Corpus Christi History by Murphy Givens

Nueces County's little towns of past

Old maps of Nueces County show towns and communities that no longer exist. When Corpus Christi was limited to what is now its downtown area, the city was surrounded by smaller communities, little towns with a handful of buildings. Most of them have disappeared or they have been absorbed by the growth of Corpus Christi.
   In the 1880s and 1890s, Aberdeen was located five miles to the south, in the area of Seaside Cemetery. Aberdeen was big enough to have a post office, but since there was already an Aberdeen, Texas, the name was changed to Alfred, after the youngest son of Oliver S. Watson.
   The community had a one-room school, which later was consolidated with the Sunshine district to become the Sundeen district. This became part of CCISD. During the 1890s, Aberdeen College existed for a couple of years. A news item from the Caller of Feb. 28, 1896, announced that a phonograph concert would be given at Aberdeen and that all who rode the streetcar from Corpus Christi to Aberdeen would be admitted free.
   Annaville, west of Corpus Christi, is a more recent addition to the map. It dates to 1940 when Leo Stewart and wife Anna bought a tract of 40 acres, subdivided it, put it up for sale, built a store, and erected a sign that read, "Annaville." Within a decade, Annaville had a population of 500 and within two decades it had doubled in size. Like its neighbor Calallen, Annaville has been taken in by the city of Corpus Christi, but it has definitely kept its name and separate identity.
   During the Civil War, when Corpus Christi was threatened by federal gunboats, city and county officials moved their offices to a place on the Nueces River called Santa Margarita, near Nuecestown, in northwestern Nueces County. It became a stopping place for the San Antonio-Brownsville stage line. Cotton transported down the Cotton Road during the war crossed at the ferry at Santa Margarita.
   Santa Margarita became the site of the Bluntzer community. A one-room schoolhouse opened in the 1870s, mainly to teach the children from W.W. Wright's Rancho Seco. Bluntzer's first postmaster was F. D. Bitterman, appointed in 1894.
   A news item from the Caller of July, 1905, reported that Professor W.G. Sutherland, who was called "the Sage of Bluntzer," was in town and reported that the crop outlook (for cotton and corn mostly) could not be more favorable.
   On the shore of Laguna Madre, opposite Pita Island, was the town of Brighton, named for Brighton, Tenn. Former Corpus Christi Times editor Bill Duncan once wrote that Brighton was called "Flour Bluff Two," while the area at the Point where the Naval Air Station is located was called "Flour Bluff One." Brighton was famous for its onion crops.
   For a decade or more in the late 1800s, North Beach was called Brooklyn. When the railroad came through, the name of Brooklyn was dropped in favor of Rincon, the old Spanish name for this area. Rincon had a depot and a post office.
   The origin of Calallen, like other towns in South Texas, is linked to the coming of the railroad. It was founded in 1908 by rancher Calvin J. Allen, who convinced the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexican Railway to bypass Nuecestown and run its line across his property. A town called Calvin grew up around the depot. But since there was already a Calvin, Texas, the name was changed to Calallen. The first school, Bonnie View, was built where Five Points is today.
   A news item in the May 23, 1908 Caller reported that the first carload of watermelons of the year was shipped from the Calvin depot, 12 miles from the city. The 974 melons, grown by J.J. Dubose and George Sutton, brought $400.
   After the turn of the 20th century, a town was platted in north central Nueces County called Woodland Park. It never existed. In 1909, Z.H. Clark filed a plat for the same site and began selling lots. The town was called Clarkwood - after Clark and the earlier Woodland Park. The first business was a cotton gin and a post office was authorized in 1914. Clarkwood was known as one of the county's prime cotton-producing areas.
   In 1910, German immigrant farmers established the town of Concordia and built the St. Paul Lutheran Church. But the farming community failed, due to a drought and other factors, and the people moved to the nearby town of Bishop.
   The community of Encinal, two miles west of Oso Bay, would later be called Sunshine. It had a post office from 1903 until 1911. The Sunshine school operated from 1887 until 1942. The school was eventually merged with the Aberdeen district, to become the Sundeen district.
   After the turn of the century, the annual Encinal barbecue and dinner on the ground at the Sunshine school was famous throughout Nueces County.
   (This is the first of two columns on Nueces County communities. Part two will be printed in this space next Wednesday.)
  

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