Bolivar Peninsula, Texas Bolivar Peninsula, Texas Bolivar Peninsula ( ) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Galveston County, Texas, United States. The population was 2,417 at the 2010 census. The communities of Port Bolivar, Crystal Beach, Caplen, Gilchrist, and High Island are located on Bolivar Peninsula. The peninsula was named by 1816 for Simón Bolívar, the famed South American political leader involved in the independence movements of Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, and other Latin American nations. The pirates/privateers Jean Laffite and Louis-Michel Aury each used the Bolivar Peninsula as part of the pirate "kingdom" established around the Galveston Bay. The peninsula was part of
Bolivar, Tennessee the banks of the Big Hatchie, the Indian name for the river, and was called Hatchie Town. The new site, the county seat, bore the name Hatchie until by Act of the Tennessee State Legislature, on October 18, 1825, it was changed to Bolivar. Bolivar was named for General Simón Bolívar, the South American patriot and liberator. Hardeman County was officially organized on October 16, 1823, and was named for Thomas Jones Hardeman, a veteran of the War of 1812, who served as the first county court clerk and a commissioner for Bolivar before moving to Texas in 1835. According