By JOEL KIRKPATRICK News Staff Writer
Galveston Daily News, April 11, 1987
CRYSTAL BEACH — Citizens here are learning what happens when a town is killed. The streetlights were turned off in Crystal Beach and darkness came to that resort town, sprawled along a 7-mile stretch of Highway 87. Citizens in this beach resort community on Bolivar Peninsula decided by a 69-vote margin on April 4 to abolish the 16-year-old town. They were tired, some said, of irregularities in City Hall, of paying taxes and proposals to spend money which would mean more taxes. They wanted the county to provide law enforcement and street repair and not have to spend extra money for it. So they voted 314 to 245 to dissolve Crystal Beach.
And this past week citizens in this resort community have been seeing what that vote meant. The city’s 48 street lights on State Highway 87, illuminating businesses and access roads, were turned off. The portable toilets were removed from the 6 1/2-mile stretch of public beaches on the Gulf of Mexico. The 24 trash barrels scattered down the beach rattled in the wind, bolted onto their wooden 4-by-4 supports. And there was no one to empty them. Summer weekends were getting nearer. Those are weekends when as many as 20,000 people come to the beach. The year-round population runs to about 2,400.
The police department was disbanded, with only the police chief and dispatcher to provide public safety. Galveston County Sheriff Joe Max Taylor made hasty assignments to expand his coverage of the peninsula. County commissioners had an emergency agenda item Monday on trash pickup at Crystal Beach. But the county had not budgeted money for law enforcement, roads or garbage pickup in the peninsula resort community. What citizens felt about dissolving the town of Crystal Beach varied from disbelief that “people would be so stupid,” to feelings of outright glee that “they won’t be able to tax us any more.”
There were quick reports this week that a motorcycle gang was going to make the city the scene of a “party” after the police department was dissolved; there were rumors the bank would close down and move away. There was a rumor the crab festival, scheduled for April 24-26, would close down and not be held this year. That rumor is false. Judy Manning, president of the Crystal Beach Tourist Association, said the festival is alive and well and will be held. She said reports that 100,000 attended the festival last year were in error. There were 12,000. She said law enforcement for the festival will be furnished by the Department of Public Safety and the county. A waste management company was on the scene, negotiating with the more affluent and with businesses for trash and garbage removal.
Here is what some of the people in Crystal Beach were saying last week about the vote to dissolve the city: A.B. Charpiot, a leader of the group seeking to abolish the city: “Crystal Beach is history. Just about 100 people more or less got together and put it over. People lined up and they voted and voted out the city. People were just tired of things going on at City Hall and disgusted with officials being charged with crimes. The city died because of mismanagement, and money.” Charpiot said he was approached for an interview on a radio talk show called “One-Eyed Jack” out of Springfield, Ill. Charpiot’s wife, Pat, said she had received harassing telephone calls and had been called vile names for wanting to dissolve the city. She said her husband had been threatened. “The whole United States is going to know of the carryings-on in Crystal Beach, Texas. Where is the city? Why that’s like asking where the Indian Graveyard is (on Bolivar Peninsula). It’s in history, that’s where.”
Pat Lowry, the only woman police chief in Galveston County, said she believes people were misinformed on the effect of the vote. But she said, “We will be in operation until we are told to close the doors. We will do what we can to help the citizens of Crystal Beach. What happens to speeding tickets when there are no officers to testify about them? They get transferred to justice of the peace courts and dismissed. Officers who were going to testify on felonies, such as burglaries, may be somewhere else. Prosecution of criminal cases will become more difficult,” the chief said.
Jerry Mathis, a former mayor, said he doesn’t believe people will vote to re-incorporate Crystal Beach. They were “just plain mad” at the city government when they went to vote, he said. Bill Stirling, mayor of Crystal Beach at the time of the disincorporation vote, said, “We have the dubious honor of being the first city in Texas to disincorporate since 1924, or so I’ve heard. We were in good financial condition. We had $154,000 in a grant, a matching funds grant for development of Gregory Park. I hope the county will continue to develop the 17-acre park. It hurts bad to tell the city employees their jobs are at an end. It hurts to see the street building program end, and garbage pickup, and to see the street lights turned off.”
“There will be no beach cleanup,” Stirling continued. “People on the beachfront watched us take the porta-cans away. Now people who swarm to the beaches will dump their trash on the beach and go to the bathroom in the front yards of people who have cottages on the beachfront. And there will be no law enforcement to stop them from doing it. Property values are going to go down. But I’m not mayor any more. They’ll have to talk about somebody else, won’t they? I’ve done my do, but the voters have told me they don’t want me running their city. They’ve said they don’t even want a city. And they have spoken.”
Bill Kelsey, who was elected April 4 as mayor of a city that the voters had decided to dissolve, said he had asked the county to seek $10 million in bonds to take care of drainage and roads in Crystal Beach. People in Crystal Beach, he said, will be making some efforts to set aside the election. But he said he didn’t know how successful they would be. “We are required to act responsibly and protect life and property. We have told some owners of second homes on the beach they might want to get down here and see what they can do to protect their homes now that the police department has been dismissed,” Kelsey added.
And there was a sign on a marquee in front of the Gaslight Restaurant, owned by George Vratis, which read “Onward through the fog.”
Wilfred Cooper, who lives in Emerald Beach No. 2 subdivision, said the disincorporation was a dumb thing for people to do. Cooper, a retired electrician, who keeps roses and a garden, when asked what he would do to protect himself, now the police department is dissolved, said what many citizens might say: “I took the plug out of my shotgun.” For the uninitiated, a shotgun plug limits the number of times a shotgun can be fired to three to comply with state law on birdshooting. Removal of the plug allows a pump or automatic shotgun to be fired five times. On the same night returns came in disincorporating Crystal Beach, the city limits signs were stolen at each end of the 7.2-mile-long resort community.
Tom Doyle, executive vice president of Gulf Shores Bank, which opened in Crystal Beach in July, 1985, said the bank had come to the beach to stay and had no plans to leave. “Gulf Shores Bank opened… with the express purpose to serve Bolivar Peninsula. That aim has not changed. The disincorporation of the city of Crystal Beach and the destruction of a peninsula business is regrettable. The bank was the city’s depository. The bank position is, simply put, that we are survivors, not quitters. We will continue to serve Bolivar Peninsula with its banking needs.” Doyle said there are about 100 businesses in Crystal Beach that will be affected by the disincorporation of the city. Most businessmen, he said, were opposed to disincorporation.
On Tuesday, Jim Mulliff, a serviceman for Gulf States Utilities Co., went down State Highway 87, the Main Drag of Crystal Beach, turning off the street lights. The city had paid $416.95 a month to keep 49 sodium vapor lights burning to illuminate businesses in Crystal Beach. Marsha Scott, owner of Takeout Junction restaurant, approached Mulliff to ask him if she could pay to keep a streetlight on, and he told her he had been instructed to turn them all off. Stirling said, after the lights on Highway 87 had been turned off, he had been telephoned by a woman who had supported disincorporation. “She said it was so dark. She had never seen it so dark. And I told her that is what it meant to turn off a city. Darkness comes.”
Earl S Hines
June 9, 2026 at 6:06 pmWe became Crystal Beach residents in 2015, and have wondered how and why did incorporation happened. Thank you SO MUCH for this report!
I respect the 1987 vote. Democracy rules! Given skyrocketing growth, I wonder if did incorporation still serves best interests of citizens and businesses?