Calhoun County has a rich and diversified history, including Spanish and French explorers, Indian raids, frontier towns, Civil War action, an early port that rivaled  Galveston in annual shipping tonnage, yellow fever epidemics, and hurricanes.
 

The first Spanish explorers entered the area via “El Paseo del Cavallo” – Pass Cavallo to us – so named because the breakers in the surf reminded them of white horses running down the beach.

Alonzo Alvarez de Peneda was the first Spanish explorer, arriving in what is now Calhoun County in 1519. He spent time here and explored all seven of our bays. In February 1685, the French explorer, Rene Robert Cavelier- Sieur de La Salle sailed his four ships through Pass Cavallo and landed on the shore of Matagorda bay near the present site of the old town of Indianola. He later established the first French fort in Texas near the headwaters of Lavaca Bay and called it Fort St. Louis. Life at the fort was difficult and grim. The ill-fated fort was lost to history after Indian attacks in the winter of 1688. A Spanish expedition led by Alonso de Leon found the ruins of the fort in the spring of 1689. All that remained of the 150 or so French colonists were 5 children who had been taken captive by the Karankawa Indians. The site of the fort was rediscovered in 1996 after it lay untouched for more than 300 years.

 
Near Pass Cavallo on Matagorda bay is the old port city of Indianola. It was once a thriving port, second in Texas only to Galveston – it’s now a ghost town. Built by German immigrants in 1844, Indianola became an important military depot, was the closest seaport to San Antonio, and was in important seaport for the export of various commodities from Central and Western Texas. Ships from New York and New England sailed regularly to Indianola. In 1869, Indianola was the first port to ship refrigerated beef to Eastern markets. As a port, Indianola was well on its way to becoming a thriving city until two devastating hurricanes in 1875 and 1886 almost totally destroyed the town and many residents were killed. The town could have been rebuilt, but the amount of sand and silt blown in by the storm made the bay too shallow for ships to dock.. Today, most of the town site is buried beneath the waters of the bay. Hardly any trace of the once thriving port city of Indianola exists today.