Nueces
County
of
Texas
NUECES
COUNTY. Nueces County (Q-17) is on the Gulf of Mexico
southeast of
San Antonio. It is bounded on the north by the Nueces River and on the
east by
the Laguna Madre, Corpus Christi Bay, and Redfish Bay. San Patricio
County is
on the north border, Jim Wells County on the west, and Kleberg County
on the
south. The county seat and largest city, Corpus Christi, is 210 miles
southwest
of Houston and 145 miles southeast of San Antonio. The center of the
county
lies roughly at 27°44' north latitude and 97°33' west
longitude. Two major
highways serve the county, Interstate 37 and U.S. Highway 77. Two
railroads,
the Missouri Pacific and the Texas-Mexican, cross the county.
Nueces County
comprises 847 square miles of the Coastal
Prairies region. The terrain is generally flat. The elevation ranges
from sea
level to 180 feet above sea level. In the central part of the county
the soil
varies from very dark loams to gray or black cracking clayey soils. In
the west
the soils are light to dark with loamy surfaces and clayey subsoils.
In the coastal region the soils are sandy; in marsh areas the soils are
also
very dark with clayey subsoils. Vegetation
varies
from cordgrasses, salt grasses, and marsh
millet
along the coast to tall grasses, oak, prickly pear, acacias, and
mesquite trees
in the central and western parts of the county. Between 61 and 70
percent of
the land in the county is considered prime farmland. The Nueces River
drains
the northern and western portions of the county, Oso Creek the central
portion,
and San Fernando and Petronila creeks the
southern
portion. The climate is humid-subtropical. Temperatures range from an
average
high of 93° F in July to an average low of 47° in January. The
average annual
rainfall is thirty inches. The growing season extends for an annual
average of
309 days, with the first freeze in December and the last in early
February.
Crops include sorghum, cotton, hay, corn, wheat, watermelons, peaches,
and pecans.
Beef and dairy cattle and hogs are raised.
The area has long been
the site of human habitation.
Archeological artifacts recovered in the region suggest that the
earliest human
beings arrived around 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. Following these
earliest inhabitants
was a culture known as the Aransas. Aransas campsites, some dating back
4,000
years, have been found from Copano Bay, in
Aransas
County, to Baffin Bay, north of Kenedy
County. The
Aransas Indians, a nomadic hunter-gatherer people, appear to have left
the Gulf
Coast around A.D. 1200-1300. The region apparently remained uninhabited
for 100
years, until the ancestors of the Karankawas
moved
there around A.D. 1,400. During historic times, the Coastal Bend area
was
occupied by several groups of Indians: the Coahuiltecans,
Karankawas, Lipan Apaches, and Tonkawas.
These groups were subdivided into numerous smaller bands: the Atakapa, Borado, Cavas, Capoque, Emet, Kohani, Kopani, Malaquite, Payaya,
Sana, Tamique, and others. These nomadic
hunter-gatherers shared
a common linguistic basis but did not form larger alliances. After the
arrival
of Europeans most fled, succumbed to disease, or were absorbed by other
indigenous groups; by the mid-1800s virtually all trace of them had
disappeared.
The earliest Europeans
to reach the area of the future
Nueces County may have been the party of Alonzo Alvarez de Pineda, who
reputedly reached Corpus Christi Bay on the feast of Corpus Christi,
1519.
Conclusive evidence, however, is lacking because the records of his
expedition
are lost. Nine years later Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and
his crew were
shipwrecked on the Texas coast. Although Cabeza
de Vaca's exact route is unknown,
historians believe that some
members of his party skirted Corpus Christi Bay. The Spanish, however,
largely
ignored Texas until the French, under René Robert Cavelier,
Sieur de La Salle, established a colony in
the region
in 1685. Spanish authorities dispatched an expedition to the region in
1689
under Alonso De León, the governor of Coahuila. Corpus Christi
Bay, however,
remained unknown and unexplored until 1747, when Joaquín
Prudencio de Orobio
y Basterra, captain of the presidio at La
Bahía, led an
expedition down the Nueces River to its mouth, where he arrived on
February 26.
After his return, José de Escandón,
governor and
captain general of Nuevo Santander, proposed to found a settlement
called Villa
de Vedoya at the mouth of the Nueces.
Indians living
in the area were to be served by a mission named Nuestra
Señora del
Soto. In the
summer of 1749 fifty families accompanied by a squadron of soldiers and
two
priests set out, but because of drought and poor provisions they never
reached
their goal. Several other attempts were made to found a colony at the
mouth of
the Nueces, but not until the 1760s, when ranchers from Camargo, Nuevo
Santander (now Tamaulipas), pushed northward in search of new grazing
lands,
did the first Spanish settlers reach the area. The first settlement was
founded
by Blas María de la Garza
Falcón, captain of Camargo,
who in 1766 established a ranch called Santa Petronila,
on Petronila Creek. In
1787 Manuel
de Escandón, the son of José
de Escandón,
proposed another settlement at the mouth of the Nueces, but the project
never
advanced beyond the planning stages. In the late 1780s and early
1790s
Spanish authorities also considered moving Nuestra
Señora del
Refugio Mission to the
mouth of the Nueces, but abandoned the idea because of continuing
friction with
the Lipan Apaches. At the end of the eighteenth century ranchers from
the Rio
Grande valley began applying for and receiving land grants in the lower
Nueces
valley. By 1794 a large ranch belonging to Juan Barrera and known as
Rancho de
Santa Gertrudis was in operation on the
north side of
Corpus Christi Bay. Between 1800 and the end of Spanish dominion much
of what
is now Nueces County was granted to ranching families, most of whom
were
related by marriage. In 1812, after an Indian uprising, the colonists
abandoned
the area and sought refuge in the Rio Grande valley. The colonists
returned,
but repeated skirmishes with the Indians continued until about 1824,
when peace
was made with the Comanches and Lipans.
After Mexican independence, the region became part of Tamaulipas.
During the
period from 1829 to 1836 most of the land in the lower Nueces valley
that had
not been granted under Spanish rule was deeded to individuals by the Tamaulipan government.
In 1830 new attempts
were made to establish colonies in the
area. Gen. Manuel de Mier y Terán
proposed founding two towns near the mouth of the Nueces. One
settlement was to
be located at the site of present-day Corpus Christi, but it was never
realized. The other settlement, however, a military post known as Fort Lipantitlán, was established in 1831 in
the northwestern
part of the future county at the point where the road from Matamoros to
Goliad
crossed the river. During the remaining years of Mexican rule no other
towns
were established on the west bank of the Nueces, but in the 1820s two
Irish
colonies were founded on the east side of the river under contracts
issued to
James Power and James Hewetsonqqv
by the
state of Coahuila and Texas. In 1828 John McMullen and James McGloinqqv obtained a grant to settle
a tract of
land along the east side of the Nueces ten leagues west of the coast.
Later,
some of these colonists and their descendents
moved
west of the river.
During the 1830s two
further unsuccessful attempts were
made to establish colonies at the mouth of the Nueces. German nobleman
Baron
Johan von Raiknitz attempted to found a
German
settlement on the west bank of the Nueces, but the ship carrying the
colonists
was prevented from landing by the French during the so-called "Pastry
War" between France and Mexico. A second ship transporting colonists
from
Germany was shipwrecked. Around the same time abolitionist Benjamin
Lundy
proposed to established a colony for freed
slaves, but
the plans were abandoned after the outbreak of the Texas Revolution.
During the
revolution, Texans under Ira Westover captured the Indian village of Lipantitlán, which was later occupied by
Francis W. Johnson
and the New Orleans Greys.qqv
After the
revolution, the area south and west of the Nueces River was a
no-man's-land.
Texas claimed the territory, but Mexico said it was part of Tamaulipas.
Neither
exercised effective control. Both Texan and Mexican raiding parties
made
periodic forays into the region between 1838 and 1841. Mexican
Federalist
forces twice sought sanctuary at Fort Lipantitlán
in
the late 1830s, and in 1838 Gen. Antonio Canales organized his army for
the
Republic of the Rio Grande nearby.
During this period
both Mexican and Texan merchants engaged
in illegal trading in the Nueces valley. Among the most prominent of
these was
Henry Lawrence Kinney, who established a trading post and fort on
Corpus
Christi Bay in 1839. The land belonged to Capt. Enrique Villarealqv,
a rancher from Matamoros, who had obtained it in 1832. Villareal
led a force of 300 men to confront Kinney in 1841. Kinney, however,
managed to
negotiate an agreement and purchase the land from him. The small
settlement
soon became the focus of trade in the area. Repeated attacks by Mexican
bands
forced Kinney to abandon the post in 1842, but he returned a short time
later
and reestablished his trading business. A post office opened in 1842
with
William P. Aubrey as its postmaster. The population of the small
settlement—now
known as Corpus Christi—boomed briefly when Gen. Zachary Taylor's
army arrived
there in September 1845, but it quickly shrank again after the Mexican
War.
Nueces County,
including the entire area south of Bexar
County west to the Rio Grande and east to the Gulf of Mexico, was
formed from
San Patricio County in 1846 and organized the same year. Corpus
Christi, which
was incorporated in 1846, became the county seat. The population of the
county,
however, remained small. Although large numbers of fortune-seekers
passed
through Corpus Christi to join wagon trains heading west during the
California
gold rush of 1849, few settlers put down roots. Continuous Indian
attacks and
the relative isolation of the region kept away most would-be settlers.
The
first census of the county in 1850 showed a population of 689. Between
1850 and
1861 the Nueces County area was further divided to form several new
counties.
Kinney, who continued
to promote Corpus Christi, organized
a major fair in the town in 1852, reportedly the first state fair in
Texas.
Despite extensive preparations, however, it proved to be a failure. Two
years
later, yellow fever decimated the population. Nonetheless, the early
1850s saw
the construction of a county courthouse and jail and the beginnings of
regular
county government.
The mainstay of the
local economy in late antebellum Texas
remained ranching. Between the Texas Revolution and the late 1840s the
area's
ranches had been virtually abandoned. After the Mexican War the land
grants of
Mexican ranchers in the region were gradually acquired by Anglos who
reestablished the cattle and horse industries. Tax rolls in 1848
reported only
647 cattle and nineteen horses. By 1860, however, records showed 56,454
cattle
and 8,554 horses and mules worth an estimated $489,520. Farming was not
extensive and was only for subsistence.
During the early years
of the Civil War, Corpus Christi was
an important center for Confederate commerce. In 1859 no fewer than
forty-five
small vessels carried trade between Corpus Christi and Indianola. Small
boats
sailing inside the barrier islands transported goods from the Brazos
River to
the Rio Grande, while inland cotton was moved along the Cotton Road
through Banquete to Matamoros and the
mills of England. In an
effort to halt the trade, Union forces seized control of Mustang Island
in the
fall of 1863. Corpus Christi was twice bombarded by federal gunboats,
but the
overland trade continued without interruption until the end of the war.
Although Nueces County
escaped the destruction that
devastated other parts of the South, the war years were difficult for
the
county's citizens, who were thwarted by the lack of markets and the
wild
fluctuations in Confederate currency, as well as by concern for
combatants.
After the war Nueces County residents experienced a protracted period
of
lawlessness and violence. Although the black population before the war
had been
very small and no Ku Klux Klan chapter was organized in the county
during
Reconstruction, political violence was commonplace, as Republicans and
former
Confederates struggled for control. Turmoil continued along the Mexican
border,
and cattle rustling and raids by bandits were frequent problems. In the
end,
however, because of its relatively small population, Nueces County was
spared
much of the fighting that other Texas counties experienced, and order
was
generally restored by the early 1870s.
The war and its
aftermath also had a less serious effect on
the county's economy than was the case in much of Texas. Land prices
fell
significantly, from fifty cents an acre in 1860 to twenty-eight cents
an acre
in 1869. But the boom in the cattle industry in the early 1870s helped
Nueces
County to overcome the postwar economic depression. In 1871 local tax
rolls
showed 218,969 cattle worth more than $942,000, more than four times
the number
from 1860. The cattle were shipped to market by two main routes: by
water to
New Orleans and Havana, or overland to Kansas, where they were shipped
by rail
to the East. During the early 1870s some ten meat-packing plants
operated in
Nueces County, but most were closed by the middle of the decade because
the
cattle drives proved to be more profitable.
Mustangs and other
horses also contributed to the county's
new prosperity; in 1871 there were 34,077 horses and mules in the
county. But
the greatest competition to the cattle industry came from sheep
ranching.
Before the ranges were fenced, Nueces County was an important center
for wool
production. During the late antebellum period, the number of sheep had
been
relatively small, with some 35,000 reported in 1860. By 1871, 363,835
sheep
were counted, and by 1876 the number of sheep topped 650,000. In 1875
and 1876
the assessed value of sheep in the county actually exceeded that of
cattle.
Falling wool prices in the 1880s, however, and the advent of fencing
eventually
caused the sheep industry to decline. But for a number of years between
the
mid-1870s and early 1880s Nueces County led all Texas counties in the
number of
sheep and cattle.
During the latter half
of the nineteenth and the early
twentieth centuries, the population of Nueces County grew markedly,
particularly in the decade after the turn of the century. In 1860 the
county
had only 2,906 residents, but the number increased rapidly in the
post-Civil
War years, to 3,975 in 1870, 7,673 in 1880, 8,093 in 1890, 10,439 in
1900, and
21,955 in 1910. Much of the population was centered in and around
Corpus Christi, which gradually emerged as the commercial hub of the
region. As
the city grew in importance as a shipping center, efforts were made to
improve
access to the ocean. In 1874 the main sea channel was dredged to a
depth of
eight feet to allow large steamers to navigate. During the mid-1870s
construction also began on the county's first railroad, a narrow-gauge
line
from Corpus Christi to Laredo. After its completion in 1881 a second
line was
begun, the San Antonio and Aransas Pass, which was completed in 1886
and
extended from Corpus Christi to San Antonio.
The mid-1880s also
witnessed the beginnings of cash-crop
agriculture in Nueces County. During the late 1870s and early 1880s
livestock raising in some areas of the
county began to be supplanted
by more traditional farming, particularly of cotton and vegetables. The
growth
of such farms began the breakup of the huge expanses of pastureland in
the
county and spelled the beginning of the end of the old cattle-ranching
life. In
1889, 1,010 bales of cotton were produced; by 1910 the figure had grown
to
8,566, and by 1930 Nueces County was among the leading cotton-producing
counties in the state, with 148,442 bales.
Although cotton was
the dominant crop during the early
decades of the twentieth century, Nueces County farmers also produced
large
quantities of vegetables, including cabbage, onions, spinach, carrots,
cucumbers, and turnips. The transition to cash-crop farming brought
dramatic
changes in land tenure. While large ranchers had predominated during
the
antebellum and early postwar period, by the turn of the century the
land was
increasingly worked by tenant farmers. In 1910, when agriculture was
still
developing in the county, only 35.3 percent of farmers were tenants,
below the
statewide average of 52.6. By 1925, however, 76.4 percent of all Nueces
County
farmers were tenants. The majority of the leaseholders were Anglos, but
much of
the labor was performed by Mexican Americans who were poorly paid and
frequently lived in poverty.
During the 1920s
agricultural mechanization began in the
county. Tractors and other machines appeared in increasing numbers, and
by the
eve of World War II Nueces County farms were among the most mechanized
in the
state. The onset of the Great Depression, falling cotton prices, and
the
arrival of the boll weevil brought new hardships for county farmers.
Many were
forced to move to the cities. The total number of farms in the county
fell from
a high of 1,969 in 1930 to 1,306 in 1950. Cotton production, which had
peaked
during the mid-1920s at more than 100,000 bales a year, fell markedly
during
the 1930s and early 1940s. In 1945, only 46,000 bales were ginned.
Cotton
farming rebounded in the late 1940s, and in 1949 production once again
topped
the 100,000-bale mark. Since that time cotton production has declined,
though
it remains a significant part of the county's agricultural receipts.
Truck
farming flourished in the 1950s, but was afterward increasingly
replaced by
sorghum, which in the 1980s and 1990s was the county's largest crop.
The
decline in cotton and truck farming in the post-World War II era also
forced
many tenant farmers to leave the land or to hire out as agricultural
workers.
In the 1980s the economic base of the county, outside of the Corpus
Christi
area, was still overwhelmingly agricultural. In 1982, 85 percent of the
county
was in farms and ranches, with 77 percent of the land under cultivation
and 1
percent irrigated. Nueces County ranked twenty-ninth in the state in
agricultural receipts, with some 87 percent coming from crops.
Another important
sector of the Nueces County economy in
the twentieth century has been oil and natural gas. In 1922 natural gas
was
discovered in Nueces County, and a few years later several major
oilfields were
developed. Gas-recycling plants and carbon black plants, as well as oil
refineries, are located in the county. Total oil production in the
county from
1930 to January 1, 1989, was 533,831,701 barrels. Soda and salts of
several
varieties are produced from raw materials chiefly from Duval County.
Other industries
include a Celanese chemical plant and copper and lead refineries.
In 1926 the port of
Corpus Christi was opened. The
legislature made the port a state project by allocating the taxes from
seven
adjacent counties for the construction of breakwaters, jetties, and
other
ancillary improvements. The channel from the Gulf of Mexico to the
turning
basin is a part of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, which connects the
port with
cities of the Mississippi valley as well as with foreign markets and
makes it potentially
one of the chief ports of America. In 1935 the depth of the channel was
increased to thirty-five feet so that large ships could be
accommodated. The
1930s and 1940s also brought improvements in the transportation network
of the
county. By 1940 most of the major roads in the county were paved, and
U.S.
Highway 77 and State highways 44 and 286 had given farmers better
access to
markets.
The military
importance of the area has been recognized
since the time of the Mexican War, when Fort Marcy, the first federal
post
activated on Texas soil, was established. At one time Nueces County had
five
federal forts; Corpus Christi was a supply depot until 1857. On March
12, 1941,
with the establishment of the Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi, the
town became
the home of the so-called "University of the Air."
Since World War I
Nueces County has
shown a remarkable growth in population, increasing from 22,807
residents in
1920 to 165,471 in 1950 and to 237,544 in 1970. In 1991 the reported
population
of the county was 296,527. Hispanics were about 50.5 percent of the population, non-Hispanic whites 44.1 percent, and
African
Americans 4.4 percent. The largest towns were Corpus Christi, Robstown,
Port
Aransas, and North San Pedro. During the early 1980s the county had
thirteen
school districts with sixty elementary, twenty middle, and fifteen high
schools, as well as six special-education schools.
From the time of
annexation to the 1950s, Nueces County
remained solidly Democratic. Dwight D. Eisenhower won by a small margin
in
1956, but Republicans otherwise failed to receive a majority of the
county's
votes until the election of 1972, when Richard Nixon defeated George
McGovern,
41,682 to 33,277. Subsequently Democrats won the county in every
presidential
election except 1984, when Ronald Reagan outpolled Walter Mondale by a
small
margin.
The total number of
businesses in the county in the early
1980s was 6,425. In 1980, 7 percent of workers were self-employed, 20
percent
in professional or related services, 12 percent in manufacturing, 23
percent in
wholesale or retail trade, and 10 percent in construction. In addition
5
percent were employed in other counties, and 14,911 retired workers
lived in
the county. Leading industries included tourism, agribusiness, general
and
heavy construction, oil and gas field services, meat packing,
soft-drink
bottling and canning, commercial printing, petroleum refining, ship
building
and repairing, and zinc refining. Also important were manufacturers of
dairy
products, bakery products, men's and women's clothing, plastics and
resins,
cement and ready-mix concrete, prefabricated metal buildings, oilfield
machinery, and electronic components. Leading attractions in Nueces
County
include Padre Island National Seashore, Mustang Island State Park, the
Texas
State Aquarium, the Art Museum of South Texas,qqv and the USS Lexington,
a World
War II aircraft carrier-museum in Corpus Christi Bay.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Eugenia
Reynolds Briscoe, City by the Sea: A History of Corpus Christi,
Texas,
1519-1875 (New York: Vantage, 1985). Marvin
Lee Deviney, The History of Nueces County
to 1850 (M.A. thesis,
University of Texas, 1935). Frontier Times, April 1949.
Coleman McCampbell, "Nueces County
Originally Covered Vast
Area," Frontier Times, April 1935. Marker Files, Texas
Historical
Commission, Austin. Mrs. S. G. Miller, Sixty
Years in the
Nueces Valley, 1870 to 1930 (San Antonio: Naylor, 1930).
Glenn A.
Mitchell, The Geography of Nueces County, Texas (M.A. thesis,
University of
Texas, 1959). Margaret Sellers, The History of
Public Schools
in Nueces County (M.A. thesis, Texas College of Arts and Industries,
1957).
Paul Schuster Taylor, An
American-Mexican
Frontier, Nueces County, Texas (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina
Press, 1934). Frank Wagner, ed., Fires and
Hard Times
(Corpus Christi: Friends of the Corpus Christi Museum, 1982).
Bill Walraven, Corpus Christi: The
History of a Texas Seaport
(Woodland Hills, California, 1982). Bill Walraven,
El
Rincon: A History of Corpus Christi Beach (Corpus Christi: Texas
State
Aquarium, 1990).
Christopher Long
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Nueces
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