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, August 9, 2000
Mesquite Street in 1883
Let's take a walk through downtown Corpus Christi as it would have existed on Jan. 21, 1883. I picked that date because my street guide is the first edition of the Corpus Christi Caller.
Beginning at the southeast corner of William and Mesquite (spelled Mezquit then), we find A. Thayer's store featuring "Yankee notions." The notions included pistols, canned fruits, cigars, guitar strings, perfume, sewing machines, and Montgolfier balloons, from 3 to 30 feet, inflated.
Down the street from Thayer's, taking up the middle of the block, is one of the better known businesses in 1883 - John Fogg's Livery, which includes the main livery, two wagon sheds, and a hay storage area. You can rent a hack or board your horse at Fogg's. This is where young men go to rent a buggy to take their girlfriends on Sunday drives on North Beach. Since there are no phones, dates are arranged by young boys running notes back and forth between the young men, women and their chaperones.
John Fogg is a well-known citizen. He had operated a saloon and a stagecoach line that ran from San Antonio to Brownsville. When a drunk shot a storekeeper in an argument over a pair of boots, Fogg ran to a hardware store to grab a coil of rope. One reason Fogg was so keen on hanging the man was that the victim, Emanuel Scheur, had served with Fogg in the Mounted Coast Guard, a Confederate militia unit in Corpus Christi during the Civil War. The shooter was hanged, or rather lynched, from a hackberry or a mesquite near the south end of Broadway. But that happened years before.
As we walk down "Mezquit," there are small homes on the west side of the street, each with its cistern. In the next block, from Lawrence to Schatzel, there's a hardware store on the east side. Across the street is Uehlinger's bakery, which runs bread carts three times a day throughout the town. The Uehlingers are an old family; they arrived in the 1850s from Switzerland to work for Conrad Meuly, a relative who opened a bakery to supply Zachary Taylor's army.
Schatzel to Peoples, a short block, is the center of town. On the west side is Market Hall, with city offices and butcher stalls. The two-story Market Hall was built right after the Civil War in an effort to restore civic pride; Corpus Christi was a desolate, miserable place at the end of the war. (Today, the place where Market Hall stood is a pocket handkerchief of ground, which is supposed to be a park.)
On the east side, facing Market Hall, is R.D. Simpson's grocery and liquor store, followed by Conrad Uehlinger's Saloon, in a small building set back from the street, with a yard for cowboys to hitch their horses.
On the corner of Peoples is a two-story building housing W.S. Rankin's store on the ground floor and McCampbell and Givens law firm above. Rankin, whose parents came to Corpus Christi from Scotland in 1852, advertises "Goods delivered in the city free of charge." Many residents buy their groceries at Rankin's or at Blossman's down the street. Flour was bought by the barrel and sugar came in 50-pound sacks. Coffee beans were bought in sacks and roasted at home. Considering the volume of groceries bought then, no wonder delivery wagons bogged down in the mud.
Walking on down the block, from Peoples to Starr, on the east side of Mesquite, is R.G. Blossman's grocery, with a wagon yard in the back for his customers, followed by Dr. Spohn's home, the Timon home, the Sidbury home. John Timon was murdered in this house in 1891; the murder was never solved, although suspicion pointed at a relative because of an old family feud. Timon's son would become this area's political boss, Nueces County Judge Walter Timon.
On the west side, facing Peoples at Mesquite, is the Corpus Christi Female Academy, begun by J. D. Meredith in 1880. The academy includes a business school for boys; one of its students is Walter Timon.
Down the street on Mesquite's west side is the Matthew Headen home (his son would later become mayor) followed by other houses and Norwick Gussett's huge lumber yard. On the next block, from Starr to Taylor, is the Royall Givens' home, and across the street is the blacksmith shop of Shoemaker and Warren. If you turn right on Taylor, you'll find the city's most imposing landmark in 1883, the tall-steepled Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd.
These buildings are all gone now, but the history is still there - like hidden pieces of wreckage underneath the modern city.
(This is the second of three parts. Part three, dealing with Chaparral and Water streets, will appear next Wednesday.)
