Texas City Dike: The World's Longest Fishing Pier

The Texas City Dike is a road to nowhere and everywhere — a slender arm of stone and fill that reaches nearly five miles into the mouth of Galveston Bay, the longest human-made fishing pier in the world. Authorized by Congress in 1913 and completed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1915, it was never built for fishermen at all: its job was to shield the Texas City ship channel from cross-currents and silt so oceangoing vessels could reach the port. Timber-pile at first, later armored and extended to its present length in 1934, the dike turned Texas City into a working deepwater harbor. But the point of land where it begins carries a second, older story. In the years before World War I, the U.S. Army massed troops here during the trouble along the Mexican border, and the First Aero Squadron — one of the very first military flying units in American history, the seed of today's Air Force — operated from a camp near this shore. This driving tour runs out along the dike and back, pairing the sweep of bay views with the markers that remember the army camp, the aviators, and the old lighthouse that once guided ships past the shoals. Bring a jacket; the wind off the bay never quits.