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, October 13, 1999
Road across bay snaked along on oyster shell reefs
It was near dusk when a Comanche raiding party hit Corpus Christi. Rangers chased the Indians down to the Rincon, a spit of land stretching into the bay. As the sun set, the Rangers had the Indians penned up against the water, each side waiting for the other to attack.
The Rangers, under the command of a Capt. Crouch, decided to keep the Comanches hemmed in while they sent for reinforcements, planning to attack the Indians the next morning.
When the sun rose, the Rangers were astounded. There was not a Comanche in sight. They followed the tracks into the water and discovered that it was barely knee deep. They found a natural reef made of oyster shells that separated Nueces Bay from Corpus Christi Bay. By twists and turns, the reef led to Indian Point on the other side. The reef connected two natural sand spits that reached out from each shore. The Indians apparently had long used the trail across the bay.
The Rangers' discovery happened in the early 1840s. By 1850, Corpus Christians were routinely using the Reef Road. The first work ordered by the Nueces County Commissioners Court, on Jan. 11, 1847, was to mark the Reef Road so buggies and wagons wouldn't stray into deep water.
The county would re-stake marker posts when they rotted or when storms washed them away. The posts were about 12 to 14 feet apart and at low tide the water in most places was knee-deep. But there was a deeper channel where horses would often have to swim for a short distance. (This would later be called Hall's Bayou and eventually would be deepened for the ship channel to the port turning basin.)
A traveler could cut off some 40 miles from his trip by crossing over the reef rather than going all the way around Nueces Bay and crossing the Nueces River at the Borden or Bitterman ferries. The reef crossing cut the distance to about eight miles. One of the drawbacks was that the Reef Road snaked across the bay and one had to be careful not to stray off the reef. There was a bend near the center that forced traffic to go a mile out of the way. Those who tried to take a shortcut and avoid this dogleg would get a good soaking or, worse, get their teams and wagons bogged down in the mud of the bay bottom.
Those who came to shop in Corpus Christi on Saturday would often park their wagons in Blossman's wagon yard and make their rounds, being careful to leave in time to make it back across the reef before dark. Those who stayed too long faced a dangerous trip home. One way to make it across the reef at night, it was said, was to hang over the side of the wagon and look for the post markers in the phosphorous glow kicked up by the horses' hooves.
There was another route across the bay when the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad, the SAAP, built a trestle across the bay in 1884, bringing Corpus Christi its second rail line. But traveling by train involved a two-day visit at least and many residents continued to use the Reef Road. Some adventurous boys would walk the train trestle across the bay, prepared to get wet if a train came along.
Anew causeway, the pride of South Texas, was built in 1912. This solid, concrete structure, with graceful arches, cost Nueces County $166,000 to build. It was badly damaged in the 1916 hurricane, repaired, and then destroyed in the 1919 storm. Surviving supports stuck up in the bay like a row of rotten teeth for a long time afterwards.
For two years after the 1919 hurricane, citizens of Portland, Gregory and Taft had to travel 50 miles around Nueces Bay to reach Corpus Christi, and of course vice versa. In 1921, a temporary wooden causeway, which cost $412,000, was built. It was a few feet above water level and at times the splashing of waves impeded traffic. This low, narrow, shaky wooden causeway lasted for almost three decades, until the first of two modern concrete structures was built in 1950, the present Nueces Causeway. The old Reef Road began and ended about where the present causeway is located.
I will fall back on a reporter's old excuse - "Who can verify everything?'' But I believe we had the only road in the world marked and maintained at taxpayer expense, a major artery for more than half a century, that was completely under water. It must have been quite a sight to look, say, just before nightfall around the turn of the century, and see a long string of buggies and wagons moving across the bay, like they were walking on water, as horses and mules felt their way along the reefs.
