Murphy Givens Corpus Christi History Caller-Times

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Corpus Christi History by Murphy Givens

Corpus Christi History is published Wednesdays. Murphy Givens also sits on the Caller-Times editorial board and can be contacted at givensm@caller.com

Wednesday, June 23, 1999

The Streets of our city

I've had a number of questions in the past few weeks about street names. I wrote a column last year about the history behind some of the names of Corpus Christi's major streets, but perhaps it's time to revisit the topic.
   One interest lately has been over the origin of Agnes Street in light of the proposal to change the name to honor that great labor organizer from California, Cesar Chavez.
   I have not been able to find any information about Agnes Street. I'm not sure why, but for some reason I've always thought it was named for Agnes Rankin, the wife of a prominent grocer in Corpus Christi in the 1880s. She was a leader in the community and her sons were active in city affairs. Naming a street after her would not have been unusual. Margaret Rose at the Corpus Christi Central Library, as well as Margaret Neu of the Caller-Times Information Services, have looked for data on the naming of Agnes, but with no luck. If you know something about this, let me hear from you.
   I had another question from a reader about the proper spelling of Ayers Street. The caller suggested that the street originally was spelled A-y-r-e-s and said you could find examples of how it was once spelled.
   This mystery is a littler easier to solve.
   The original spelling is the current one - A-y-e-r-s. According to an old news clip in our files, the original map in the county clerk's office, dated Feb. 17, 1891, spelled it that way. But in 1910, a mapmaker by the name of Bruno Haberer misspelled Ayers, changing it on the map to Ayres. (He also changed the spelling of some other streets; Aubrey became Awbry.) For a long time after Haberer drew his map, residents used his spelling for Ayers and some may still do so. But the proper spelling is Ayers.
   I also had a question some time back about whether Starr Street was named for the famous Texas outlaw, Belle Starr. No, it was named for James Harper Starr. He was a secretary of the treasury for the Republic of Texas for a brief period - from May to August, 1839. He later held several official posts in the Confederate government.
   That must have been one of Henry L. Kinney's street names. When Corpus Christi was incorporated, in 1852, Kinney laid out and named the city's streets.
   Schatzel Street was named for a banker and financier who loaned Kinney money. His name was John Peter Schatzell, a former American consul at Matamoros. The street name is misspelled.
   Kinney named other streets after generals in the Mexican War - Taylor is named for Zachary Taylor and Twigg Street (again misspelled) is named for Gen. David E. Twiggs. (When Taylor's army was camped in Corpus Christi, the contentious Twiggs had a long-running feud with another general, Gen. William Jenkins Worth, for whom Fort Worth is named.) If you want to rename streets, Twigg would be a good place to start.
   But back to Kinney's names. He liked animal names, in English and Spanish, and Indian names. Some of the first streets he named were Leopard, Buffalo, Antelope, Lobo (wolf), Zorro (fox), Oso (bear), Mestena (wild mustang). There used to be a Tiger Street, but that was later changed to Broadway.
   Kinney named streets after Texas Indians - Carancahua, Tancahua, Lipan, Waco, Comanche - and even after a Midwestern tribe, the Winnebago.
   He named streets after the Spanish names for this brush country - Chaparral and Mesquite. Laguna was named for a tidal slough or ditch that came in from the bay. (It was changed in 1991 to Sartain, named for police officer John Sartain killed by sniper in 1971.)
   Kinney also named a street Chipito after a longtime friend who also served him as a spy during the Mexican War - Chipito Sandoval.
   After the Kinney street-naming era, in the early 1850s, later officials began naming streets after mayors and prominent businessmen.
   There was Neal Street named for the city's first mayor, Benjamin F. Neal, who was also a Confederate officer in the Civil War. Staples Street was named after W.N. Staples, a store owner who also was a co-owner of a large hide-and-tallow packing house on Packery Channel on the island. Doddridge Street was named for a banker and former mayor, Perry Doddridge, who was elected during Reconstruction as a Democratic candidate. He was mayor of the city during the famous Nuecestown Raid in 1875.
   There is more material than I can deal with in this space, so next week I'll continue this exercise on the origin and history of the city's street names.