Baytown Hog Island /Tabbs Bay Causeway Houston Ship Channel

Hog Island was named because the owner, Ashbel Smith, ran hogs on it.

Hog Island was a steamboat landing on the Houston-Galveston route in the 1800's.

John Gaillard discovered natural gas while fishing off of Hog Island. He thought the bubbles were buffalo fish.

Hog Island was originally 223 acres and J. Gaillard paid Ashbel Smith $2000 for it in 1905 to run livestock.

J. Gaillard sold the Island to Humble Oil Company in 1918 for $300,000.

The first barge of Goose Creek oil was sent out from Hog Island.

Mrs. Hettie Perry ran a boarding house on Hog Island from 1917 to 1920. She charged one dollar per day.

There was a hand operated ferry that carried 40 people and took 15 minutes of pulling to make the trip.

On July 29th, 1933, local folks celebrated the opening of the Tabbs Bay Causeway and the Morgan's Point Ferry, with a 2 day barbecue.

In 1937, the State of Texas Highway Department took over maintenance of the Ferry and the Causeway.

The East Harris County Federation of Garden Clubs organized and effort to beautify the Island and a park, public beach, and bird sanctuary was opened in 1942.

In 1953, the Morgan's Point Ferry closed when the Baytown-La Porte tunnel opened.

With the closing of the Morgan's Point Ferry, Hog Island became a local swimming area and lover's lane.

In 1961, Hurricane Carla destroyed the Tabbs Bay Causeway, eliminating the island's only link to the mainland.

YouTube video of the destroyed Tabbs Bay Causeway

Subsidence has caused present day Hog island to appear to be 2 islands and can be seen on the east side of the Fred Hartman Bridge when you are coming from La Porte on Hwy 146.

Hog Island was used as a land fill during the late 1950's. I worked for an independent collector (company owners were the Glass family) that used the land fill. We hauled one to two truck loads of refuse to the site per week. I don't know how long the site was used as a land fill after 1958. It may have been used until the causeway was lost in September 1961. Boy what a job that was, people living in Lakewood and Brownwood used steel 55 gallon drums for trash cans. and I earned $5.00 a day. Leon Murphy

A ‘ferry time’ was had by all

By Wanda Orton Published in the Baytown Sun July 23, 2008

The biggest party this side of the ship channel took place nearly 75 years ago to mark the opening of the Morgan’s Point ferry. The ferry began operating July 29, 1933, between Hog Island and Morgan’s Point, and the celebration lasted two days.

A free barbecue was held both days on the shores of Tabbs Bay and everyone was invited. Many thousands attended, including my parents. I have a photo of them in their “Sunday best” standing near Remember the year, 1933. The Great Depression was going on all over the country, but from the looks of that ferry feast, you’d never know it.

In the beginning Harris County operated the ferry but the state took it over in 1939.

The first ferryboat was named the Charles D. Massey, honoring the Precinct 2 commissioner from Cedar Bayou. Charlie, as most folks called him, played a key role in implementing plans for the ferry and causeway.

Before the Morgan’s Point ferry service began, the main connection between north and south on the ship channel had been the ferry at Lynchburg.

The Morgan’s Point ferry remained in operation 20 years, her final voyage occurring in 1953 after the Baytown-La Porte Tunnel opened.

Although I missed the festivities in ‘33 (hadn’t been born yet), I well remember the ferry along with waiting in line a long time to board the boat.

I think we all had a love-hate relationship with the ferry. We loved the boat ride but hated to wait for it.

Little did we know that traffic in years to come would jam up horribly on both sides of the Baytown-La Porte Tunnel.

In retrospect, waiting for the ferry was more tolerable than tunnel traffic. For one thing, we enjoyed the ferry ride once we got there, and eating and reading could ease the preceding long waits.

A vendor strolled by cars in line, selling delectable tamales wrapped in newspaper pages, and young boys sold newspapers hot off the Houston Press. “Extra! Extra! Read all about it. He killed her because he loved her …”

Or, if you didn’t want to eat or read, you could stroll along the waterfront, throw rocks in the channel and feed the sea gulls.

Traffic jams at the tunnel never offered that much flexibility.

It seemed as though, during the construction phase in the early 1950s that the tunnel never would be finished, and we felt the same way about the Fred Hartman Bridge in the 1990s

History was repeating itself. People felt similar pangs of impatience in the early Thirties about the completion of the Tabbs Bay causeway and ferry.

In 1930 voters in Harris County approved a bond issue for the project, and work started that year. Stretching from the end of Evergreen Road to Hog Island, the causeway was finished in 1931.

Then the money ran out, and the county hit a snag in starting work on the ferry project. Meanwhile, folks were calling the newly completed causeway the “$150,000 crabbing pier” because, without a ferry business, it led to nowhere.

Finally a group of Houston businessmen bought the remaining bonds, and work began in early 1933 on the ferry landings on Hog Island and Morgan’s Point.

The Morgan’s Point ferry could carry 20 vehicles and its average speed was five miles per hour. It took from 12 to 15 minutes to make the voyage across the channel.

For a total cost of $222,466, the dream of the causeway/ferry project at last had become a reality.

And that’s what all the celebrating was about 75 years ago.

Wanda Orton is a retired managing editor for The Baytown Sun.

Much of the information on this page comes from the excellent book 'Baytown Vignettes', or 'The History of Baytown' available at Sterling Municipal Library and the Baytown Historical Museum located at 220 W. Defee.