COLLEGEPORT, TEXAS

The Town of Opportunity

 


Looking Southeast From Pavilion St. - Collegeport, Tex.

2024 Collegeport Day Information                        2025 Collegeport Day Information

Historical Survey              
Centennial Pictures, Articles & Driving Tour

History of Collegeport by Dorothy Franzen Merck               Collegeport "Wishlist" - Do YOU have these items?

Collegeport For Kids

From other states and countries they came,
Woven together by sweat, tears, prayers and fears in the strength and spirit of community.

Their faith, families, determination and accumulated knowledge allowed them to subdue this frontier.
They built churches, schools, and commerce that provided both for them and their heirs yet to follow.

So dear friends walk softly upon this soil because it contains the gentle roots from which we came.
God grant this community the same spirit and honesty as the pioneering fabric from which it was woven.

Larry Corporon, 1999

 

 

DEDICATED TO THE PIONEERS WHO SETTLED THE
COLLEGEPORT AREA AND TO THOSE WHO FOLLOWED--
THEIR LEGACY IS OUR HERITAGE, THEIR MEMORY--
OUR INSPIRATION.  

MOPAC HOUSE FOUNDATION - 2004 -

COLLEGEPORT, TEXAS

The Town of Opportunity

Marker Program

Photo courtesy of G. W. Franzen

SIGNIFICANT DATES IN COLLEGEPORT HISTORY

COLLEGEPORT FOUNDED - MAY 25, 1908
GULF COAST UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRIAL ARTS 1909 - 1915
INDUSTRIAL LEAGUE 1909 - 1935
GRAND OPENING OF COLLEGEPORT - MAY 25, 1909
POST OFFICE - 1909
FIRST CHURCH - FEDERATED (14 DENOMINATIONS) 1909 - 1922
CEMETERY - CA 1909
WOMAN'S CLUB - 1910
GRACE CHAPEL OF ST. MARY'S MISSION (EPISCOPAL) 1910 - 1926
MISSOURI-PACIFIC RAIL SERVICE 1911 - 1933
PUBLIC LIBRARY - 1912
BAY VIEW PUBLIC SCHOOL 1912 - 1947
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH - 1922
MOPAC HOUSE FOUNDATION - 1935
MOPAC HOUSE OPENED - MAY 4, 1935
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH - 1949
COLLEGEPORT AREA VFD - 1965

 

Photo courtesy of G. W. Franzen
 

COLLEGEPORT

Jonathan Edward Pierce and Abel Brown Pierce hired land developer Burton D. Hurd to sell off 9,000 acres of their ranch lands in 1908. The agreement with Hurd called for the development of a town that would include a college and a port on Trespalacios Bay.

Advertising the venture in newspapers of northern states, Hurd promoted the area's mild climate and promising farming opportunities. A number of families relocated to Collegeport to purchase land, establish farms, and build new homes.

The Gulf Coast University of Industrial Arts, the college promised by the town's developer, opened in 1909, served by the Missouri Pacific (Mopac) railroad. Collegeport grew quickly and by 1912 included a bank, post office, school, two churches, retail stores and other commercial businesses. It boasted the county's first free public library, its first boy scout troop, and the Woman's Club founded in 1910.

In 1914 a heavy freeze killed most of the farmers' crop, and the area experienced a drought and a disease which devastated the livestock herds, causing many families to move away. The railroad depot was dismantled, rebuilt as Mopac House, and attached to the public library in 1935.

 

Photo courtesy of G. W. Franzen

 

Historical Marker Narrative

 


 

Amber Waves of Grain

 

Collegeport Wheat

 

May 2024


COLLEGEPORT INFORMATION

You can search the entire site, including the Collegeport information, by using the search engine on the home page.
 
Bonehead Club

Burton D. Hurd Land Company Contract

Burton D. Hurd Land Company Sales Schedules

Citrus Grove

Harry Austin Clapp

Collegeport Area 1910 Census     Part 1     Part 2

Collegeport Boy Scouts

Collegeport Business Ads 
April 28, 1910        June 3, 1910       August 4, 1910      November 2, 1911 September 12, 1912       October 15, 1914     January & December 1914  
   
November 26, 1914           Misc

Collegeport Cemetery

Collegeport City Lots

Collegeport Community 4-H

Collegeport Cotton Gin

Collegeport Day Articles, Newsletters, Pictures, Etc.

Collegeport Driving Tour

Collegeport Fair - November 20, 1915

Collegeport Families

Collegeport Fig Orchards Company

Collegeport Historical Markers
Collegeport            Collegeport Cemetery

First Presbyterian Church of Collegeport           Pilkington Slough Ranch

Collegeport Industrial League

Collegeport Newspapers & Articles

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Collegeport Post Office

Collegeport Photo & Postcard Album

Collegeport Public Library

Collegeport Rice and Irrigation Company

Collegeport Residences (photos)
Collegeport Residences (locations)

 

Collegeport School

Collegeport Telephone Directory

Collegeport Volunteer Fire Department

Collegeport Who's Who

Collegeport Woman's Club

DeMoss

DeMoss - Handbook of Texas

Early Days of Collegeport

First Baptist Church

First Church of Collegeport - Federated & First Presbyterian

German Colony Brochure

Grace Chapel of St. Mary's Mission

Gulf Coast University of Industrial Arts

Hotel Collegeport

Burton David & Dena Soekland Hurd

Mopac House

New Year's Day 1953

Peters - Larson Wedding

Jonathan Edwards Pierce

Pierce-Penland-Cockburn-Gay House

Pilkington Slough Ranch

Texas Midcoast Industrial Congress

Texas Poem by Margaret Holsworth

Trip to the Texas Gulf Coast Country

Turnerville     Turner Rice and Irrigation Company

Turnerville Article - Handbook of Texas

WWI Poem by Louella Heisey, Collegeport

 


Spring on the Collegeport Prairie

If you have any pictures, family histories, newspaper articles or any other Collegeport information that could be added to this page,
please email  
Carol Sue Gibbs.
 

 

Copyright 2005 - Present by Carol Sue Gibbs
All rights reserved

 Created
Feb. 7, 2005
Updated
Apr 14, 2021
   

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