Japonica

Harbor City, a real estate promoter's dream that never quite materialized, was laid out on Corpus Christi Bay at the southeastern tip of Live Oak Peninsula in San Patricio County, around the time that the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway was built to Aransas Pass in 1887. The town plat on file at the courthouse in Sinton shows a beautiful terraced shoreline, with Ocean Drive to be run from the development all the way to Portland, twelve miles away. In the 1890s the developers built the Ingleside Inn, sometimes called Harbor Inn, as the showpiece of their proposed city. Though economic conditions caused the development to fail, the Harbor Inn operated off and on until the mid-1920s, when it was torn down. During the hotel's heyday the boat Japonica called there daily, bringing guests from Corpus Christi. The Japonica continued to Rockport and called again at Harbor Inn in the late afternoon to pick up people wishing to return to Corpus Christi. The last operator of the hotel was Jimmy Holmes. A post office with Horace E. Brown as postmaster was established there in 1913; it was discontinued and moved to Ingleside in 1917. Harbor City reported a population of forty in 1914. It became Port Ingleside in August 1926, but the Harbor City name continues to be used on area maps.