Packing houses, then boats, then oysters
Rockport sits on Live Oak Peninsula between Copano and Aransas bays and takes its name from the rock ledge under its shore. The Handbook of Texas says it began just after the Civil War as a place to slaughter, pack and ship cattle. William S. Hall built the first packeries in 1865, and the town was incorporated in 1870.
Fulton, a short drive up the bay, carries the name of George Ware Fulton. With his wife Harriet he turned her inherited land on Aransas Bay into a ranching and meatpacking business, and the Texas Historical Commission says the couple shipped tallow and hides to New Orleans. Between 1874 and 1877 they built Oakhurst, a French Second Empire house with gas lighting, central heating and hot running water. It is now the Fulton Mansion State Historic Site.
When the cattle trade faded, the water took over. Boatbuilding and fishing grew in the 1880s. Shrimping took hold between 1925 and 1930, paid off in the 1940s and rebounded in the 1950s, and by the 1960s a Rockport yard was doing a steady trade in steel hulled boats. Fishing, shrimping and visitors were still the main business in town by the late 1980s.
The oyster has the strongest hold on the calendar. The Fulton Volunteer Fire Department raises its money with a four day oyster festival, 47 editions old in 2026, held on the waterfront, complete with a parade down Fulton Beach Road and raw oyster eating contests.
How the Texas oyster season works
Texas Parks and Wildlife runs public oyster harvest from November 1 to April 30. Recreational harvest is allowed Monday through Saturday from sunrise to 3:30 in the afternoon, oysters must measure at least three inches across the shell, and the limit is two sacks per person.
The state also opens and closes harvest areas bay by bay, based on reef surveys. St. Charles Bay, just north of Rockport, is one of the minor bays closed to oyster harvest outright. Before you go out with tongs, check the current list of open areas and the state health department's shellfish maps. Or skip the work and buy a pint at a bay front market.
