Every year students across the country spend the week leading up to spring break by pulling all-nighters, cramming for midterms and fidgeting over their upcoming plans.
Then many ditch parkas for bikinis and energy drinks for beer bongs as they cut and run to warm, sunny beaches all along the U.S. coast.
Florida is credited for initiating this indulgent blowout in the 1920s, but Texas had its own hot spots along the coast in full swing by the late 1980s. About the time, MTV blew the phenomenon up with its classic annual feature “Spring Break.”
Students from colleges across the state and beyond are captured bikini-clad and sandy, cruising the beaches and chugging from beer bongs — the classic, unbridled carousing of spring break.
The gallery here is a look back, nearly 30 years ago, to parties from Matamoros to Port Aransas.
Vintage Photographs Show How Students Celebrated Spring Break in Texas in the Late 1980s
Vintage Photographs Show How Students Celebrated Spring Break in Texas in the Late 1980s
Vintage Photographs Show How Students Celebrated Spring Break in Texas in the Late 1980s
Vintage Photographs Show How Students Celebrated Spring Break in Texas in the Late 1980s
Vintage Photographs Show How Students Celebrated Spring Break in Texas in the Late 1980s
Vintage Photographs Show How Students Celebrated Spring Break in Texas in the Late 1980s
Vintage Photographs Show How Students Celebrated Spring Break in Texas in the Late 1980s
Vintage Photographs Show How Students Celebrated Spring Break in Texas in the Late 1980s
Vintage Photographs Show How Students Celebrated Spring Break in Texas in the Late 1980s
Vintage Photographs Show How Students Celebrated Spring Break in Texas in the Late 1980s
Vintage Photographs Show How Students Celebrated Spring Break in Texas in the Late 1980s
Vintage Photographs Show How Students Celebrated Spring Break in Texas in the Late 1980s
Vintage Photographs Show How Students Celebrated Spring Break in Texas in the Late 1980s
Vintage Photographs Show How Students Celebrated Spring Break in Texas in the Late 1980s
Vintage Photographs Show How Students Celebrated Spring Break in Texas in the Late 1980s
Vintage Photographs Show How Students Celebrated Spring Break in Texas in the Late 1980s
Vintage Photographs Show How Students Celebrated Spring Break in Texas in the Late 1980s
