INDIANOLA, Texas — A smattering of slumping gravestones and a cistern made of concrete are all that remain of what was once this state's second-largest seaport.
Indianola was a prosperous boomtown with a prized deep-water port on the western shore of Matagorda Bay. It was a rival to wealthy Galveston, Texas, and its future seemed far brighter than that of a swampy backwater called Houston. The port was the arrival point for thousands of German immigrants who helped push the town's population to 5,000.
But a potent hurricane in 1875 pounded Indianola into pieces and killed more than 200 people. Then another powerful hurricane hit in 1886 and crushed what little civic spirit was left. Settlers -- those still alive -- abandoned the "Dream City on the Gulf."
Indianola, now considered the queen of Texas ghost towns, stands as a solemn reminder that the end of civilization on the Gulf of Mexico could be a hurricane away. Even the title of ghost town seems generous for the pitiful remains of the original site: Due to coastal erosion and the pummeling of successive storms, the old town grid, roughly 15 blocks by four blocks, sits almost entirely underwater.
Indianola also serves as a reminder that wherever ocean breezes beckon, people will return. Last century, the shoreline next to the site of the old town was slowly built up again with shacks and fishing huts, only to be pulverized by Hurricane Carla in 1961. Now the same adjacent area is filling up once more with vacation homes on stilts that sell for more than $125,000.
Although it is not quite a town, about 300 people live in the new version of Indianola, and roughly three times as many spend summer weekends there. They reside along a receding beach, protected by an unsightly barricade of concrete blocks dumped into the bay in the last decade as a desperate measure to slow the hurricane-powered erosion.
"Everybody is fully aware that another one will hit -- it's just a matter of time," said Mike Richter, 46, who has lived in Indianola nearly all his life and now rents a trailer by the water.
"We're taking a gamble because we love the water. It's just like the people in California. They know the big earthquake is going to come someday. But they don't leave, do they?"
