Faith & Religion

Religion had a slow start here
City built its first house of worship with clay, crushed shells, in 1853.
When Zachary Taylor's army was camped in 1845 in the small outpost of Corpus Christi, preparing for war with Mexico, a Catholic priest, the Rev. Ubald Estany, arrived to spread the gospel. But it was not until 1853, a year after Corpus Christi became a city, that it gained its first house of worship. Religion got off to a slow start, Eugenie Price Briscoe wrote in her doctoral thesis, because preachers didn't want to move to a "godless city." Corpus Christi was a rough town more conducive to dirt-floor saloons with cockfight pits than buildings with pews and pulpits. The first church was the First Methodist Church, built in 1853 of clay mixed with crushed shells. It was at the corner of Mann and Mesquite. The 200 worshippers sat on rough benches - men on one side; women on the other.
The following year, the Rev. Bernard O'Reilly built the first Catholic church - the original St. Patrick's on Tancahua, between Antelope and Leopard.

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