DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out here on Aransas County water, there's a little stretch of land that early settlers called Nine Mile Point — plain, practical, the way settlers tended to name things. But the island you're looking at today carries a different name entirely, and the story behind that name is worth the telling.
The Cushman Meat Packing Company got here first, commercially speaking, setting up operations in the late 1860s. Business being what it is, they eventually moved on, and by 1878 the land stood vacant — waiting. Now, into that vacancy rode a man named Franz Joseph Frandolig.
Austrian by origin, horseman by trade. He'd actually delivered cattle to Cushman and Company himself, so he knew this ground. When the company vacated, Frandolig decided he wasn't leaving.
He homesteaded right there on that island and got to work. And friend, the man did not think small. He and his family planted a large fig orchard.
They hauled their fruits and vegetables across the water to sell in Rockport and Fulton. That alone might've satisfied a lesser ambition. But Frandolig also kept a vineyard — pressed wine and sold it by the barrel.
Then, on top of all that, he built a salt works. One island. One family.
A fig orchard, a vineyard, wine by the barrel, and a salt works. You get the sense this man looked at a piece of land and saw every possible thing it could become. The family worked that island well into the new century, finally selling the property somewhere between 1901 and 1903.
And then — 1919. The severe hurricane of 1919 came through and settled the matter completely, returning the island to its natural and uninhabited state, as if the whole enterprise had been a dream the Gulf decided to wake up from. The land sat quiet until 1958, when the local navigation district began to offer it for development.
The Cushman name is long gone. Nine Mile Point is what the old-timers called it. But the island?
It's still Frandolig Island — named for an Austrian horseman who showed up, stayed, and planted roots deep enough that not even a Texas hurricane could scrub the name away.
What the marker says
Dubbed "Nine Mile Point" by early settlers, this island was first used commercially by the Cushman Meat Packing Company in the late 1860s. Austrian Franz Joseph Frandolig, a horseman who had delivered cattle to Cushman & Co., homesteaded property at this site when the company vacated the land in 1878. Frandolig and his family established a large fig orchard. They sold the fruits and vegetables in Rockport and Fulton. Frandolig also kept a vineyard, where he produced and sold wine by the barrel, and built a salt works. The Frandolig family sold the property between 1901 and 1903. The severe hurricane of 1919 returned the island to its natural and uninhabited state. In 1958 the local navigation district began to offer it for development. (1999)