The Texas Gulf Coast – Port O’Connor & Indianola

2/18 – 2/20, 2025

Before I transitioned to a different approach to exploring, one of my last explorations took me to the Texas Gulf coast. The gulf coast runs, depending on where you start and end, but for me, it starts at Galveston, Texas and runs southwest to South Padre Island.

Along the way, there are some key cities and towns on the water. The main ones for me are Port Lavaca, Rockport, Port Aransas, Corpus Christi, and Padre and South Padre Island. Prior trips had me attending my older son’s wedding in Rockport and some beach time in Padre and South Padre Islands while stationed in San Antonio. But there are two other quaint towns I never heard of, nor imagined I would get to spend time there. Those towns are Port O’Connor and Indianola. Since the coast line is quite extensive, I’m sure there are a multitude of other small coastal towns yet to be explored. What brought me there was a consensus of my kayaking paddling group that we should vary our routine of paddling lakes and rivers in the Austin area and paddle out in the ocean. We then set up a trip to the coast.

Wikipedia lists the history of the town with these facts: “Port O’Connor (current population is around just under 1000 people) was laid out in the late 19th century as a fishing settlement called “Alligator Head”. As it grew in popularity with both permanent residents and tourists, the community took on more municipal characteristics, earning the formal designation finally in 1909 as the town site of Port O’Connor. It was named after its main landowner at the time, Thomas M. O’Connor, son of Thomas O’Connor, who owned 70,000 acres. Its initial population growth spanned the years 1909 to 1919. Excursion trains ran on weekends to Port O’Connor, and an estimated 10,000 tourists came every summer.”

It was also home to various indigenous tribes prior to the colonization of the coastal regions. You can read about these peoples of the gulf coast in a paper I produced for my ethnographic research.

Arriving there, I felt a strange feeling. One that I have had before and that was the ocean calling to me. The afternoon we arrived in Port O’Connor generated excitement and the group decided to get out and paddle Boggy Bayou.

The bayou opens up into Matagorda Bay. Something told me not to go. They left to paddle, and I left also. Not to the bayou but out into the bay. The ocean called and I had to go. All the majesty of the sea lay in front of me. I felt alive. I felt at peace with the world and at peace with myself. I love the smell of the salty air and the ocean.

The next day, I did kayak in the bayou and out into the bay. Our destination was a little town to the northwest called Indianola.

For those of you who have no idea where or what is there to see in Indianola, you are not alone. I had no idea either. About 6 miles northwest of Port O’Connor is a very small, very quaint fishing village called Indianola. Indianola is Considered a ghost town and legally just a part of Victoria, TX.  It was destroyed by hurricanes in 1875 and again in 1886. The residents of Indianola left and all that remains is beach homes and great fishing. The marina had burgers and beer, a fishing deck and live music on the weekends.

Out on the bay, we encountered high winds that forced us to retreat about halfway there. We couldn’t get close to the shore since the water was too shallow there and we kept hitting sand bars. Reluctantly, we turned around.

Disappointed that we couldn’t reach Indianola and tired from battling the winds and the shallow water sand bars.

The rest of time in Port O’Connor was still fun and even though restaurants were scarce, we did find outstanding seafood places to eat. BTW, there are no fast-food restaurants in town. I spent more time out by the pier and the water. It seems I never tire of doing this.

On our departure day, we decided that even if we couldn’t paddle to Indianola, we would drive there and have lunch before hitting the road. If Port O’Connor is small, Indianola is a fraction of the size of Port O’Connor. We went to the only place in town, sat by the water, watched fisherman haul in a stingray, watched dolphins swim by, ate great seafood (again) and had a blast.

Trip Advisor photo of the Indianola Fishing Marina and Pier

I loved Indianola and the entire trip. My buddy told me about Port Aransas on the way back and it stuck with me. Somehow I knew that would be my next stop.