Mathis is a city in western San Patricio County, Texas, set on the South Texas brush country plain where the Nueces River was dammed to create Lake Corpus Christi. The community grew up around the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad, which laid track across the county in 1887. Landowner Thomas H. Mathis donated acreage for a townsite and school in exchange for naming rights, giving the settlement its name; his family's cattle and land holdings dominated the surrounding country in the town's early years. Cotton, corn and ranching sustained the early economy, residents of the older community of Lagarto relocated to be near the rail line, and Mathis incorporated in 1939. The city's character changed with the river. During the 1930s the Nueces was dammed to form Lake Mathis, later renamed Lake Corpus Christi, and a second dam, Wesley Seale Dam, built in the late 1950s, raised the lake to its present extent. The 21,000-acre reservoir turned Mathis into a recreation gateway, drawing weekend boaters, anglers and a sizable seasonal population of winter visitors who settle along the lake's more than 200 miles of shoreline. Agriculture adapted around it: irrigation supported vegetable crops in the mid-20th century, and cotton and grain sorghum continue to be grown in the surrounding fields. Today Mathis has a population of about 4,300 and is a heavily Hispanic community with deep roots in South Texas ranching and farming. Its modest grid of homes and storefronts sits a short distance from Lake Corpus Christi State Park, while Interstate 37 places both San Antonio and Corpus Christi within a manageable drive. The city's identity rests on the lake, the schools and the agricultural rhythms of the county, giving it a quiet, unhurried character distinct from the busier cities of the Coastal Bend.