A Weekend at the Beach Question

A last weekend trip to the beach has long been a practice of many families before school starts again in late summer. In the Model ‘A’ Era, it was not unusual to see automobiles parked on the beach, provided the sand was hard-packed. Soft sand could quickly trap a heavy automobile, so some American resorts kept the cars away from the sand in designated areas. Texas had several beaches where motorists could drive directly onto the sand—a practice well established by the 1930s.

Back in 1937, a visitor promoted Padre Island as a possible park and specifically reported that its beach was hard enough to be driven on by automobiles. The Padre Island beach, south of Corpus Christi, actually functioned as the principle travel route because few roads existed there. Most of it was undeveloped private land. It was not until 1962 when the Padre Island National Seashore was opened in 1970.

Mustang Island and the Port Aransas area had relatively firm-sand beaches that provided automobile access. In the ‘30s, it was not unusual to see families driving down their beaches and on the more remote parts of Galveston Island, to find the perfect spot to swim. It was Galveston Island where the beach was driven on since the early automobile era. The Galveston Beach Racing Association even hosted automobile speed trials and races on its sand. In the early 1920s, Galveston claimed it had had one of the finest beach speedways in the world!