Texas Gulf Coast

The Texas gulf coast has a geography of eight coastal bays or inlets;

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department oversees the Texas state parks located on the Gulf of Mexico shores with the exception of Padre Island seashore which is maintained by the National Park Service.

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service governs the nature reserves as land parcels of the National Wildlife Refuge System bordering the Texas coastal shores.

The Texas coastline was colonized by French king Louis XIV from 1684 to 1689. In 1685 while pursuing an expedition for New France, Robert Cavelier de La Salle moored near Matagorda Bay establishing the French colonization of Texas.[2]

The marginal sea coast acknowledged the arrival or entradas of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, a Spanish conquistador of the New World and a successor of Christopher Columbus, who embarked on a calamitous coastal ship landing near the shore of Galveston Island on November 6, 1528.[3][4] The Texas Gulf coast attested to a second wave of the European colonization of the Americas with the introduction of colonialism by the Spanish Empire in 1690.

The España cultural evolution substantiated a christianization or religious conquest by the transatlantic crossing of the Spanish Inquisition.[5][6] The España colonization established the Viceroyalty of New Spain administratively structuring an interior province known as Spanish Texas from 1690 to 1821.[7][8] Beginning in 1810, the Mexican War of Independence was settled with the Spanish Empire ennobling a discontinuation of the Mexican Inquisition while creating the First Mexican Empire in 1821.

After the conflict ceased between Mexico and Spain, the Texas uncultivated lands acquired a successive uniformity known as Mexican Texas from 1821 to 1836.[9][10] Texas independence was expeditiously declared from imperial Mexico with the cessation of the Battle of San Jacinto, capture of Antonio López de Santa Anna, and the impending formation of the Republic of Texas.

The Texas Gulf Coast provided a naval supply lifeline for the Texian Army and Texian Militia during the Texas Revolution. The Texian Navy sustained the Texian revolutionary infantry forces by providing a flotilla for the safe passage of munitions and supply provisions from the maritime transport harbors of Mobile and New Orleans while contending with the Mexican state nautical hostilities on the Third Coast.

The Mexican Navy enforced coastline patrols and naval blockades of the Texas Gulf Coast harbors during the strife for Texas Declaration of Independence. The Texas naval forces appropriated four man-of-war schooners as a naval offensive for the sailing ship tactics of the Mexican Navy. The Texas Navy engaged four warships from 1835 to 1838 known as Brutus, Independence, Invincible, and Liberty for the establishment of the Republic of Texas and decisively the Texas annexation on December 29, 1845.

In 1860s, the Texas gulf coastal counties encountered a disease vector consequently arriving in commerce and trade ports through merchant ships, nautical vessels, and seafaring ships on the Texas coastline.[11][12] The predatorial Aedes aegypti yield an arbovirus or mosquito-borne disease aggressively disseminating an infection known as yellow fever on the South Texas civil parishes.[13][14][15][16]

The Texas Gulf coast had a vital necessity for seacoast defense as the international relations of superiority cultivated during the late 19th century to the mid-20th century. The United States artillery installations were erected during the Spanish-American War and relatively to the world war periods of the 1910s and 1940s.

The Texas coastal artillery command posts were established as casemates or pillboxes developed with reinforced concrete strategically situated at Bolivar Peninsula, Texas and Galveston Island, Texas. The United States Army Coast Artillery Corps commanded the operations of the coastal artillery emplacements which originated as Fort Crockett, Fort San Jacinto, and Fort Travis.[17][18][19] The artillery fortifications achieved the purposes of economic warfare or embargo for Galveston Bay, vigilance of maritime security, and safeguarding the trade routes for Galveston harbor and the Port of Houston.

Imagery of Texas Gulf Coast Fortress Installations

☆ Media related to Fort Crockett at Galveston Island at Wikimedia Commons

☆ Media related to Fort San Jacinto at Galveston Island East Point at Wikimedia Commons

☆ Media related to Fort Travis at Bolivar Peninsula at Wikimedia Commons[20]