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Corpus Christi
San Antonio Daily Light
San Antonio, Texas
October 10, 1890
CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS
THE
Gem of the Texas Coast
The completion of the ship channel at Ropes Pass will make it the greatest DEEP WATER PORT bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. The settlement of the rich country surrounding Corpus Christi is proceeding at an unprecedented rate. The soil is inexhaustible and is capable of producing three crops of some products per year! This charming sea-side city enjoys the double distinction of being the most superb
WINTER AND SUMMER RESORT
in North America, and it requires on great power provision to see it the home of 50,000 prosperous and intelligent people within the next two years.
AUCTION SALE OF LOTS
The grandest sale of magnificent Business and Residence Lots that has ever been advertised in the Southwest will take place in Corpus Christi on
OCTOBER 22, 1890
ON
THE CLIFFS
The picturesque young city adjoining Corpus Christi, where the AltA
Vista Hotel, a beautiful three-story resort is now being built, to cost
when completed and furnished $125,000, besides many handsome cottages that have also been contracted for and in course of construction, and surrounding which you can buy a lot at your own figure.
An order for seventeen miles of shade trees has been placed wit
the largest nursery in the country, and in a few months this charming young city, with its broad graded streets and ocean drive and a rapid transit railway on its west and 150 square
miles of dancing waves to the east will present a picture beautiful to behold.
TERMS—One-Third Cash, Balance in 10 Years.
REGATTA ON CORPUS CHRISTI BAY! On the 22d October, the day on which the auction sale of lots is to occur, will be held a regatta directly opposite The Cliffs, in which the fasten sailing vessel that ride the salty waves will take part, under management of Captain C. H. Butts.
PORT ARANSAS COMPANY
Port Galveston
The French sailor and pirate Louis-Michel Aury served in the French Navy and on French privateers until 1810 when he had accumulated sufficient funds to purchase his own vessels. In 1813, he was given command over the Grenadine Republic's privateer schooners during which time he successfully ran the Spanish blockade of Cartagena. In 1816, Jose Manuel de Herrera, Mexican rebel envoy, proclaimed Galveston a port of the Mexican republic, made Aury commissioner, and raised the rebel flag over the port city on September 13, 1816.
Aury established a settlement of shacks on the Galveston shores including huts for pirates, a booming slave market, boarding houses for visiting buyers, a shipyard, saloons, pool halls, gambling houses. By 1817, Jean and Pierre Laffite had built their own mansion "Maison Rouge," and established a stronghold on Galveston and Aury resigned his commission. By 1825 Galveston was designated a provision port by the Congress of Mexico and made a home port for the Texas Navy by 1835. By 1900, Galveston was the leading U.S. port for the export of cotton and the third most important for the export of wheat.
Houston
In 1837, the 85-foot-long steamship Laura M. sailed from Galveston Bay up Buffalo Bayou to what is now Houston. (Houston's early settlers actually arrived in small boats that sailed up the bayou which connected the city with Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.) The Laura M's trip, in water no deeper than six feet, proved the bayou was navigable and established a commercial link between Houston and the rest of the world. Like all deepwater ports, the town was plagued early on by the politics of economics when New Orleans' suppliers cut off Houston merchants' credit, then yellow fever wiped out one-tenth of the population. However, the port recovered and by the 1840s, Houston emerged as a commercial center for nearby towns. When Texas joined the Union in 1846, a flow of capital and people to the town built warehouses for storing cotton. Houston developed around the shipping industry which grew into one of the world's major seaports.
