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 16, 2000
Chaparral Street in 1883
Corpus Christi in 1883 was a town of mud streets, wooden storefronts, plank sidewalks, and the coarse dignity of a Texas frontier town. In this third part of the series, we begin our tour of the downtown, as it would have looked on Jan. 21, 1883, at Chaparral and William.
If we walked south on Chaparral, we would find the new offices of the Caller in the Noakes building. Beyond that is the house with fancy ironwork, the Conrad Meuly home.
But we go north. At the east corner of William is the W. H. Berry boarding home. Mrs. Berry sends a boy out with a dinner bell on a pole to ring at meal times. Down the street is David Hirsch's wool office, identified with a star of David. Corpus Christi is one of the world's great wool centers, but in two years South Texas will cease to be a major wool producer.
In the middle of the block is the Crescent Hotel, run by Nick Constantine; a decade later he would build the Constantine Hotel on Mesquite. The Crescent is the home of the Crescent Restaurant and Oyster Saloon. Next door is the Favorite Saloon, run by George Roberts. The Favorite has a billiard parlor, a ten-pin alley, and it advertises "choice liquors, fine cigars, and polite bartenders." Next door is Frank and Weil's Grocery. Across the street is John Fogg's home, M.F. Lachman's tailor shop, and P. Hoffman's drygoods store at the corner of Lawrence.
Between Lawrence and Schatzel, on the east side, is Doddridge and Davis Bank, the town's first bank that dates back to 1869. In this building is W. H. Daimwood's men's clothing store and E. H. Wheeler's shoe store. Wheeler's sign is decorated with a big black horse, which is why traders from Mexico call it "casa del caballo prieto." The sign says "Boots and Shoes" on one side and "Botas and Zapatos" on the other.
Next is Julius Henry's store, Friend and Cahn's Bank, with its distinctive three-gable roofline, Gradwhol's drygoods store, Charles Parker's barbershop, Blumenthal and Jordt furniture store, and George Westervelt's grocery.
On the west side, corner of Lawrence, is one of the best-known hotels in South Texas, the St. James, run by William Biggio, a veteran of the Confederate Navy. The St. James has its own telegraph office and the mule trolley runs from the front of the hotel to the Tex-Mex Depot.
From Schatzel to Peoples, on the right side, is Keller's Saddlery, with a white horse painted on the store's Schatzel Street side, E. Morris's drygoods, and Norwick Gussett's store and wool warehouse. Gussett's place has a large rooster weathervane and is known to Mexican wool-sellers as "la tienda del gallo." Gussett came to Corpus Christi as a wagon driver in Zachary Taylor's army. He returned after the Mexican War, entered the hide business, and became a wealthy man with a fleet of his own schooners sailing between Corpus Christi and New York.
Across the street on the west side is Max and Otto Dreyer's novelty, notions and toy store, George Mew's ship chandlery and chinaware shop and F. Brose, cobbler. In the middle of the block, in the yard of a cottage owned by Bob Berry, stands a large mulberry tree. Young boys often climb the fence to steal the fruit.
Between Peoples and Starr on the east side is Lichtenstein's store. Like many merchants in the city, Morris Lichtenstein is a Confederate veteran; he served in Sibley's Texas Brigade until he was captured. Next door is James McKenzie's paint store, Evans and Hickey grocery, the telegraph office, and another wool warehouse, this one Woessner's.
Across from Lichtenstein's is the DeRyee and Westervelt drug store. DeRyee made the shellcrete blocks for the building himself. The windows are framed with mahogany driftwood salvaged on Padre Island. There is William Funk's soft-drink stand, which features a small chunk of ice in the drinks. Big blocks of lake ice are shipped from Maine and stored under the bluff.
In the middle of the block is John Hall's tin shop, where you can buy a Buck's Brilliant stove for $34. Down the street are two boarding houses run by Mrs. Merriman. On the corner is the Ranahan home, which was hit by a cannon ball during a bombardment by Union gunboats in the Civil War. On down Chaparral is Artesian Square and then Irishtown beyond.
The old places are gone, washed away by the forces of time, tide and progress. A reader called to ask me why I've been writing about what the downtown was like in 1883, that he didn't understand the point of the exercise, and I mumbled some answer. Only later did I think of a good reply, a paraphrase of George Mallory's famous saying about climbing Mt. Everest: "Because it is not there."
(This is the third of three parts. Sources include the Corpus Christi Caller, Jan. 21, 1883, and other Caller-Times archives; and the Sanborn map on microfilm in the Corpus Christi Central Library.
(Murphy Givens can be reached by phone at 886-4315 or by email at givensm@caller.com.)
