Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-10-04
VELASCO.
The Bar Pilots Unable TO Make Living.
The Great Oyster Producing Lo-
cality OF the Future.
Correspondence Of the Gazette.

| SOiiCSpOAOcuCc OIL INC IHZGtlC
NELAsCo, TEX, Oct. IL have It from
undoubted authority that one of the larges
lumber manufacturing firms of East Texa:
will in the very near future open q new
yard here, starting with 1,0o0, 600 feet. The
chartering of sufficient number OF
schooners, scows and barges to transport
such quantity of freight will bring fleet
into the Brazos that will make the Oldest
| RESIDENT rub his eyes.
The bar pilots are among the few dissat
| isted people to be found here. Time hangs
heavier on their hands than their purses dc
| III their pockets. and they have to exc out j
| living at other employments, nearly every
| vessel coming in being piloted by its own
men.
The river pilots who take boats up as far
| as Bolivar landing. a distance of over forty
miles from the mouth, and through the tor
| tuous channel that has been dredged out in
| West, Oyster, Bastrop, Christmas. East
and Galveston bays, from Quintana to Gal
| weston, see better time as far as having
| plenty OF work is concerned. That channel
| or canal is Curiosity. 1t was first made at
! an expense of $4,000 or 100000 nearly a
| quarter of 4 century ago to connect the river
with Galveston, and every few years fills
| up IN places with reefs of oysters, necessi-
| tating considerable work to keep it open
| for fiat-bottomed boats drawing less than
| three feet. The company owning it al pres
! emit bought the stock from the original
holders at about 121a or 10 cents on the
dollar
Northers blow most of the water out of
these shallow bays, and occasionally in
winter boats are left stranded in less than
foot of water ten or twelve miles from
shore for week at time. These bays
will eventually become the greatest oyster
producing locality i'll the South. being
crossed in every direction by natural
"A hell Eeh Thn
county packing company. composed of
over a hundred owners of riparian rights,
have staked off 5000 acres for planting and
will, as soon as practicable, put steamer
and a dozen or more light-draught sloops
ana catboats in the trade. Chocolate, Bias
trop, Halls and Oyster creeks empty into
these bays and are navigable for tive-foot-
draught schooners for from:ten to fifteen
miles inland towards the Harris and Gal
weston county lines.
The first three named streams run most
of their course through 4 beautiful rolling
black land prairie country that is almost
uninhabited and will in the near future
furnish cheap homes to thousands of farm
erS. All through this section, over three
hundred and fifty thousand acres in extent,
game abounds in astonishing numbers.
Prairie chickens. quail, snipe, curlew, and
in winter millions of wild ducks and geese
and scores of other species of migratory
birds swarm along the streams, bay shores
and lakes, The waters abound in fish. The
largest black bass | ever SAW, or in fact
ever heard of, are taken without trouble by
unskilled sportsmen.
l have seen them captured that weighed
five and half pounds. In the tide waters
besides sea trout, reddish, croakers, rock
fish and founders, tarpOns abound, though
| must confess very few of the latter are
ever landed, and 1 have seen a school of
them leave little of seine except CORK and
lead lines.
Further towards the interior of the
county in the river bottom timber and the
almost impenetrable wild peach brakes,
deer and bear hunting is equal to any in
America since the game on the great plains
of the Western territories has been de-
StrOyed.
The Brazos syndicate and the Velasco
commercial club have combined to send i
strong delegation to the Trans Mississippi
commercial congress, that meets at Omaha,
Neb.. on the 18th prox.
Some of the vessels that left here on the
evening of the 2Sth and We're caught out in
the northeast gale that sprang up shortly
tried to get into Galveston har-
Dor but found the bar too dangerous. Some
of them continued to run for Orange and
Lake Charles and others managed to beat
buck into the Brazos. Beyond the loss of a
spar or two, | have heard of no other dam
are done them FoRETop