Jerry...I'm gonna be a little picky-picky. You mentioned a "... blockade runner out of Port Arthur Texas during the Civil War.." If I remember correctly from my childhood (born in PA, 1933 and left for the military in 1953) the current city of Port Arthur was founded about 1898 by Arthur Stillwell, backed by the famous railroad robber baron, "Bet-a-Million" Gates.

The local legend was that Stillwell, operating out of Kansas City, wanted to get in on the late 19th century railroad boom by by getting into untouched territory. Since Kansas City was a big agriculture center, he supposedly penned a string on a map at KC, stretched the string to where it touched the nearest potential seaport site, which was Lake Sabine, between Houston and Lake Charles, LA. The lake was fed by the Neches and Sabine Rivers and Sabine Pass, site of the famous battle, was its outlet to the sea. He proposed a seaport be built on the north shore of the lake from which the agricultural products of the mid-west could be more cheaply shipped. With Gates backing, and the proposed Intercoastal Canal under developement, they founded the new city at the end of their new railroad.

A few years later in 1901 the great Spindeltop oil field ("where oil became and industry") blew in and the new city became a major oil refining center and petroleum seaport. As a coincidence, the salt dome where the Spindeltop field was located had been a Confederate training camp during the WBTS because of its elevation (health consideration) above the surrounding marsh/coastal plain.

There had been a small settlement on the north bank of Lake Sabine in the 1800s called (I believe) Aurora...which may have been a blockading off-loading point, although I was under the impression that Sabine City, closer to the pass was the primary "port"....or off loading on to shallow draft steam boats/barges for trans shipment up the Neches River to Beaumont was the primary supply method. However, something in the back of mind (maybe some of the local WBTS historians could verify) says that there was either a partly constructed or proposed spur line from Beaumont (which tied in to the partly finished New Orleans to Houston RR)that may have also been used.

Again, pardon me being a bit picky on the "Port Arthur" citation.... Jack