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Padre Island National Seashore
The longest undeveloped barrier island in the world, on the Texas coast
South of Corpus Christi the pavement ends, and the beach runs on for mile after mile with no buildings at all. Padre Island National Seashore protects 66 miles (106 km) of Texas Gulf coast on the longest undeveloped barrier island in the world, about 130,400 acres (528 km²) of beach, grassland dunes and tidal flats. Drivers with four-wheel drive can follow the sand south toward Mansfield Channel, passing shell beaches built by the currents that converge here. Congress authorized the seashore in 1962 to keep it that way.
The island's back side faces the Laguna Madre, one of the few hypersaline lagoons in the world, where little rainfall and few inlets keep the water saltier than the sea. Its seagrass and mudflats feed redfish, wintering redhead ducks and migrating shorebirds, and steady winds make it a windsurfing destination. Padre Island is the most important nesting beach in the United States for the Kemp's ridley, the world's most endangered sea turtle. A recovery program begun in 1978 brought the first returning females in 1992, and each summer park staff release hatchlings at the surf's edge before public audiences.