116 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE TheCoastalBend.com P o r t A r a n s a s The Tarpon Inn: Port A’s Center of History The famed hotel where the story of Port Aransas began, and where legends emerged, has welcomed new generations of guests for almost 140 years. “It’s important to save a big piece of history,” said Lee-Roy Hoskins, the George West native who purchased The Tar- pon Inn hotel in 2008. “Betty Turner was the real estate agent who had it listed for sale,” he explained, “and an in- terested party planned to tear it down and build condos.” On September 3rd of that year, Hoskins’ purchase went through, and the then-122-year-old inn, which stood at the start and center of Mustang Island history, was given new life under the care of a new proprietor who was com- mitted to its preservation. “It wasn’t in great condition,” said Hoskins, “I spent more restoring it than I paid for it!” Hoskins’ restoration investment in the historic property included leveling and extensive exterior repairs, a new lobby and common areas, remodeling of all the guest rooms and suites with period antiques and uniquely themed decor, and of particular popularity with island- ers, new life was brought to the restaurant facility that had set empty for more than a decade in the form of Roosevelt’s Fine Dining, and soon thereafter the prop- erty’s back building was opened as the 1886 Bar. The original Tarpon Inn structure was Union Army barracks built during the blockade of Aransas Pass that were aban- doned after the end of the Civil War. The inn opened for guests in 1886, who were almost entirely workers on the Mansfield Jetty project, the first of many efforts to stop the southward erosion of Aransas Pass and allow the growth of the village. When the workers left in 1889, the Tarpon Inn’s owner, Frank Stephenson, sought to attract tourists eager to enjoy the island’s beaches and near-shore fishing for tarpon, the legendary silver-scaled gulf prize. The purchase of the inn by Mary Hatfield and her son Ed Cotter, a professional fishing guide, in 1897, marked the beginning of a golden era for the hotel, and the seaside town newly renamed “Tarpon.” It was in Cotter’s first year as proprietor that the tradition began of posting auto- graphed and dated tarpon gill plates in the inn’s lobby. Over 7,000 plates were posted, and are still on display to- day, over the eight decades during which tarpon fishing thrived in local waters. Shortly after the turn of the century, and before small fish- ing boats were motorized, Ed Cotter devised an ingenious technique for meeting the demand for tarpon boats in peak season. Cotter met famed Wall Street heir Edward Howland Robinson “Colonel” Green, whose many tech- nological interests included the “Naphtha Launch,” the first gas-powered, small vessel that was not subject to the federal government’s strict requirements for steam-pow- ered boats and ships. Green sent Ed Cotter to a marina in Chicago to learn how to operate the Naphthas. In short order, Cotter was able to tow up to 20 boats into tarpon fishing waters in what he called a “tarpon train,” thus inventing motorized sportfishing in America. By 1906, Cotter was publishing an annual Tarpon Fishing diary, which educated guests on fishing in the Aransas Pass, and chronicled all the tarpon caught by guests of the inn over the March through November season. In 1906, a total of 1,573 tarpon were landed by hundreds of guests from across the U.S., the most by one Philip Mayer of New York, who caught a total of 73 over the season. L.G. Murphy of Converse, Indiana, landed 24 in one day! Top: The Tarpon Inn, originally built from Civil War barracks, has operated since 1886. Above/Upper: Sum- mer season at the Inn, circa 1930’s. Above/ Lower: San Antonio’s Frost banking family was among the Inn’s prominent guests. Tom C. Frost is pic- tured as a boy. Right: Contemporary guest room at the Inn.
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