The Packeries of Rockport

After the Civil War, Rockport became an important cattle ranching and shipping center. In 1866, James Doughty, T.H. Mathis, and John M. Mathis constructed cattle pens and a long wharf extending into Aransas Bay from Rocky Point, from which Rockport took its name, and cattle were shipped to New Orleans on the Morgan line. Packeries were built nearby at first to render hides and tallow, with holding pens, a main rendering barn, a skinning building, and a pier, and cattle were driven on foot from nearby ranches. Hides, hooves, horns, and tallow were shipped east to make fine leather, buttons, glue, candles, and soap, while carcasses were usually discarded. In 1871, an ice plant was added to one of the packeries, allowing preservation of the meat. Rockport’s packeries included W.A. Cushman; Doughty and Clark; West and Weiser Co.; William S. Hall; Coleman, Mathis, and Fulton; J.W. Baylor and Co.; American Beef Packery; and Butler and Co. After 1875, the local packing industry declined as railroads pushed into Texas and allowed cattle to be shipped directly to giant packing plants in Saint Louis and Chicago, yet as late as 1880 Rockport’s packeries handled 93 percent of Texas-packed beef production. By 1890, most packeries had switched to butchering sea turtles, and Rockport handled almost the entire Gulf production. Green turtles were most prized, and 85 percent of all Texas turtle nets were in Aransas Bay. By the late 1890s, the turtle population had diminished, the industry had folded, and remnants of turtle capture pens remained along Rockport’s bay shores.

Rockport, Texas · United States