Padre Elite Blog

Skilled steel scrap cutters at the Port of Brownsville’s three primary ship recycling yards. The port captures 85 percent of the nation’s ocean vessel recycling business. The Port of Brownsville, the only deepwater seaport directly on the U.S.-Mexico border, is now the only American port with a tenant accredited to dismantle and recycle European-flagged ships. […]

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas (KVEO) — SpaceX’s goals of sending people to Mars aboard the Starship rocket are still in the early trials, often with fiery endings that send debris in all directions. Leading some to wonder if wildlife in the area is impacted by the debris. The beaches of South Texas and Northern Mexico […]

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — If you’ve been to the Texas State Aquarium recently, you may have noticed something new there. Large sculptures have been put on display and the sculptures are made from plastic trash that washed up on Texas beaches. The trash turned art sculptures are all part of a partnership between the aquarium […]

Each year, sea turtles emerge from the sea and visit the shores of South Padre Island and Boca Chica Beach to nest. April marks the beginning of sea turtles’ nesting season, which means many female sea turtles are en route to finding the right spot to lay their eggs on the beach. Now through August, […]

Elon Musk wants to fill the Rio Grande Valley with rocket scientists. Specifically, if Musk has his way, the little hamlet of Boca Chica Village could become one of our nation’s most educated towns. Musk, who began efforts to buy out the development’s few residents soon after he began establishing the rocket testing and launch […]

The crew of the schooner Anne. The crew is sailing from Miami to SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility, to propose a Mars analog mission to CEO and founder Elon Musk. Photo courtesy of Soanya Ahmed. By Gaige Davila editor@portisabelsouthpadre.com A crew of sailors is leaving today for a two to three week journey across the Gulf […]

(Xinhua/Ding Ting via Getty Images) Brownsville, TX (WBAP/KLIF) – A Texas city was taken by surprised when Elon Musk tweeted on Tuesday that he would donate $30 million to revitalize it and its schools, after appealing to people to move there to work for SpaceX. Billionaire techie Elon Musk tweeted Friday that he was donating $20 million […]

WillieDean Bagels co-owner Ernie Lopez. Photo by Gaige Davila. By Gaige Davila At WillieDean Bagels, you can find a part of Broadway on Padre. Ernie Lopez and his sister, Bella, own and operate WillieDean Bagels on South Padre Island. Since 2019, the shop has served bagels with made-in-house cream cheeses or into breakfast and lunch […]

Workers put the finishing touches on a prototype of SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft in Boca Chica, Texas. (Jonathan Newton / Washington Post via Getty Images) The secluded beachside community of Boca Chica Village was once a haven for retirees, snowbirds and outdoorsy people who enjoyed dirt biking, fishing or lounging near the water. Today, traffic backs […]