Sabine Pass is the natural outlet of Sabine Lake into the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United S ...

. It borders

Jefferson County, Texas Jefferson County is a county in the Coastal Plain or Gulf Prairie region of Southeast Texas. The Neches River forms its northeast boundary. As of the 2020 census, the population was 256,526. The county seat is Beaumont. Jefferson County has ...

, and

Cameron Parish, Louisiana Cameron Parish (french: Paroisse de Cameron) is a parish in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 5,617. The parish seat is Cameron. Although it is the largest parish by area in Louisi ...

History

Civil War

Two major battles occurred here during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by state ...

, known as the

First First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...

and Second Battles of Sabine Pass.

Spanish-American War

In May 1898, the

55th United States Congress The 55th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from March 4, 1897, to M ...

authorized the establishment of two seacoast defense forts at Sabine Pass relative to the

Texas Gulf Coast Texas Gulf Coast is an intertidal zone which borders the coastal region of South Texas, Southeast Texas, and the Texas Coastal Bend. The Texas coastal geography boundaries the Gulf of Mexico encompassing a geographical distance relative bearing ...

. The

fortification A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

s were a response as hostilities intensified in the

during the

Cuban War of Independence The Cuban War of Independence (), fought from 1895 to 1898, was the last of three liberation wars that Cuba fought against Spain, the other two being the Ten Years' War (1868–1878) and the Little War (Cuba), Little War (1879–1880). The ...

often referred as the

Spanish-American War Spanish Americans ( es, españoles estadounidenses, ''hispanoestadounidenses'', or ''hispanonorteamericanos'') are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly from Spain. They are the longest-established European American group in ...

. In 1983, Texas Historical Commission acknowledged the seacoast defense command posts establishing a Texas historical marker at the

Sabine Pass Battleground State Historic Site Sabine Pass Battleground State Historic Site is located in Jefferson County, Texas, where the Sabine River enters the Gulf of Mexico. The site is the location of a significant Civil War battle. In September 1863, members of the Davis Guard—led ...

World War II

In 1941, the United States authorized a

coastal artillery Coastal artillery is the branch of the armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications. From the Middle Ages until World War II, coastal artillery and naval artillery in the form o ...

emplacement and Harbor Entrance Control Post at the Sabine Pass natural

waterway A waterway is any navigable body of water. Broad distinctions are useful to avoid ambiguity, and disambiguation will be of varying importance depending on the nuance of the equivalent word in other languages. A first distinction is necessary ...

inlet An inlet is a (usually long and narrow) indentation of a shoreline, such as a small arm, bay, sound, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger body of water such as a lake, estuary, gulf or marginal sea. Overview In ma ...

as a response to

Battle of the Atlantic The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, ran from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II. At its core was the Allied naval blocka ...

better known as Operation Drumbeat orchestrated by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. The Sabine Pass

military base A military base is a facility directly owned and operated by or for the military or one of its branches that shelters military equipment and personnel, and facilitates training and operations. A military base always provides accommodations for o ...

exhibited checkpoint and guard end stations, coastal searchlights, coastal signal stations, and an

observation tower An observation tower is a structure used to view events from a long distance and to create a full 360 degree range of vision to conduct long distance observations. Observation towers are usually at least tall and are made from stone, iron, and ...

. The

coastal defence and fortification 300px, Castillo San Felipe de Barajas in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, an example of an Early Modern coastal defense Coastal defence (or defense) and coastal fortification are measures taken to provide protection against military attack at or ...

incorporated an

artillery battery In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit or multiple systems of artillery, mortar systems, rocket artillery, multiple rocket launchers, surface-to-surface missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, etc., so grouped to fa ...

command post complementary as a Coast Guard lifeboat station initially chartered in

1870s The 1870s (pronounced "eighteen-seventies") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1870, and ended on December 31, 1879. The trends of the previous decade continued into this one, as new empires, imperialism and militar ...

as the United States Life-Saving Service. The Sabine Pass coastal defense installation was

deemed {{Short pages monitor of Port Arthur.

References

External links

* * * * * {{Coord, 29, 43, 35, N, 93, 51, 48, W, display=title Channels of the United States Bodies of water of Louisiana Bodies of water of Texas Bodies of water of the Gulf of Mexico Landforms of Cameron Parish, Louisiana Landforms of Jefferson County, Texas Hurricane Ike