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Laguna Madre (United States)
The Laguna Madre is a long, shallow, hypersaline lagoon along the western coast of the Gulf of Mexico in Nueces, Kenedy, Kleberg, Willacy and Cameron Counties in Texas, United States. It is separated by the roughly long Saltillo Flats land bridge into Upper and Lower lagoons. The two are joined by the Intracoastal Waterway, which has been dredged through the lagoon. Cumulatively, Laguna Madre is approximately 130 miles (209 km) long, the length of Padre Island. The main extensions include Baffin Bay in Upper Laguna Madre, Red Fish Bay just below the Saltillo Flats, and South Bay near the Mexican border.
The lagoon's ecosystem is protected by the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge and the Padre Island National Seashore, as well as the privately owned King Ranch. The human history predates the formation of the Laguna Madre, and settlements have been established at Port Isabel and Port Mansfield on the lagoon's shores.
==History==
Laguna Madre was formed about 3,000 years ago, after the stabilization of the sea level on the Texas Coast, culminating in the rise of Padre Island. The Baffin Bay extension is considerably older than Laguna Madre, and formed as a river valley during the Pleistocene epoch, over 12,000 years ago. Early peoples obtained oysters from the bay, which were eliminated due to changes in salinity after the full formation of Laguna Madre. The first people to encounter the new lagoon were most likely the nomadic Karankawa and Coahuiltecan Indians. The Spanish explorer Alonso Álvarez de Pineda is believed to be the first European to come in contact with Laguna Madre in the early 16th century, and is credited with giving it the name, which is Spanish for "mother lagoon".〔
Several land grants were handed out by the Spanish government for ranching near the lagoon. The first was believed to have been given to José Nicolás Cabazos in 1792, which included in the area south of Baffin Bay to the Rio Grande. Cabazos stocked the land with 900 cattle. American ranching settlements developed following the Mexican War, including the King Ranch, which was established in 1847 by Richard King. The area near present-day Port Isabel was used as a resort for Spaniards after watersellers came ashore in the late 18th century looking for freshwater supplies. A settlement known as Point Isabel was established at the location in the 1830s, and in 1853, the Point Isabel Lighthouse was constructed to overlook the lagoon. The city was named Port Isabel in 1928, and in 1954, the Queen Isabella Causeway, the longest bridge in Texas, was constructed across Laguna Madre to South Padre Island. A newer bridge was built in 1974,〔 but part of it collapsed on September 15, 2001 after being hit by a barge, causing eight people to plunge to their deaths and significantly hindering the economy of South Texas. It was rebuilt and reopened in November of that year. Port Isabel had 4,865 residents during the 2000 census.〔 To the north, Port Mansfield was established in 1950, at the old fishing community of Red Fish Landing. It was named after United States Congressman Joseph J. Mansfield (D-TX), who introduced the bill that extended the Intracoastal Waterway from Corpus Christi to Brownsville in the 1940s.〔 The Port Mansfield Ship Channel was dredged in 1957 across Padre Island and redredged in 1962 after work was done to improve the jetties. The cut allows an influx of seawater into the Lower Laguna Madre to improve the fishing and shipping industry of Port Mansfield. The community had 415 residents in 2000.
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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