1979 Map of Mission Bay

About this map

The coastal marshes of Refugio County meet the industrial footprint of the Texas Gulf Coast in this late 1970s orthophotomap. The landscape is defined by the winding course of the Mission River as it empties into Mission Lake and the broader expanse of Mission Bay. This survey captures a moment of active resource extraction, dominated by the Melon Creek Oil and Gas Field and a network of pipelines stretching across the coastal prairie. Numerous flowing wells, such as the Estaquillo Well and Telegraph Well, are scattered throughout the northern reaches, while the southern section shows established agricultural patterns near the Cotton Gin and Mullens Bayou. Along the shoreline, low-lying features like Kaiser Flat and Fennessey Flat transition into the shallow waters of Copano Bay, where Copano Reef and Copano Point mark the boundary between land and sea.