Our short century began in 1839 and ended in 1893

(This column first ran in the Caller-Times on Feb. 24, 2010)

British historian Eric Hobsbawm described the 20th century as the short century which, by his reckoning, began in 1914 with the start of World War I and ended with the fall of communism in 1991.

If we use Hobsbawm’s logic in measuring a century, Corpus Christi really had a short 19th century, which began with its founding in 1839 and ended with the collapse of the Ropes boom in 1893. In actual years, that’s little more than half a century, but a lot of history was packed into that very short century.

At the beginning in 1839, Henry Kinney moved from Aransas City, at Live Oak Point, and built his trading post on a site overlooking Corpus Christi Bay. The location was known as the old Indian trading grounds. Kinney’s Rancho was in territory claimed by Texas and Mexico. Kinney hired gunmen to protect the village from Indian attacks. In 1844, Comanche warriors raided the town and were chased by Kinney and 10 men west of town, where they dismounted for hand-to-hand fighting. Three Texans and seven Comanche warriors were killed in what, for its size, was called one of the bloodiest fights on the frontier.

Texas moved toward statehood and war with Mexico threatened. The United States assembled an army in Louisiana. Kinney successfully lobbied Zachary Taylor to bring his command to Corpus Christi. The first units arrived on Aug. 1, 1845, their landing on North Beach contested by hundreds of rattlesnakes buzzing in the tall grass. Thousands of military tents went up along the shore to shelter 4,000 soldiers, half the U.S. Army.  Zachary Taylor in letters to Washington called the encampment “Fort Marcy.” The army left in March 1846 for the border and Corpus Christi became a veritable ghost town.

After the war, after gold was found in California, Corpus Christi became a point of departure for 49ers going to California. The town was made headquarters for the Eighth Military District and Kinney hosted the Lone Star Fair in 1852, a financial failure that left him deep in debt.

A Union blockade in the Civil War stopped trade and commerce in the town all but ceased. In the second year of the war, in February 1862, Henry Kinney was shot to death in Matamoros at the door of his former lover. For Corpus Christi, the war’s big event was the battle between Union warships and a Confederate shore battery in August 1862. Residents fled to the country before the bombardment.

After Union forces captured Fort Semmes on Mustang Island, Union soldiers raided Corpus Christi for lumber to build huts during a frigid winter. Much of the activity of the war related to the blockade, to Nathaniel Banks’ invasion and occupation of the barrier islands, to the efforts to disrupt the salt traffic from the Laguna Madre, and the Confederate operation to haul cotton down the Cotton Road to Matamoros.

At war’s end, Corpus Christi was in a ruinous state. The population had scattered, stores were closed, houses sat empty, and streets were full of mud and dead dogs. Food was scarce and of the few residents who stayed were on the verge of starvation. But in the spring of 1865, after one of the worst droughts ever, the land was green again and there was peace. The city was beginning to recover from the ravages of war and drought when it suffered a yellow fever epidemic in the summer of 1867, which claimed one out of every 10 residents.

For Corpus Christi, the 1870s ushered in trade based on the sheep and cattle industry in the region. In this period of time, there were 1.2 million sheep in Nueces County and Corpus Christi was a thriving wool market. In shearing season, the streets were crowded with big two-wheeled carts at the stores of wool merchants. In the spring of 1871, the greatest cattle drives in history were made from South Texas to Kansas, with 700,000 head going up the trail.

When beef prices plummeted, cattle drives were not profitable. But huge profits could be made on the hides and tallow. Beef packing houses were built from Corpus Christi to Rockport. The wharfmaster at Corpus Christi reported the shipment in 1872 of 132,000 dry hides, 19,000 wet hides, and 1,225 barrels of tallow. Around the packeries were mountains of rotting meat.

This was a time of bandit raids and cross-border violence. After a drought and freezing winter in 1871, cattle died by the thousands. The skinning season began in the spring of 1872; ranch hands stripped dead cattle of their hides, which were worth more than the whole steer. Hide thieves worked the ranges, killing cattle and skinning them where they fell.

Outrages during these violent times included the murders at the Swift Ranch near Refugio, the Morton store killings at Peñascal on Baffin Bay and the Nuecestown Raid near Corpus Christi. The violence was reciprocated by vigilante riders who were not much concerned about guilt or innocence. Harsh measures were meted out in harsh times.

Capt. Leander McNelly’s Rangers were dispatched to quell the violence.

A New Jersey tycoon, E.H. Ropes, arrived in 1888 and began to promote Corpus Christi as the next Chicago. He had access, he said, to unlimited capital. With borrowed money, he started the Aransas Cliffs development off Ocean Drive, built the Alta Vista Hotel, began dredging a pass across Mustang Island, and started laying track for a railroad. Ropes’ activities set off a fever of speculation. Land that had sold for $8 an acre shot up to $1,000 an acre at the height of the boom.

Then Ropes’ sources of capital dried up in a “money panic.” People who paid stupendous prices for real estate saw their values drop to almost nothing. Ropes left town, his assets were sold for debt, and weeds grew on the grounds of the Alta Vista Hotel. Corpus Christi’s “short century” ended with the end of the Ropes boom.

As for Ropes, he died in New York in 1898 at the age of 53. Corpus Christi hardly noted his passing. The town went into a period of economic stagnation that lasted until 1905, well into the new century, which actually began, I guess, in 1893. Hobsbawm’s method of measuring a century could get a little confusing.