Port Aransas is one of the few communities on the Texas coast that you still have to take a boat to reach. The ferry across Aransas Pass has operated in some form since the 1920s — from a one-car side-wheeler named the Mitzi to a state-run fleet of eight vessels that moves millions of vehicles a year, twenty-four hours a day, free of charge. There has never been a bridge. The ferry is the reason Port Aransas still feels like an island. That's not nostalgia. That's infrastructure.
Before the Ferry
Before any organized ferry service, people crossed the Aransas Pass channel by private skiffs, rowboats, and sailboats. The Port Aransas Skiff — the same flat-bottomed plank boat that families used for fishing, duck hunting, and crabbing — doubled as basic transportation across the bays and channels. If you wanted to get to Port Aransas, you found someone with a boat.
By 1911, a railroad — the Aransas Harbor Terminal Railway — had been built to service Port Aransas via Harbor Island. Before the causeway road was built, a driver would buy a ticket, load their vehicle onto a flatbed rail car, and ride the rails across. When trains weren't running, drivers could use wooden planks laid inside the rails to drive their cars manually along the tracks.
The Munsill Ferry
Key Facts
- First regular service
- 1926
- Munsill era
- 1928-1934
- First ferry
- Mitzi (6 cars)
- Toll
- $1 each direction
In 1926, Sam Robertson started the first regular ferry service — a one-hour ride across the channel, four times daily in each direction. But it was Gail Borden Munsill, heir to the Borden dairy fortune, who transformed the crossing.
In 1928, Munsill purchased the Harbor Island Terminal Railroad improvements and launched ferry service using the side-wheel ferry Mitzi, which carried six automobiles. He converted the railroad trestle into a one-way toll road made of wooden planks. At the opening, over 100 cars headed to Harbor Island. Demand outgrew the Mitzi quickly, so Munsill commissioned a larger ferry — the Rufus R, christened in Galveston with a bottle of Gulf water from Port Aransas. It cost $30,000 and held 18 cars. It burned to the waterline shortly after arriving in October 1931.
“The Rufus R cost $30,000 and held 18 cars. It burned to the waterline shortly after arriving.”
County Takes Over
Munsill died in 1934. The operation passed through several hands before Nueces County purchased it for $250,000 in 1951. The county judge told the new superintendent, Melvin Littleton, directly: either he made money, or he was out of a job.
Littleton served from 1951 to 1982 and transformed the operation. Unable to raise the $1 toll rate, he focused on increasing off-season traffic. Ferry personnel built the Ancel Brundrett Pier, Horace Caldwell Pier, Roberts Point Park pier, and boat launching ramps during off-seasons. Staff created roadside signs promoting Port Aransas along Midwest highway routes. By 1960, Littleton had cut the roundtrip fare in half and relocated ferry landings to shorten the crossing, enabling more trips per vessel.
The State Steps In
Key Facts
- TxDOT takeover
- January 1, 1968
- Current fleet
- 8 vessels
- Capacity
- 20-28 vehicles each
- Cost
- Free
- Schedule
- 24/7, 365 days
On January 1, 1968, the Texas Highway Department — now TxDOT — assumed operation of the ferry system. Tolls were eliminated. The ferry became free.
Before the transfer, Littleton made sure the ferry account surplus funded new vessels. The state began with six. Today the fleet numbers eight — five holding 28 vehicles each and three holding 20 — all named after former TxDOT executive directors. The current ramp system has been in place since 1986, and a new ferry headquarters building was completed in 2015.
Twenty-Four Hours a Day
The Port Aransas ferry operates twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, weather permitting. Between two and six ferries run at any given time depending on traffic and season. The crossing takes roughly ten minutes across a quarter-mile of the Corpus Christi Ship Channel on State Highway 361.
The numbers are staggering: approximately 2.4 to 3 million vehicles and up to 6 million passengers per year. During Spring Break 2023, 121,201 vehicles and 227,568 passengers crossed in eighteen days. The operation burns roughly 15,000 gallons of diesel per week and employs 136 TxDOT staff, plus contracted flaggers and security guards. It is one of only two state-operated ferry systems in Texas — the other runs between Galveston and Bolivar Peninsula.
Why No Bridge
The Corpus Christi Ship Channel at Aransas Pass handles a constant flow of large freighters, tankers, and offshore rigs. Any fixed crossing would need to be tall enough for commercial shipping — a massive engineering project with a price tag to match. The topic has been studied and debated for decades. A bridge or tunnel has been proposed multiple times.
Many Port Aransas residents actively oppose a fixed crossing. The ferry acts as a natural throttle on traffic and development. It forces visitors to slow down, to wait, to feel the transition from mainland to island. Removing it would make Port Aransas just another beach town accessible by highway. The ferry is inconvenient by design — and that inconvenience is, for many locals, the point.
“The ferry is inconvenient by design — and that inconvenience is, for many locals, the point.”