Big Blue Crab

Rockport, Texas, United States

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Animals and creatures

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Current

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This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

As of a January 2023 local tourism post, Rockport, Texas, has a stainless-steel blue crab sculpture by artist Joe Barrington, weighing about 6,000 pounds, with installation beginning in July 2021. The post places it between the Rockport Harbor Festival Grounds and the Little Bay shoreline, near the Rockport Beach Park entrance. It replaced an aluminum-and-fiberglass crab by local artist David Allgood, installed in 2012 and destroyed by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The first crab appeared atop the Del Mar Grill restaurant in 1957.

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Big Blue Crab

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Site-level location · 28.0206° N, 97.0547° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

Rockport's giant blue crab has been built three times since 1957, the latest after Hurricane Harvey destroyed its predecessor.

According to a local tourism post (updated January 2023), the first crab went atop the Del Mar Grill in 1957. It was built by a Houston company that made parade floats, using rebar, fiberglass, chicken wire and papier-mache. The Chamber of Commerce bought it in 1966 and moved it that October to Navigation Park, now Veterans Memorial Park. The post says it survived Hurricane Beulah in 1967 and Hurricane Celia in 1970, and was later removed and buried.

A second crab, by local artist David Allgood, was installed in August 2012 near the entrance to Rockport Beach Park. An Associated Press report carried by NBC described a fiberglass and aluminum body of about 25 by 27 feet, which Allgood took about nine months to make and supporters raised about $11,000 for. A Roadside America tip signed by Allgood says he built it of aluminum and fiberglass and tinted the resin for its colors. The tourism post says Hurricane Harvey destroyed it in August 2017.

A November 2017 fundraiser and silent auction at a local winery raised about $5,000, according to the post, with more raised by selling crab merchandise. The third crab, by artist Joe Barrington, is stainless steel with a powder-coat finish designed to last at least 10 years, and weighs around 6,000 pounds. It arrived on July 27, 2021, and installation began on July 28.

As of that January 2023 post, the crab stood between the Rockport Harbor Festival Grounds and the Little Bay shoreline, about a one-minute walk from the Rockport Beach Park entrance, with sponsor bricks, benches, a history plaque and local oyster shells added.

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PRACTICAL

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WHAT TO EXPECT

The current crab stands on the Rockport waterfront between the Harbor Festival Grounds and the Little Bay shoreline, about a minute's walk from the Rockport Beach Park entrance, according to the Rockport-Fulton visitor site (2023). Admission, hours and access terms are not documented in the sources reviewed; check locally before visiting.

ACCESS

On the Rockport waterfront between the Harbor Festival Grounds and Little Bay, near the Rockport Beach Park entrance, Rockport, Texas (Rockport-Fulton visitor site, 2023).

COMMUNITY

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Grisham's Milk Bottle

Corpus Christi, Texas

A 15-foot-tall reinforced-concrete milk bottle, originally built to advertise Grisham's Milk in front of Grisham's Belden Street plant (1929), then relocated in October 1937 to North Beach, Corpus Christi when the business expanded -- where it still stands today at the North Beach RV Park. The bottle contained a small room from which Grisham's Ice Cream was once sold directly to customers, and has survived multiple major hurricanes (Carla, Beulah, Celia, Allen) that destroyed many of North Beach's other old structures.

Buildings and structures

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41 km away

TRANSPARENCY

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