Port Isabel is a maritime city in Cameron County, southern Texas, and the oldest city in the area. It is considered the ?point? of Laguna Madre Bay, the long lagoon that separates Padre Island, North America's longest barrier island, from the rest of this continent. In this position, Port Isabel serves as the gateway to and from the vast lands of South America.



Port Isabel's history is rich in excitement and adventure, with Indians and pirates and their buried treasures, onward to the 1500s, when Europeans set foot in the islands. Spanish adventurer Alonzo de Pineda was credited for chartering the place. Formal settlement in the area began in 1554 but it was only in 1821 when an owner of the place was recorded, a rancher named Don Raphael Garcia who lived in a community of huts made of straw, cattle hide and grass.

The Port Isabel Lighthouse was the city's most prominent landmark built in 1852. This marker was constructed from a natural formation of a bluff or cliff that serves as a viewing deck over the Gulf of Mexico and the Laguna Madre Bay. The lighthouse was an important lookout tower during the civil wars and was instrumental in the area's development as a fishing port. It is now developed into a word-class museum with a valuable collection of the Texan maritime heritage housed in the Lighthouse Keeper's Cottage.

While the development of neighboring cities have threatened Port Isabel's existence time and again, it stood its ground as a resilient and dependable maritime center. In 1928, the port was incorporated as a city and mercantile flourished. Today, it is a premiere tourist destination with its sand, sea and sun attracting thousands of tourists yearly. Museums, hotels and old shops stood alongside modern restaurants and stores. Its local population is estimated at 5,000 which increases by the thousands every tourist season.