Editing Port Aransas, Texas (section)

===Ropesville===
[[Elihu Harrison Ropes]], while visiting [[Galveston Island]] in 1887, saw the possibility of the development of a deep-water port on the Texas coast, and looked to Corpus Christi as the state's first much-needed deep-vessel port of call. After exploring Mustang Island, Ropes proclaimed a plan to excavate a channel through the island. To complete the venture, Ropes founded the [[Port Ropes Company]]. Mr. Ropes paid $25,000 for Mustang Island and purchased a dredge to dig the channel. In June 1890, Mr. Ropes launched the project to build a channel across the island to give the port of Corpus Christi a direct connection with the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico. By the end of 1891, however, the project was terminated due to many problems.

In 1888, the town's first official post office was established under the name Ropesville. This first official name of what is now Port Aransas did not last for long.

In 1890, the [[Aransas Pass & Harbor Company]], under government contracts, launched a plan to deepen the channel through the pass and over the sandbar. The plan called for the construction of two new jetties, but the plan failed to increase the depth of the channel. Another plan was put into action, calling for the blasting of the channel with thousands of pounds of dynamite, but this also failed. The newest jetties, and shallow draft would have to stay as they were for the time being.

In 1896, the name was changed to Tarpon because of the abundant game fish that filled the waters around it. The population at that time was about 250. The [[Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899]] called for the elimination of the old Mansfield Jetty "south jetty". The project was finished by 1911; while this was still going on, and after several private and government endeavors failed to produce a deep-water pass between Mustang and St. Joseph islands, the [[United States Army Corps of Engineers]] took over the project in 1907, and was granted the right to build a new south "Nelson" jetty and to unite the "Haupt jetty" to St. Joseph Island that same year.