Region: Gulf Coast
In the 1840s, German colonists landed here, led by Prince Carl of
Solms-Braunfels (see New
Braunfels). In the 1850s, an army depot supplied all Texas frontier forts.
Two shiploads of Arabian camels landed here, beginning that imaginative
experiment of Jefferson Davis. Warehouses stored ice that had been winter-cut on
the Great Lakes.
The bustling, prosperous town survived shelling, capture and recapture during
the Civil War, yellow fever epidemics, and a storm thought severe in 1866. In
1875, a hurricane wreaked havoc, killing 300 residents and destroying
three-fourths of the city.
Residents rebuilt the community, but another storm devastated the city 11
years later. The county seat was moved to Port Lavaca.
Today, the tide laps at a few stones of the courthouse foundation. Inches
above the smooth sand, outlines of a few shattered concrete cisterns remain.
Some fishermen's homes have come of late, and the state has erected a historical
marker: a solitary rose granite statue of Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la
Salle. The French explorer was the first to leave a boot print on the sands of
Indianola more than 300 years ago.