rio Grande steamboat interests, who chartered but refrained from building the road. In 1871, competitors formed the Rio Grande Railroad Company, obtained a charter, and put the line into service in 1873 from Brownsville to a terminus here (450 feet south of this marker). The line served until 1933 when a deep water channel was built to Brownsville.
Port Isabel (Old Point Isabel)
The roadside stories worth pulling over for.
Port Isabel (Old Point Isabel) is a historical marker in Port Isabel, Cameron County, dedicated in 1972. It is one of 116 historical markers documented in Cameron County in the Texas Historical Commission Atlas, among 194 historic sites cataloged across the county.
The site sits at 26.0781, -97.2073 near Port Isabel. The nearest cataloged historic site is Point Isabel Lighthouse, Old (historical marker), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include Site of Fort Polk, Port of Matamoros, and Point Isabel Lighthouse.
This record corresponds to Texas Historical Commission Atlas #5061004074. Use the map below for its exact position and turn-by-turn directions.
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