Chapel on the Dunes

The oldest continuously functioning church on Mustang Island, built in 1938

The Chapel on the Dunes at 203 South 11th Street is a 250-square-foot wooden chapel perched high on a sand dune in Port Aransas's Old Town neighbourhood, completed in 1938. It is the oldest continuously consecrated church on Mustang Island, and at 26 feet above sea level it has a panoramic view over the surrounding neighbourhood and out toward the Gulf.

The chapel is privately owned by the Carter family and is still used for weddings and occasional services. Visitors are welcome to view it from outside; access inside is by arrangement. The building's survival through decades of Gulf Coast hurricanes is a testament to its solid construction — it survived Hurricane Celia in 1970, which destroyed much of Port Aransas, largely intact.

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The chapel was designed and built by Aline B. Carter, a San Antonio artist and writer, as a place of worship near her beach cottage. At just 250 square feet, it may be the smallest consecrated church in Texas. The building has survived multiple major hurricanes, including Hurricane Harvey in 2017, and remains privately owned by the Carter family.

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