Aransas County was created on 1871
and formed from Refugio County. Aransas County was named for the Rio Nuestra Senora de Aranzazu, a Spanish outpost in early Texas. The County Seat is Rockport. The Official County website is located at http://www.aransascounty.org/.
PLEASE READ!! Please call the clerk's department to confirm hours, mailing address, fees and other specifics before visiting or requesting information because of sometimes changing contact information.
Aransas County Clerk has Court Records from 1871, Land Records from 1871, Probate Records from 1872, Marriage Records from 1871 and Birth/Death Records from 1903 is located at 301
Live Oak,
Rockport, TX 78382-2744,
(512) 790-0122 . The County Clerk's Office is the record keeper of the county. The county records include birth certificates, death certificates, marriage licenses, brand registrations, DD214s (military discharges), land / real estate / property records, probate and civil filings.
Below is a list of online resources for Aransas County Court Records. Email us with websites containing Aransas County Court Records by clicking the link below:
Texas Immigration & Emigration Records - Immigration records help the family historian to understand the movements of their ancestry as they relocated to different parts of the world.
Click Here to Search Texas Birth, Marriage & Death Records! - Birth, marriage, and death records are connected with central life events. They are prime sources for genealogical information. Look also for baptism, christening, and burial records in this collection.
Vital Records,1100 West 49th Street,
Austin, TX 78756, Please allow up to approximately 6-8 weeks for processing of all type of certificates when ordered through the mail. They have the following records:
Birth Certificates: Birth records maintained by Bureau of Vital Statistics, Dept. of Health since 1903 through the present. For births that occurred within the past 75 years, copies can be requested only by the immediate family of the person whose name is on the birth certificate.
Cost: The cost of a birth record is $22.00. If no record is found or no copy is made, state law requires that we keep $22.00 for a searching fee. Please do not send cash in the mail.
Processing Time: 6-8 weeks when ordered by MAIL or 2-5 Days when you order ELECTRONICALLY
Death Certificates: Death records maintained by Bureau of Vital Statistics, Dept. of Health since 1903 through the present.
For deaths that occurred in the past 25 years, copies can be requested only by immediate family members of the deceased.
Cost: The cost of a certified death certificate is $20.00 for the first copy and $3.00 for each additional copy issued at the same time for the same certificate. If no record is found or no copy is made, state law requires that we keep $20.00 for a searching fee. Please do not send cash in the mail.
Processing Time: 6-8 weeks when ordered by MAIL or 2-5 Days when you order ELECTRONICALLY
Marriage & Divorce Certificates: Marriage Verifications from Jan 1966 and Divorce Verifications from Jan 1968. Certified copies of marriage licenses or divorce decrees are only available from the county clerk (marriage) or district clerk (divorce) in the county or district in which the event occurred. Marriage verification or divorce verification letters can now be ordered ELECTRONICALLY
Cost: $20 - Fee is for verification only.
Processing Time: 6-8 weeks when ordered by MAIL or 2-5 Days when you order ELECTRONICALLY
Order Online: You can also order Order Electronically and get the certificates within 2-5 days by ordering below
Order In Person: The certificates may be ordered by coming into this office. If you want the copy the same day, our hours for same day service are 8:00 A.M. until 5:00 P.M. Monday – Friday. The Texas Vital Statistics Office in Austin is located at 1100 W. 49th Street,
Austin, TX 78756.
Order By Mail: Mail a check or money order (no cash) payable to the "Texas Vital Records " along with the necessary information to the following address: Texas Vital Records, Department of State Health Services, PO Box 12040,
Austin TX 78711-2040. Please include return address on envelope and application form.
Search the Social Security Death Index for FREE - Search over 82 million death records and get genealogical information crucial to your family research. New content added weekly! Most comprehensive SSDI site online!
Research Death records In The World's Largest Newspaper Archive at NewpaperArchive.com! - Find thousands of historical Texas newspaper articles about deaths. Search for local articles about an old family friend that died many years ago or a celebrity that committed suicide. Historical newspapers contain a wealth of information about the deceased.
Texas Birth Certificates, 1903-10, 1926-29 - Browse by county, then year, then surname, beginning with the first letters of the last name of the person you seek. If you're unsure of the year or location, use the search box under the browse menu. These records can be searched by father's first and last names, mother's first and maiden names, year, county, and city. The certificates include the child and parents' full names, residence, occupations, age, time and date of the birth, and the name of the physician attending the birth.
Texas Death Certificates, 1890-1976 - These records are searchable by first and last name of the deceased, year, county, and city. A certificate may include the decedent's date, place, and cause of death; age; date of birth; last residence; and marital status. If known, it will also include occupation, birth place, parents' names, and place of burial. Browse by county, then year, then surname, beginning with the first letters of the last name of the person you seek. If unsure of the year or location, use the search box under the browse menu.
Click Here to Search Texas Voter Lists & Census Records! - Few, if any, records reveal as many details about individuals and families as do government census records. Substitute records can be used when the official census is unavailable.
Countywide Records: Federal Population Schedules that exist for Aransas County, Texas are 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890 (fragment, see below), 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930. The Texas State Library holds microfilm editions for all of Texas' federal censuses. Although the 1850, 1860, and part of the 1870 mortality schedules have been published, all the original mortality schedules are at the Texas State Library and on microfilm The 1830 territorial census of Miller County, Arkansas, enumerates an area that is in today's Texas boundaries. The remaining 1890 population schedules which exist for Texas include: Ellis County (Justice Precinct 6, Mountain Peak, and Ovilla Precinct); Hood County (Precinct 5); Rusk County (No. 6 and Justice Precinct No. 7); Trinity County (town of Trinity and Justice Precinct 2); and Kaufman County (Kaufman). Although Greer County in present-day Oklahoma functioned as part of Texas between 1886 and 1896, the 1890 census for this county was enumerated under Oklahoma Territory.
Other Federal Schedules to look at when researching your family tree in Aransas County, Texas are Industry and Agriculture Schedules availible for the years 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880. Slave Schedules exist for 1850 & 1860. The Mortality Schedules for the years 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880. There are free downloadable and printable Census forms to help with your research. These include U.S. Census Extraction Forms and U.K. Census Extraction Forms
Below is a list of online resources for Aransas County Census Records. Email us with websites containing Aransas County Census Records by clicking the link below:
Genealogy Atlas has images of old American atlases during the years 1795, 1814, 1822, 1823, 1836, 1838, 1845, 1856, 1866, 1879 and 1897 for Arkansas and other states.
You can view rotating animated maps for Texas showing all the county boundaries for each census year overlayed with past and present maps so you can see the changes in county boundaries. You can view a list of maps for other states at Census Maps
You can view rotating animated maps for Texas showing all the county boundary changes for each year overlayed with past and present maps so you can see the changes in county boundaries. You can view a list of maps for other states and State Department of Transportation Maps at County Maps.
Below is a list of online resources for Aransas County Maps. Email us with websites containing Aransas County Maps by clicking the link below:
Click Here to Search Texas Military Records! - Military and civil service records provide unique facts and insights into the lives of men and women who have served their country at home and abroad.
The uses and value of military records in genealogical research for ancestors who were veterans are obvious, but military records can also be important to re-searchers whose direct ancestors were not soldiers in any war. The fathers, grandfathers, brothers, and other close relatives of an ancestor may have served in a war, and their service or pension records could contain information that will assist in further identifying the family of primary interest. Due to the amount of genealogical information contained in some military pension files, they should never be overlooked during the research process. Those records not containing specific genealogical information are of historic value and should be included in any overall research design.
Below is a list of online resources for Aransas County Military Records. Email us with websites containing Aransas County Military Records by clicking the link below:
Revolutionary War Rolls, 1775-1783 (The National Archives): View, Print Copy & Save Original Documents in NARA publication M246 include muster rolls, payrolls, strength returns, and other miscellaneous personnel, pay, and supply records of American Army units, 1775-83.
Southern Claims Commission from the State of Texas (The National Archives): View, Print Copy & Save Original Documents In the 1870s, southerners claimed compensation from the U.S. government for items used by the Union Army, ranging from corn and horses, to trees and church buildings.
Texas tax records constitute one of the most complete sets of available records generated at the county level (by the Commissioners Court) because these documents are maintained by the state. These lists may only include approximately sixty percent of eligible males over the age of twenty-one. Persons exempted from taxes included native Americans, "idiots," "incompetents," and those exempted because of age. This final category of exemptions varied over time. Years without an older age exemption were 1840 and 1862-70. Between 1841-44 exemptions began at forty-five years; in 1845 and from 1850-61 the upward age was set at fifty years. In 1837, 1848, and 1849 the limit was established as fifty-five, and in 1846-7, and 1871 the upward limit was set at sixty years.
Texas Ad Valorem (poll, personal, and real property) tax records for 1836 through 1976 are available in microfilm at the Texas State Library from the date of respective county organization; these are arranged by county and date and are somewhat alphabetized within each division. Microfilm copies are housed in the Genealogy Section. Tax lists for the various counties from creation to 1901 may be borrowed through interlibrary loan. Tax records through 1901-1947 are readily accessible, but not on interlibrary loan. Those for 1948 through 1976 can be obtained upon request.
Below is a list of online resources for Aransas County Tax Records. Email us with websites containing Aransas County Tax Records by clicking the link below:
The Repositories
in this section are Archives, Libraries, Museums, Genealogical
and Historical Societies. Many County Historical and Genealogical
Societies publish magazines and/or news letters on a monthly,
quarterly, bi-annual or annual basis. Contacting the local societies
should not be over looked. State Archives and Societies are
usually much larger and better organized with much larger archived
materials than their smaller county cousins but they can be
more generalized and over look the smaller details that local
societies tend to have. Libraries can also be a good place to
look for local information. Some libraries have a genealogy
section and may have some resources that are not located at
archives or societies. Also, take a special look at any museums
in the area. They sometimes have photos and items from years
gone by as well as information of a genealogical interest. All
these places are vitally important to the family genealogist
and must not be passed over.
Below is a list of online resources for Aransas County Genealogical Addresses. Email us with websites containing Aransas County Genealogical Addresses by clicking the link below:
Texas State Library and Archives Commission, P.O. Box 12927, Austin, TX 78711-2927 Holdings under the auspices of the Texas State Library are divided. Most important for genealogical research are the Texas State Archives with its Local Records Department, the Records Management Division, and the Information Services Division, which includes a Genealogy Section and a Reference Department.
The Genealogy Section maintains vertical ties that contain notes, clippings, pamphlets, and correspondence on Texas families. These files may be accessed in person, by phone (512-463-5463, forty-five minute limit), or through correspondence.
Texas Historical Commision The Texas Historical Commission (THC) is the state agency for historic preservation. THC staff consults with citizens and organizations to preserve Texas' architectural, archeological and cultural landmarks. The agency is recognized nationally for its preservation programs.
Texas Newspapers & Periodicals Records - Newspapers and periodicals are the diaries of local communities. They are excellent sources of family history details - often recorded nowhere else. Look for obituaries, marriages, legal notices, and more found in our Historical Newspaper Archives.
Click Here to Search Texas Obituary Records! - This database is a compilation of obituaries published in U.S. newspapers, collected from various online sources. Obituaries can vary in the amount of information they contain, but many of them are genealogical goldmines, including information such as names, dates, places of birth and death, marriage information, and family relationships.
During Texas's colonization period Roman Catholics were the most numerous, but early citizens included those representing other religious faiths such as Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Christian or Disciples of Christ.
Many cemetery records have been collected and transcribed, including the largest of which is multi-volumes compilation by the DAR and two volumes for Peters Colonists and descendants. The DAR collection, also microfilmed, is available at the Texas State Library and through the FHL.
Some Texas county historical and genealogical societies have published local cemetery and/funeral home records. These are normally available for purchase through the respective society. Two references can help determine which cemeteries have been recorded: Kim Parsons', A Reference to Texas Cemetery Records (Humble, Tex.: by author, 1988), arranged by county; and Sharry Crofford-Gould's, Texas Cemetery Inscriptions: A Source Index (San Antonio, Tex.: Limited Editions, 1977).
Below is a list of online resources for Aransas County Cemetery & Church Records. Email us with websites containing Aransas County Cemetery & Church Records by clicking the link below:
Find Obituaries in The World's Largest Newspaper Archive at NewpaperArchive.com! - Find thousands of Texas obituaries to help you research your family history. Search for a Texas newspaper obituary about your ancestor or a celebrity. Begin your search today and find death notices and funeral announcements printed in newspapers from Texas.
Click Here to Search Texas Family Tree Records! - The use of published genealogies, electronic files containing genealogical lineage, and other compiled sources can be of tremendous value to a researcher.
When view family trees online or not, be sure to only take the info at face value and always follow up with your own sources or verify the ones they provide. Below is a list of online resources for Aransas County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information. Email us with websites containing Aransas County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information by clicking the link below:
Genealogy Encyclopedia: General Abbreviations, Early Illnesses, Nickname Meanings, Worldwide Epidemics, Early Occupations, Common Terms, Censuses Explained, Free Genealogical Forms
Nichols and Related Families of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virgina.
Texas Family & Local History Records - The Family & Local Histories Collection lets you read journals, memoirs, and other first-hand historical narratives right on your computer. Gathered from some of the world's finest libraries, these materials may provide hard-to-find town, county, and state information; tax records and wills; military, church, and court records; as well as photographs, stories, and maps.
The Aransas County area has been the site of human habitation for several thousand years. Archeological artifacts recovered in the region suggest that the earliest human inhabitants arrived around 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. Subsequent inhabitants belonged to a culture known as Aransas. Aransas campsites, some dating back approximately 4,000 years, have been found from Copano Bay in Aransas County to Baffin Bay north of Kenedy County. The Aransas Indians, a nomadic, hunter-gatherer people, appear to have left the Gulf Coast around A.D. 1200 to 1300. The region apparently afterward remained uninhabited for 100 years until the ancestors of the Karankawas moved there around A.D. 1400. During historic times, the Coastal Bend area was occupied by several groups of Indians, including the Karankawas and Coahuiltecans. These nomadic hunter-gatherers never formed a large alliance or organization. After the arrival of the Europeans most fled, succumbed to disease, or were absorbed by other Indian groups in Mexico; by the mid-1800s virtually all trace of them had disappeared.
The earliest European to see the area of the future county may have been Alonzo Álvarez de Pineda, who sailed along the Texas coast in the early summer of 1519 and may have explored Aransas Bay during his journey. Nine years later Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his crew were shipwrecked on the Texas coast. Although their exact route is unknown, historians believe that he or members of his party may have crossed the area. The Spanish, however, largely ignored the region until the French under René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, established a colony in Texas in 1685. Spanish authorities dispatched an expedition to the area in 1689 under Alonso De León, but no permanent settlement was founded in the area. In 1766 Diego Ortiz Parrilla conducted an exploration of the Gulf Coast and gave the names Santo Domingo to Copano Bay and Culebra Island to what is now St. Joseph Island.
By the late colonial period, the Spanish had established a small fort on Live Oak Point that they named Aránzazu, reportedly after a palace in Spain. Several attempts were made to establish settlements in the lower Nueces River valley to the south, but because of the threat of Indian attacks and the distance from other Spanish enclaves the plans came to nothing.
Across Copano Bay in what is now Refugio County, Governor Bernardo de Gálvez established a port of entry and customhouse in the 1780s, which became known as El Cópano. During the late Spanish and Mexican periods, the port, which served Goliad, Refugio, and San Antonio de Béxar, was considered the best in what was called western Texas, and hundreds of colonists landed there. Most of the colonists, however, moved inland, and only few settled in the coastal region.
The area of Aransas County lay within the border leagues closed to colonization, but the general government of Mexico, on June 11, 1828, gave an empresario grant embracing the region to James Power and James Hewetson,q who were to bring in Irish and Mexican settlers. A few Irish arrived between 1829 and 1833, among them Thomas O'Connor, Edward St. John, Edward McDonough, Peter Teal, and the Fagan and Lambert families, but the region was only sparsely settled on the eve of the Texas Revolution.
After Texas independence, the area became part of the newly formed Refugio County. Around 1832 James Power founded Aransas City on Live Oak Point near the site of the Aránzazu fort. A customhouse, a post office, and several stores were established at the settlement, which by April 1840 served as the de facto seat of government for Refugio County. Until the establishment of Corpus Christi, Aransas City was the westernmost port in Texas; its estimated population was several hundred. The town was raided by Comanche and Karankawa Indians on several occasions, and at least three times by Mexican bandits, in 1838, 1839, and 1841.
At about the same time three local figures, Capt. James W. Byrne, George R. Hull, and George Armstrong, were developing another townsite, Lamar, across the pass on Lookout Point. After Mirabeau B. Lamar became president of Texas, he ordered the customhouse moved to the new town. In 1840 Refugio became the county seat, and as a result Aransas City began to decline; by 1846 it had ceased to exist. After the revolution cattlemen and sailors founded another community, Aransas, on the southern end of St. Joseph's Island, which was a prosperous port in antebellum Texas.
Despite these developments along the coast, however, the interior of the county was still largely undeveloped. During the 1830s Power and Hewetson had purchased an additional twenty-two leagues of land, which, along with their original grant from the Mexican government, made them the largest landowners east of the Nueces. But in 1839 their title was challenged by Joseph F. Smith and several others, including Stuart Perry, Cyrus W. Egery, James W. Byrne, G. R. Hull, George Armstrong, and Joseph E. Plummer, who claimed that the Mexican grants in the county were void. The case dragged through the courts until 1845, when Smith and his fellow plaintiffs succeeded in having the original grants overturned. Litigation continued to the late 1850s, but in the end Power and Hewetson lost all of their titles, and Smith became the major landholder in the area.
During the Mexican War the Live Oak Peninsula was the site of Zachary Taylor's main encampment before he moved his army south. A short time later James W. Byrne and his associates founded the settlement of St. Joseph on the western end of St. Joseph's Island. The community proved to be short-lived, however. Byrne became associated with Pryor Lea in a plan to develop a railroad from Lamar to Goliad. In 1847 the railroad was incorporated by the legislature, and Byrne induced a number of settlers to move to Lamar, which he hoped to turn into an important port city. The Aransas Railroad Company, as Lea and Byrne called their project, changed its name to Central Transit Company a few years later. The company graded a roadbed across Live Oak Peninsula in 1858, but the threat of the Civil War terminated their plans.
In the meantime, Joseph F. Smith had begun to develop another port town, St. Mary's of Aransas, on Copano Bay, two miles up the bay from Black Point. The settlement soon became the largest lumber and building-materials center in western Texas. Regular wagon trains hauled goods inland to Refugio, Goliad, Beeville, and San Antonio, and on the eve of the Civil War St. Mary's was an important shipping point for hides, tallow, cattle, and cotton. By 1860 Lamar had two stores and a post office, but St. Mary's had become the more important port.
During the Civil War the area that was to become Aransas County was the site of several engagements between Union and Confederate forces. In February 1862 marines from the USS Afton went ashore on St. Joseph's Island and destroyed Aransas. By the summer, civilians had deserted the islands. Vessels of the United States Navy under J. W. Kittredge blockaded the coast, using St. Joseph's Island as a depot to store captured cotton. On May 3, 1863, Capt. Edwin E. Hobby's Confederate company attacked the Union garrison there and killed twenty, but in November 1863 federal troops under T. C. G. Robinson succeeded in regaining control of the island. St. Mary's, which had been a prime focus for blockade runners, was attacked, and its wharves and warehouses were destroyed. Many of the town's leading citizens moved elsewhere, including Joseph F. Smith, who moved to Tuxpan, Vera Cruz, where he purchased a plantation and lived until his death.
Despite the destruction and economic disruption caused by the war, the future Aransas County area quickly recovered. Aransas, which had been destroyed during the war, became a ghost town, and Lamar, which had burned during the war, declined, but several new towns were founded, including Fulton in 1866 and Rockport in 1867. During the years of the great cattle boom, the new port towns became important shipping and processing points. The first packery in the county was built by W. S. Hall in Fulton just after the war, and over the course of the next eight years the plant slaughtered 400,000 cattle. In nearby Rockport, J. M. Mathis and Dan Doughty built large wharf pens and persuaded the Morgan Lines to ship the cattle to New Orleans. Numerous other packeries sprang up, most of them located in the Rockport-Fulton area, including the Carruthers and Fulton Company, Lyman Meat Packing and Canning Company, American Meat Company, American Beef Packery, Boston Packing Company, Texas Beef Packery, and Marion Packing Company.
During the early years of the cattle boom, most of the animals were slaughtered for their hides and tallow; the lack of adequate refrigeration or preservation technology dictated that much of the meat was fed raw to pigs or thrown into the bay. Near one of the packeries was a dump for meat and carcasses that covered nearly five acres. The smell of rotting meat reportedly pervaded the area for years. In 1871 Daniel L. Holden installed the first ice machine in a packing house, thus revolutionizing the industry by enabling the packery to process most of the meat instead of disposing of it. The meat-packing industry in the area began to decline after a decade, in large part due to the rising price of cattle and competition from beef-packing plants in Chicago and Kansas City. But as late as 1880 a single factory in the Rockport-Fulton area handled 93 percent of the $500,000 worth of beef slaughtered by Texas factories in 1880.
In March 1871, because the great cattle boom had established it as the most important town in the area, Rockport became county seat of Refugio County. On September 18 of the same year, the legislature voted to divide the county and designated much of the coastal area as a new county named Aransas. Rockport was made the county seat, and on March 26, 1872, the county commissioners' court met for the first time in a rented frame house.
In 1888 the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad (later the Texas and New Orleans) reached Rockport, thus ensuring the town's continued importance as a shipping center. The rise of Rockport, however, marked the beginning of the decline for St. Mary's. Successive storms in 1886 and 1887 destroyed the town's wharves, and by the early 1890s St. Mary's had dwindled to a small village.
Despite the growth of Rockport and Fulton, the county's population remained small; in 1880 it was 996. In 1888, however, all of the unsold land in the Smith and Wood subdivision was acquired by the Aransas Pass Land Company, which instituted a comprehensive plan to develop Rockport and the surrounding region. Lured by the promise of a bright future, numerous immigrants from the Old South and Europe were drawn to the county, and by 1890 the population had grown to 1,824.
A new county courthouse, designed by J. Riely Gordon, was built in 1889. By 1900 the county had seven post offices and six public schools. Between 1890 and 1900 the number of farms grew from six to forty-seven, and tourism for the first time began to play a significant role in the area's economy.
Local leaders, however, recognized that the county's continued prosperity was dependent on developing Rockport into a deepwater harbor. Several attempts had been made by the end of the nineteenth century to open a deep channel, but the lack of adequate jetties, dredging equipment, and finances had doomed the efforts. Another large construction project was undertaken after the turn of the century under the direction of a Philadelphia engineering firm, but it proved to be a fiasco that made matters worse. Vessels that had previously navigated the channel without difficulty could pass only during high tide. Several other plans failed in execution. Finally, in the 1920s, Aransas Pass became a deepwater port, but by that time the Port of Corpus Christi had been opened to oceangoing vessels, and the Aransas County ports declined in importance.
In 1919 the area was hit by a powerful hurricane (see HURRICANES), and much of Rockport and the surrounding area was destroyed. The combination of the storm and the loss of shipping to Corpus Christi dealt a serious blow to the county's economy, and for much of the next four decades it showed only modest growth. The population, which reached 2,106 in 1910, declined slightly by 1920 to 2,064, and only topped the 3,000 mark in 1940 (3,469).
During the first half of the twentieth century two new industries emerged, fishing and shipbuilding. By the early 1890s commercial fishing was flourishing in the Rockport area, and over the course of the next several decades it continued to expand, eventually outstripping agriculture in net receipts. The shrimping industry also began to develop in the 1930s, and by 1950 it produced fifty-one million pounds of shrimp.
The area's small shipbuilding industry, which had begun to develop at the end of the nineteenth century, took off during World War I and continued to prosper during the 1920s and 1930s. During World War II the United States Navy took over the Rockport Yacht and Supply Company to repair and maintain vessels in the 100-foot class, and another shipyard, owned by Rob Roy Rice, built wooden submarine chasers.
Oil was discovered in the county in 1936, and thirteen wells were in production in 1946, but it was not until the 1950s that oil was produced in large quantities. In 1990 498,703 barrels was produced; total production between 1936 and 1990 was over 77,000,000 barrels. Much of the drilling has been done offshore, and the county benefited greatly from the settlement in 1953 of the Tidelands controversy, which gave it an additional 208 square miles of submerged land area.
The first school in the county was Lamar Academy, founded around 1850. The first school in Rockport opened in 1881, and in 1884 the first public school opened there. Between 1893 and 1949 seven common school districts operated in the county, but in June 1946 they were consolidated in the Aransas County Independent School District.
Texas Birth Certificates, 1903-10, 1926-29