In 1935, millions of dead fish washed up along the Texas coast near Port Aransas. A University of Texas zoologist named Elmer Lund traveled to the island to investigate. He built a one-room shack on an old Army Corps of Engineers dock, spent the summer collecting samples, and left with more questions than answers. He went back to Austin convinced that the university needed a permanent marine research station on the coast. Six years later, the Institute of Marine Science opened in Port Aransas — the first permanent marine research station in the state of Texas. The organism that caused the fish kill would not be formally identified for another decade. But the questions it raised built a university.
Three Failed Starts
The idea for a Texas marine laboratory goes back to 1892, when the UT Board of Regents reported to the governor about the need for a coastal research station. In May 1900, the regents allocated $300 for a small facility in Galveston. The catastrophic 1900 Galveston hurricane destroyed it. A second attempt was wiped out by a 1915 tropical storm. The coast kept saying no.
It took a disaster of a different kind — not a hurricane, but a biological event nobody could explain — to finally make the case that Texas needed eyes on its own water.
The 1935 Fish Kill
Key Facts
- Event
- Massive fish kill, 1935
- Cause
- Red tide (Karenia brevis)
- Investigator
- Dr. Elmer J. Lund
- First lab
- One-room shack on a dock
The dead fish were primarily menhaden and mullet — millions of them, washed up along miles of Texas coastline. We now know the cause was a red tide: an algal bloom caused by dinoflagellates that deplete oxygen and produce natural toxins. The specific organism, Karenia brevis, would not be formally identified until 1946-47, from a Florida bloom. Records of similar fish kills on the Gulf Coast date back to at least 1530.
Dr. Elmer Julius Lund was a UT zoologist and biophysicist who had earned his PhD from Johns Hopkins in 1914 and joined UT's faculty in 1926. When he arrived in Port Aransas in 1935, he and colleague Dr. A.H. Wiebe constructed a rough-lumber, one-room laboratory on an old Army Corps of Engineers dock. Lund spent the summer studying the bloom, but his resources were completely inadequate for the scope of the event. He returned to Austin frustrated — and determined.
Ten Acres from the Mayor
In 1940, Port Aransas mayor Boone Walker donated ten acres of his own property to the university for a biological laboratory. It was the kind of gesture that defined small-town Texas: a mayor giving away his land because he believed the science mattered and the island was the right place for it.
With Walker's donation and Board of Regents approval, the Institute of Marine Science was formally established in 1941, with Elmer Lund as its first director. UT purchased twelve acres and relocated an 1890s Army Corps of Engineers building onto the property. That building still stands today — known as Dormitory B, it is reportedly the oldest building on Mustang Island.
“The mayor donated ten acres of his own land. A zoologist built a shack on a dock. That's how Texas got its first permanent marine research station.”
Building a Station
By 1946, UTMSI had become the state's first permanent marine research station. Two permanent frame buildings and a 200-foot pier into Aransas Pass were constructed. Lund established the Publications of the Institute of Marine Science — later renamed Contributions in Marine Science, still published annually. The institute's first scientific publication was a comprehensive study of the marine fishes of Texas by Dr. Gordon Gunter.
Lund served as director until 1949. He also personally purchased and donated twelve additional acres to expand the facility. He didn't just found the institute — he funded its growth out of his own pocket.
Growth on the Gulf
Key Facts
- Founded
- 1941
- First director
- Dr. Elmer J. Lund
- Campus
- 72 acres on the ship channel
- Faculty
- ~16 members
- Graduate students
- ~41
The decades after Lund built a campus. In 1961, Dr. Howard T. Odum spearheaded construction of the institute's first proper laboratory complex, boat docks, and outdoor seawater ponds. In 1965, Dr. Donald Wohlschlag secured 49 acres of beachfront property, cementing the institute's long-term future. By 1970, additional laboratories, housing, and a boat basin had been built under Dr. Carl Oppenheimer.
In 1982, researcher Tony Amos founded the Amos Rehabilitation Keep — known locally as the ARK — for sea turtle and marine bird rehabilitation. The ARK became one of the most visible connections between the institute and the community, a place where islanders could bring injured wildlife and watch the recovery.
Harvey and After
On August 25, 2017, Hurricane Harvey made landfall with Category 4 winds directly over UTMSI. The damage totaled approximately $45 million. NOAA awarded $11.7 million for recovery. The campus was rebuilt, and the Patton Center for Marine Science Education — renovated with support from NOAA and philanthropists Bobby and Sherri Patton — is now free and open to the public.
Today the institute sits on 72 acres at the mouth of Aransas Pass. Its research focuses on fish ecology, biogeochemistry, oil spill impacts, microplastics, mariculture, and — circling back to where it all started — harmful algal blooms. The red tides that built the university are still the red tides that keep its scientists up at night.
“The red tides that built the university are still the red tides that keep its scientists up at night.”