The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1903-01-03
The Hot Season in Texas.
From the New York Evening Post.

No one realizes the vastness OF Texas
until it has been crossed several times. In
almost every direction it is over 1000 miles
in extent, and requires two days at almost
full speed of the trains to cross it from
border to border. One may know Texas
from New Mexico by the sudden acquisi
tion to the landscape of trees-mesquite,
interminable, covering the face of the coun-
try from the western border apparently to
the sea. 1t can also be recognized by the
peculiar quality of the heat more annoying
| than that of Arizona and New Mexico,
more difficult to escape from, as it is often
present at night. Texas is peculiarly sit
uated. Its nearest really cool resort is the
Pacific slope, and many Texans find their
way during the long summer to the West
ern seaboard The difference between the
heat of California and Texas is apparent.
That of the former has the remarkable
quality of not following one into the shade;
in word, the air itself does not become
heated, and California house, which has
been closed when the temperature was 100
degrees outside, will show difference of
twenty degrees and feel like vault upon
entering it. In Texas the air is heated,
and apparently remains so day and night,
dropping toward midnight to delightful
temperature There is, all over the Fast
and Central Texas, gulf breeze, which
blows day and night, and when exposed to
this in midsummer one is comparatively
comfortable.
So vast is Texas, so interminable the
distances, that the problem of the people,
getting to the seashore, is an important
one, and comparatively few go, considering
the size of the State. The resorts of
Southeast Texas may be considered Corpus
Christi and Rockport. The former is an
attractive town, while the latter is that
enigma, a boom town in it's decadence.
At one time it was believed that there was
to be large city here, and many fine
houses were built; but hope fled, something
gave out, and the houses, some unpainted
and in bad repair, tell the story Of mis-
placed confidence. The climate in summer
here is of the damp variety, yet vigorous
wind blows through the corridors of houses
and hotels, and in it one is comfortable
To the unprejudiced observer there is a
possibility of building up summer city
alongshore here that would be delightful
resort and attract the attention of the entire
country.
When you reach the shore in Texas you
are still seven, eight, or ten miles from the
Gulf; in word, the entire coast has an
outer sand-reef, or series of islands just at
or above the level of the sea, which form
an inland bay seven miles wide at Rockport,
atfording fine sailing in water twelve or ff-
teen feet deep. At this otf-shore island a
cool breeze blows constantly. There are
no mosquitoes, no phantoms of malaria, and
the finest fishing for tarpon in the world;
yet at but one locality is there semblance
of town-this at Tarpon, so named from
the countless numbers Of these fishes which
are caught at the very doors of the inhab
itanrs, who are boatmen, pilots, life savers,
and few others. A single hotel, the
famous Tarpon Inn, entertains all Texas
and the sportsmen of the world, in the
heart of the finest summer tarpon- fishing
and the finest winter duck shooting to be
found anywhere. Yet the writer could not
learn that anyone had built cottage there
in which to spend the summer, after the
fashion of the East or West.
Some day some enterprising individual
will discover this region in a commercial
sense. He will start an American Venice
here by driving piles in the sand on the
waters edge, and on them, twenty feet
above, he will build cheap but artistic cot
tages, stores, boat houses, landings, etc.,
and one of the most unique of places will
take form and substance. The idea is not
original with the writer. The Tarpon Club
at Sport, on Mustang Island, is typical of
the possibility, a thirty odd thousand dollar
club house or hotel on piles, nucleus of a
town, which could be built elsewhere, giving
the Texan of the interior delightful resort
IN the heart of cool broad Mexican Gulf.