Indianola began as a campsite for the Karankawa, a spit of land between Matagorda Bay and Powderhorn Lake. The first permanent house there was built in 1845, and the town was officially established the next year.
From the 1840s to the 1870s, Indianola grew into a fine harbor city. Its economy was fueled by German immigration—the city had been selected by the Aldesverein, a German society, as the waystation into the rest of Texas. Hospitals, factories, and hotels were built to accommodate travelers and residents. At its height, more than 6,000 people lived in Indianola, the Calhoun County seat at the time.
Then, in 1875, disaster hit. Indianola was packed with people who’d come to town to watch a high-profile murder trial. A hurricane rolled across the bay, battering the town, carrying seawater deep into Indianola for two days. As many as 300 people were killed. The port and nearly all the town’s buildings were destroyed.
Eleven years later—August 19, 1886—a second, even stronger hurricane knocked out the partially rebuilt Indianola. The city became a ghost of itself.
However, some of Indianola’s buildings live on today…in other cities. Some entrepreneurial Indianolans recovered the pieces of their homes after the 1886 hurricane and had them shipped and rebuilt inland, in Victoria and Cuero.
Dominick Regan first built his Italianate Victorian home in Indianola in 1883; it’s now located at 507 S. De Leon Street in Victoria.
The Bates-Sheppard House was rebuilt in Cuero out of salvaged lumber from its original location in Indianola. The building is now the DeWitt County Historical Museum.