INDIANOLA, Texas — The usually calm waters of Matagorda Bay on the Texas Gulf Coast hold the secret of a once thriving town that was literally washed off the map by not one, but two deadly hurricanes.
Indianola, in Calhoun County, was a bustling port between Galveston and Corpus Christi in the 1800s. Some historians said it might have grown as large as Houston had fate not intervened.
Indianola was a chief port through which European immigrants flowed into Texas. German, Polish and Czech families arrived by steamship at the Port of Indianola between the 1840s and the 1880s. Many of the new Americans established homesteads in Central Texas and the Hill Country where their descendants live today.
By the 1870s, Indianola had a population of 5,000 people. But those calm waters of the bay had a way of turning violent. A devastating hurricane in 1875 destroyed most of the town and killed hundreds.
Indianola rebuilt, but a second hurricane in 1886 turned it into a ghost town.
Today, the foundation of the old courthouse and main street are buried in the shallow water of the bay that has crept further inland. Only a cemetery and a few historical markers remain.
It was the end of a town that contributed to the rich history of immigration in Texas and that showed great promise to become a major port city in the future. Now, it’s forever lost to the waters – and the storms – of Matagorda Bay.