Town built between arroyo, Hall's Bayou
By Murphy Givens (Contact)
Originally published 05:26 p.m., August 12, 2008
Updated 05:26 p.m., August 12, 2008
When Henry Kinney, Corpus Christi's founder, arrived in 1839, some believe he landed at the mouth of an arroyo, later called Blucher's Creek. It emptied into the bay near where Cooper's Alley intersects with Water Street.
In the early years, this arroyo was called Chatham's ravine. It was dammed to form a reservoir. Hogs wallowing in the town's water supply was a persistent problem in the 1840s and '50s (maybe they had boil-water alerts back then).
As the town grew, the dividing line between North and South Chaparral, and North and South Water, was the arroyo, or Blucher's Creek. The distinction between north and south street addresses downtown doesn't make sense unless you know that the arroyo was between Laguna and Cooper's Alley. It was covered and built over, and now is concealed under the growth of the city.
There were about three blocks south of the arroyo, and much of it dominated by E.D. Sidbury's lumber yard. That part of town where Shook's Garage is located once was called South Beach.
Where the arroyo emptied into the bay had the deepest water off the shoreline. That deep water explains why major piers were built there. One of the first was built by William Mann, in 1848. The Central Wharf, built in 1853, was enlarged in the 1870s to become the city's main wharf. In 1914, the Municipal Wharf was built just south of where the arroyo emptied into the bay.
On the north end of the downtown was another inlet, this one a slough called Hall's Bayou. It separated Corpus Christi from North Beach.
Once in the 1840s, horse wranglers on North Beach, working for Henry Kinney, were killing and skinning mustangs when they saw a party of Comanches ride up to the slough. They hid and watched as the braves threw buffalo robes into the shallow slough so their ponies wouldn't bog down in the mud.
In the 1870s, John Hall, an Englishman, built a beef packing house there. Discarded meat was dumped on the salt flats. Around the turn of the 20th Century, Hall's Bayou was a favorite place for boys to go crabbing; restaurants like that at the Seaside Hotel would buy the crabs for a nickel each. In the 1920s, it was dredged to become the entrance to the port. When you cross Harbor Bridge, you're crossing over Hall's Bayou.
Just as the arroyo separated north from south on the city's downtown street addresses, Hall's Bayou separated "The Beach" section of the city from North Beach. No one today calls the area around American Bank Plaza and Whataburger Field "The Beach," but that is what it was known as. Anything north and east of the 1914 courthouse was called "The Beach." Corpus Christi had South Beach, The Beach, and North Beach. All three suffered the most destruction in the 1919 storm, no doubt because these areas are on low ground, sure, but perhaps also because the storm surge followed the course of those natural inlets to the bay.
A mile west of town was the Salt Lake, between Winnebago Street and where the port turning basin is today. During the Civil War, Confederate soldiers butchered cattle on the Salt Lake. At that time, Rosalie Priour's husband had a big vegetable farm there. The Salt Lake dried up in the terrible drought that began in 1863.
The Salt Lake, Hall's Bayou and the arroyo exist now only on old maps and history books.
Ferries on the Nueces
The first act of Nueces County in 1847 was to set ferry tolls on the Nueces River and Rio Grande, since Nueces County took in all the territory in between. Tolls were 25 cents for a pair of oxen; 25 cents for a horse; 25 cents for every wheel on a wagon.
The main ferry on the lower Nueces was at the Santa Margarita crossing below the village of San Patricio. This was an ancient crossing, going back to the 1700s. The Paso de Santa Margarita was a good place to ford; the river was wide there and shallow, with a rocky bottom that provided good footing for teams.
In the 1850s, Samuel Reed Miller opened a store and established a ferry at Santa Margarita. In 1857, Robert Love, a rancher on the Nueces, planned to build a toll bridge across the river to compete with Miller's Ferry, but the plans fell through.
During the Civil War, Miller's Ferry was a major stopping place on the Cotton Road. The big wagons loaded with cotton were too heavy for the little ferry barge. When the river was high, the drivers would camp and wait until it was fordable.
The main stage road from Corpus Christi to San Antonio crossed the river at Miller's Ferry.
After the Civil War, rancher Sylvanus Gerard Miller began his own ferry at Lagarto. For a few years, there were two Miller's Ferries on the Nueces. By the 1870s, Samuel Reed Miller's grandson, Alonzo Quinn, took over the ferry and it became known as Quinn's Ferry.
Borden's Ferry was above Nuecestown (near where Calallen is today), a half-mile from Sharpsburg. Judge Sidney Borden, a cousin to canned-milk inventor Gail Borden, owned the ferry and a store.
O.H. Hearn established a ferry in 1867 at Nuecestown. If Borden's Ferry was the best route to Sharpsburg, Hearn's was the best way to Meansville. The road leading to the ferry was called Hearn's Ferry Road. Below that was A.L. Bitterman's Ferry, at the mouth of the Nueces. It was operated, while it lasted, to make it easier for the Rachal family of White Point to travel to Nuecestown.
Borden's Ferry was the last still in use, until 1913. By that time, bridges had been built across the river.
Murphy Givens is Viewpoints Editor of the Caller-Times. Phone 886-4315; e-mail: givensm@caller.com.
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