# Matagorda Island, I don't get it!



## tail-chaser (May 5, 2007)

I do most of my fishing in west matty. I Love to go to the south shoreline along matagorda island (i think thats what it is called, I ussually call it the barrier island). I am refering to the strip of land from the jetties in POC to East Matty. There are a very few small cabins on this island, that I hardly ever see people use. I have been trying to find a way to buy some for the longest time. I have gotten several different reasons why I can't or why I shouldn't. 

I know 2cool members will be able to answer my questions, they always do. LOL 

I want to know if I can own some of that land?

If I can own it, can I build or put a small cabin on it?

Why hasn't this been developed, you know at least a road and and stuff? (not that i am complaining, the main reason I like it out there is because its not developed yet.)


Is there anything else I should know about buying land on the island.
thanks


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## Freshwaterman (May 21, 2004)

Land is for sale but it is by common title and uninsurable (COBRA Zoned). This means you cannot get a loan from a Federal Insured institution for purchase. I have a buddy with a camp there. He kept an old 4WD suburban that had no brakes. He used to like to dove hunt and surf fish. He rented a small barge in Port O to move in his truck and buildding materials for the camp. I know he spent around $30,000 on every thing back in te early 1980s. There is no power, water and can be accessed only by boat. You can see Port O is distance in picture. Russel Cain in Port Lavaca used to handle sales of these properties. Folks would but and never do anything with it once they understood they could not borrow money to build unless it was secured by some other asset.

361-552-6313
[email protected]

This is not Matagorda Island - land from Matagorda Ship Channel jetties Northeast is "West Matagorda Pennesula" ans is principally owned by the Fondren Family. The land I have seen for sale is on the island cut off from West Matagorda Pennisula by the ship channel to east and by Pass Cavallo to the West. Locals refer to it as Decros Point or since the ship channel was dung - Decros Island.

You can see Decros Island on the right in this photo of Pass Cavallo looking North. Matagorda Island is seen on the Left and is State Park Land.










*DECROS POINT, TEXAS*. DeCros Point, also known as DeCrow's Point, Decros or DeCrow's Landing, Port Cavallo, Port Cabello, and Paso Cavallo, was an early coastal community on the western end of Matagorda Peninsula at Cavallo Pass in extreme southern Matagorda County. It was one of several settlements established on the peninsula before the region's recurring hurricanes persuaded the residents to leave. DeCrow's Point, which was probably named after Maine immigrant Daniel D. DeCrow,qv one of Stephen F. Austin'sqv Old Three Hundred,qv may have been inhabited as early as the 1820s by members of the seafaring DeCrow family, one of whom had a land grant there. Thomas DeCrow, who with his family settled in the area by 1837 and was a successful stock raiser there, constructed a wharf and also piloted vessels through Pass Cavallo into Matagorda Bay. Mary Ann (Adams) Maverick, who with her husband Samuel Augustus Maverickqqv lived at DeCrow's Point, then also known as Paso Cavallo, from 1844 to 1847, includes her vivid accounts of life at DeCrow's Point and at the Mavericks' farm on the peninsula, Tiltona, in her _Memoirs of Mary A. Maverick_ (1921). In 1847 Samuel Maverick traded several slaves for shares in the DeCrow townsite. A post office called Port Cavallo, or possibly Port Cabello, was established that year and remained open intermittently until 1853. Postal records suggest the site was part of Calhoun County between 1848 and 1852. By 1854 the peninsula had two of the county's six school districts. From 1848 to the Civil Warqv Pass Cavallo saw its heaviest ship traffic, and in his autobiographical _A Texas Cow Boy _(first published 1885), peninsula-born Charles A. Siringoqv writes of the early 1860s landing at "Deckrows Point" of "about five thousand Yankees" headed for the Confederate camp at the mouth of Caney Creek. When the hurricane of 1875, which also wiped out the nearby "German settlement," uprooted Thomas DeCrow's special storm-resistant house, thereby dooming some twenty-two people, it may well have ended the settlement, as no other information on it is available. In 1990 the site retained the name Decros Point.


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## tealnexttime1 (Aug 23, 2004)

my stepdad and a couple of his friends have had a house out there for years, right by the airport. like a dummy i just started going last year. it is pretty dang cool out there. i love it. there is actually a guy who lives on it year round. imagine his taxes?
if all goes well, i should make the first duck / fishin trip of duck season this weekend. hopefully the weather will stay good. it's hell if that north wind starts getting up. then your practically trapped. i dont know how or even if people can still buy out there.


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## SurfRunner (May 22, 2004)

I know there is cattle basically free grazing on Decros Island. I wonder what the deal is with that?


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## tail-chaser (May 5, 2007)

I talked to two differnet real estate agents about it today. I am still a little confused about the undivided interest though. 

I am wanting to buy an some land and put a cabin out there. I was told I just go out there and pick a spot and build it. Sounds wierd to me, Its like you claim the acre you want.

Is there some type of owners association, how do I know who has claimed what? 

I really want to do this, if anybody on this site owns some land out there or has put a cabin out there please pm me so we can talk.


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## tail-chaser (May 5, 2007)

I found this on the internet. That might be why

_Samuel A. Maverickqv moved to Decros Point on the peninsula in 1844 and received 400 cattle there the following year. Cattle drives by the Huebner family in 1919 began a tradition that continued for fifty-five years. In the early 1920s and 1930s, before the Colorado River filled in the area between Matagorda and Matagorda Peninsula, the peninsula was long and narrow and ran parallel to the mainland. Cattle made the almost two-week trip up the peninsula to Sargent. The area was known as the "Cherry" after the name of an early inhabitant. Later herds were brought directly through Matagorda, and hay was scattered on the bridge to keep animals from seeing the water. Drives helped local workers survive the Great Depression,qv and as late as 1975 500 to 600 cattle made spring and fall drives._



SurfRunner said:


> I know there is cattle basically free grazing on Decros Island. I wonder what the deal is with that?


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## texagg (Aug 7, 2007)

http://2coolfishing.com/ttmbforum/showthread.php?t=138913

Found this post ...hope it helps


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## kenny (May 21, 2004)

Matagorda penninsula (Decros Pt. to the Colorado River) is a private land trust and shares are for sale. You build where you want basically. Most of the places in the 70's were old trailers, one owned by Jay Kleiberg (sp)a very funny man, and tin sheds for vehicles around the old harbor which has a small breakwater to the East.
Earl Smyth (deceased) of POC and a founder of GCCA had /has a three story house built on the tarmac. 
I helped a friend build a super fish camp in the early 80's on an old pump station slab in front of two large cisterns.
The only permanent inhabitant was Sandy a great pup cheaspeake-chow mix, that washed ashore.
We caught a lot of fish, and drank way too much liquor.
The place was magical for me.....to be the only person on a deserted island for a week at a time.


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## tealnexttime1 (Aug 23, 2004)

you get 1 acre of undivided land . you can build anywhere thats not occupied. i agree w/ kenny its crazy out there. you pretty much have a whole island to yourself. but you are def. on your own but everyone helps everyone out there. there are alot of old barrack slabs out there, thats what my step dad built on. i've seen slabs w/ tents out there and then i've seen some real nice places. but the first storm and its all gone. good luck on gettin a place , you'll love it.


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## watergirl (Nov 29, 2004)

*Cattle*

The cattle are taken over to the peninsula every winter and brought back across the Colorado in the spring by one of the land owners - pretty awesome event to watch in the spring if you're down in Matagorda.


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## CroakerSoaker (May 17, 2005)

Just some helpful info,the property that you can acquire is only from greens bayou to decros pt. the rest of the island is privately owned from greens east to the colorado. Nice place. Where else can one acre get you access to 25 miles of gulf beach!


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## Redfishr (Jul 26, 2004)

CroakerSoaker said:


> Just some helpful info,the property that you can acquire is only from greens bayou to decros pt. the rest of the island is privately owned from greens east to the colorado. Nice place. Where else can one acre get you access to 25 miles of gulf beach!


 Some developer will bring a bag of money and mess this up to....


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## Pocketfisherman (May 30, 2005)

I doubt it will get developed enough to ever build a bridge over the ship channel in our lifetimes. Even to develop the penninsula side, you'd need access through the Fondren land, and that too would take a long time to get.


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## Redfishr (Jul 26, 2004)

Pocketfisherman said:


> I doubt it will get developed enough to ever build a bridge over the ship channel in our lifetimes. Even to develop the penninsula side, you'd need access through the Fondren land, and that too would take a long time to get.


Good...


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