Matagorda Island Lighthouse

Built in 1852. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

From the record

“The Matagorda Island Light is located on Matagorda Island in Calhoun County, in the U.S. state of Texas. Once under the jurisdiction of the United States Coast Guard, the lighthouse is now managed by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.”
Wikipedia article Matagorda Island Light, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 2 National Register listings published here for Calhoun County · listed in 1984 · category: Structure · built in 1852.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Address. Matagorda Island, Port O'Connor
When was it listed? September 1984
Category. structure
Census division. Seadrift
When was it built? 1852
National Register reference number. 84001624 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

6 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 6 fires within 5 miles of Matagorda Island Lighthouse between 1999 and 2018, burning about 4,135 acres in total. 5 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Natural	5
Equipment and vehicle use	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
31 July 2000	Natural	40 acres	Aransas National Wildlife Refuge	SALURIA
30 June 2006	Natural	350 acres	Matagorda National Wildlife Refuge	STRINGO FIRE
30 June 2003	Natural	1.0 acres	Aransas National Wildlife Refuge	DUNE
15 April 2018	Natural	1,042 acres	Matagorda National Wildlife Refuge	MATAGORDA ISLAND
17 March 2001	Natural	2,344 acres	Aransas National Wildlife Refuge	ST.PATTY
13 December 1999	Equipment and vehicle use	358 acres	Aransas National Wildlife Refuge	KELLY WF

Every fire recorded in Calhoun County

Storms near this property

6 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Port O'Connor, the town this property stands in, in 6 storm reports between 1993 and 2024: 3 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado, 1 flood, 1 funnel cloud. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
March 1997	Tornado (F0)	Port O Connor	$5,000	no account filed
June 2024	Funnel Cloud	Port O'Connor	-	Law enforcement officials reported a funnel cloud near Port O'Connor. Pictures were taken and posted on social media.
September 2021	Flood	Port O'Connor	-	Band of heavy rain from Tropical Storm Nicholas moved across the Port O'Connor area during the late afternoon and evening hours on the 13th. Total rain amounts around 7 inches caused flooding of roads in the Port O'Connor area.
March 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Port O'Connor	-	The Coast Guard reported wind gust to 60 mph at their station.
March 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Port O Connor	-	no account filed
April 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Port O'Connor	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Calhoun County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 84001624 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Calhoun County	All 2 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.