Beach Road

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Beach Road in Jefferson County. Now settle in, because this road has seen more history roll across it than most folks ever stop to think about. We're talkin' about the coastal stretch of Texas Highway 87, runnin' along the Gulf of Mexico from Sabine Pass all the way through Chambers County to Port Bolivar in Galveston County.

That's a long ribbon of road, and it did not start as pavement. Not by a long shot. Native Americans walked it first.

Then early settlers, traders, cattlemen, Republic of Texas mail carriers. And during the Civil War, Confederate forces used it too. They called it the Road from Galveston back then, which tells you something about which direction the world seemed to be pointin' at the time.

By 1920, local residents found it nearly impossible to travel. The road had gone unmaintained, and the Gulf doesn't exactly wait around while folks argue about upkeep. But then along came commissioner W.A.

Vaughan. In 1923, he worked to improve the route using shell deposits gathered from along the coast. Now that might sound modest, but the results were not.

Traffic to McFaddin Beach and westward to Port Bolivar increased dramatically. Firms started buildin' facilities for visitors. A business boom rolled through the area like a good Gulf breeze.

The state took notice. In the late 1920s, a larger effort called for a paved road with a ferry connection to Galveston. The project moved slowly, as big projects tend to do, but in 1931 the Texas Highway Commission made it official and named the new roadway as part of State Highway 87.

Then came the 1940s. World War II turned this coastal road into something altogether more serious. The U.S.

Immigration Service set up a barricaded checkpoint for through traffic. The Coast Guard patrolled it. A highway that had once carried cattlemen and mail carriers was now part of coastal defense preparedness.

That's the kind of range this road had. But the Gulf of Mexico has never been what you'd call a cooperative neighbor. Over the years, hurricanes battered the highway and eroded the coastline.

Tidal zone encroachment crept in slow and steady. And then in 1989, two storms hit hard enough to force the closure of the road entirely. Sections of the route remain in use for local traffic to this day.

But the through road, the one that carried a whole civilization from Sabine Pass to Bolivar, the one Confederate soldiers marched on and W.A. Vaughan patched with shells pulled from the shoreline, that one's gone quiet. The Gulf took back what the Gulf always figured was its own.

What the marker says

The Beach Road is the coastal section of the Texas Highway 87 system. Stretching along the Gulf of Mexico from Sabine Pass through Chambers County to Port Bolivar in Galveston County, it follows a historic route that proved vital to the early development of Jefferson County. Native Americans, early settlers, traders, cattlemen and Republic of Texas mail carriers all used the road. During the Civil War, Confederate forces used the route, which was generally known as the "Road from Galveston." By 1920, local residents found it difficult to travel on the unmaintained Beach Road. In 1923, commissioner W.A. Vaughan worked to improve the route using shell deposits from along the coast. Soon traffic to McFaddin Beach and westward to Port Bolivar increased dramatically, leading to a business boom in the area as firms built facilities for visitors. A larger effort by the state in the late 1920s called for a paved road with a ferry connection to Galveston. The project moved slowly, but in 1931, the Texas Highway Commission named the new roadway as part of State Highway 87. In the 1940s, during World War II, the highway contributed to coastal defense preparedness. The U.S. Immigration Service set up a barricaded checkpoint for through traffic and the Coast Guard patrolled it during that time. Over the years, hurricanes battered the highway and eroded the nearby coastline, resulting in tidal zone encroachment. Destruction caused by two storms in 1989 forced its closure, though sections of the route remain in use for local traffic. (2007)