Forty-one years ago, when the South Padre Island was a little more than a undeveloped stretch of beach, Kay Lay was one of town's original Spring Breakers.
Lay, now 60, speaks nostalgically about her experiences from the Beachcombers' Museum, her bookstore and coffee shop, located in the epicenter of the island's Spring Break sprawl. But the phenomenon has changed since the mid '60s, when Lay and her friends drove from Harlingen to watch local bands perform from atop beat up pick-ups.
Now Lay watches crowds of thousands cruise the boulevard outside her store. Loud boomboxes shake her windows. Hotel rooms cost as much as several hundred dollars per night. Even the phenomenon's name has changed. In her day, it was modestly anointed "Easter Weekend."
When money from beer companies began pouring in and nightclubs were constructed along the coast, the weekend grew into the "Spring Break" week that draws college students from across the country. But for locals like Lay, who moved to the island permanently after partaking in years of festivities, it's known simply as "hell week."
How did the laid-back concerts of the 1960s transform into an event that draws nearly 100,000 college students annually? The answer, locals say, isn't clear-cut.
Every year, word of South Padre Island's offerings spread. Rio Grande Valley locals told their college friends. The island's reputation made it around the state and, by the late '70s, the nation.
Bars like Charlie's (once the largest outdoor nightclub in Texas) opened up, catering to the growing demand for music and alcohol. Then came hotels, nightclubs and party packages, making the city into what it is now: part residential community, part landmark for college-age bacchanalia.
But some local experts point to a more specific reason behind the growth of the South Texas mecca.
In 1986, Texas became one of the last eight states to raise its drinking age from 18 to 21. This meant that for one spring, South Padre Island had a near-monopoly on tropical locations that served alcohol to those under 21.
It was a big year for the island, and according to Chad Hart, president of Inertia tours, which sells tours and party packages to spring breakers, it cemented the town's reputation among college students.
According to Hart, there are four reasons people go on Spring Break: "To get drunk, to get tan, to get laid and to brag to their friends. If you can't provide those things, people aren't going to come."
"The faces change, but the mannerisms basically don't," said South Padre Island Police Chief Robert Rodriguez, who has been on staff for 23 years.
Still, Rodriguez said that the atmosphere of the town is not what it was in the 1980s and '90s. "With new, expensive properties, owners are more careful about who they rent to. They don't want their properties to damaged real quick."
Increasingly, hotel rooms are also difficult for students to procure. "When I was 19, my friends and I spent a week here for a few hundred bucks. Now hotels want $200 for a room they normally charge $50 for."
Despite the party price inflation, South Padre's hotel industry has thrived in recent Spring Breaks. Last March alone, lodging sales amounted to more than $7.9 million.
Another recent phenomenon that has taken many island locals by surprise is that former Spring Breakers - now aged, with children or grandchildren - are returning to the scene to buy real estate.
"They come back to buy a second home, and it's a huge boost to the local economy," said Dan Quandt executive director of the South Padre Island Convention Center & Visitors Bureau. The boost comes at a good time for the island - as the number of Spring Breakers appears to be declining. "With so many other options now," Quandt says, "the numbers are sliding back."
When 2008's crop of students began pouring into the area around Kay Lay's shop, she remembered her first trips to the island.
"It was just the greatest playground in the world," she said. "All that wet T-shirt stuff - that all came after my time."
