Rockport’s Seafood Industry

Rockport’s Seafood Industry. . Rockport’s commercial seafood companies have been operating for more than one hundred years. By 1903, David Rockport Scrivner had opened a fish house. In 1907, he sold to Roy Jackson who named the operation the Jackson Fish Company. A few years later, Luis Cobilini and a Mr. Gentry began the Union Fish Company. Cobilini later sold the firm to Ernest Camehl. The 1919 hurricane destroyed the Union Fish building, but Camehl rebuilt and, in 1932, the building became a ship’s chandlery., About 1909, Charlie Gibson established the Rockport Fish and Oyster Company, which sold Mesquite Bay oysters. Its building stood on pilings over Aransas Bay. Most of the early fish companies had their own fleet of boats for catching fish in nets, but they would also buy from local fishermen. On many days and nights, Rockport’s fishing companies shipped dozens of barrels of fish by rail. In 1907, the State of Texas established regulations to stop overfishing, and the local industry declined., In 1919, Ford Jackson bought his brother’s interest in the Jackson Fish Company and changed the name to Jackson Seafood Company. Jackson added shrimp to his harvest, and the local shrimping industry developed rapidly after 1925. By 1935, Travis Johnson and Charles Picton founded the Johnson Fish company; shrimp was its main product., After hurricane Celia in 1970, Jackson Seafood diversified by harvesting sea scallops on the East Coast. Although the company closed in 1991, other Rockport firms, including several owned and operated by Vietnamese immigrants, have continued harvesting fish and shrimp.