As part of the Museum’s 2023 Winter Lecture Series, Jim Maloney spoke on Jan. 16, 2023, about the Tarpon Club.
In 1898, the Tarpon Club of Texas was the most expensive and exclusive club the world had ever seen. E.H.R. Green located the club on St. Joseph Island adjacent to Aransas Pass. Its membership was dubbed the “First Four Hundred Sportsmen of America,” a privileged group with “more politicians and businessmen that in any other similar organization in the United States,” and whose “wealth combined reaches into the hundred-millions.”
Tarpon Club members killed so many ducks that sharks congregated in the shallows near Harbor Island to gorge on downed birds before they could be retrieved. In their pursuit of the tarpon, club members smashed records and set standards in the nascent sport of big game fishing. It was America’s gilded sporting era.
Between 1898 and 1902, press from around the world covered everything Tarpon Club. In 1903 they stopped. A year later the legendary club closed its doors.
About Jim Moloney
Jim Moloney is a businessman with an interest in the history of the Corpus Christi area. He is known for his presentations on local history, illustrated by his extensive collection of postcards and other ephemera. He is the co-author of “1919 – The Storm & Corpus Christi – A History” with Murphy Givens.
