May 12, 2015 (Tuesday)
Unless hindered by the weather, the new Copano Bay causeway will open to traffic today. At least the portion that is completed will open. More construction remains, but the new section will be a great improvement.
This will be the third causeway across the bay.
My family and I were living in Dallas in 1963. That summer we went down to the Rio Grande Valley on vacation. We were driving back toward Houston late at night when we sort of visited Rockport. The highway from Corpus went through downtown Ingleside, through downtown Aransas Pass, and through downtown Rockport. We were feeling almost lost when we suddenly found ourselves on the 30-years-old and narrow causeway which felt dangerous. Being totally unfamiliar with the area, especially the old causeway, with six persons in our family at that time, having traveled from the valley, we were tired and I was a little uneasy as we made our way toward Goose Island State Park, which we had spotted on the map but knew nothing about. It was late, the park office was closed, so we just did the best we could and tried to get some sleep in the car and makeshift “beds” under Oak trees in the park. Little did we know that we would move to Rockport late the next year.
It seems like just last week when a new causeway was built in 1966. One of our church members manned the machine that drove the pilings. When it was completed, they named it the Lyndon B. Johnson Memorial Causeway, invited our congressman to a big ceremony, and asked me to offer an invocation. It was brand new on that day, a great improvement over the old causeway, but now is almost 50 years old and needing to be replaced.
The new causeway will cost $100 million. The roads around here keep getting better. Even as I write, improvements are being made to 1069 south of Aransas Pass, and a totally new road is planned to move northwest across southwest Ingleside and intersect state highway 35 east of Gregory. All this is due to new and expanding industries at Ingleside. As in the past, Rockport functions as a bedroom community and helps attract tourism to the area. If you love to fish, this is the place.
Incidentally, a new bridge is planned for the Corpus Christi ship channel, and it will become known as one of the top bridges in the country. It will be beautiful, too.