Historical Marker
Centennial Memorial Museum
Corpus Christi, Nueces County · Texas
Erected 2013
Corpus Christi's museum was one of many monuments the state helped pay for in 1936. Texas had planned its centennial since 1923, and a Commission of Control worked with historians, the WPA and the Highway Department to leave permanent buildings behind. The Corpus Christi Centennial Museum shared that list with the Panhandle-Plains museum at Canyon, the Texas Memorial Museum in Austin, the Alamo Museum and the San Jacinto Monument. Every county also got a marker for its founding date and name. Dallas won the main exposition by offering $7,791,000.
What the plaque says
Centennial Memorial Museum The Centennial Memorial Museum was built as part of a statewide commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of Texas Independence. In 1935, the Centennial Advisory Board of Nueces County discussed plans for the centennial. Original plans centered on hosting the annual splash days event and a historical pageant. However, the idea of a museum soon offered educational possibilities, promotion of regional history, increased tourism and a new community center. In 1938, the city of Corpus Christi donated a site within South Bluff Park and offered $1,200 toward the cost of the building. The commission of control allocated $4,000 and the citizens of the area donated over $1,000. Construction began in December 1938 and was completed on May 18, 1940. As a one-story 60 by 40 foot building, the museum was limited in space. Initially, Mary Louise Degarmo (d.1953), the historian on the committee, planned for a three-in-one museum highlighting history, art and science. Cattle brands, model airplanes, boat models, photography and geological exhibits promoted the uniqueness of the region. Art exhibits at the museum continued to grow as community participation in art also grew. After World War II, when the museum was used as a military support facility and the exhibits were removed, only the art component of the museum remained, as the history and science components were moved to a new location. In 1944, with the creation of the Corpus Christi Art Foundation, the museum changed its name to the Centennial Art Museum. The museum continued to be a vital cultural force in the community until space limitations forced the art museum's relocation to the art and science park on Shoreline Boulevard. (2013)
Where it stands
27.78624, -97.39985 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Mirador de la Flor — 0.9 miCorpus Christi's bayfront memorial to Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, the Tejano singer from this city, killed in 1995 at twenty-three, visited by about thirty thousand people a year.
- Art Museum of South Texas — 1.7 miPhilip Johnson's 1972 museum on the Corpus Christi bayfront, joined in 2006 by Ricardo Legorreta's Miller Wing, holding more than 2,000 works mostly from Texas and the Americas.
- Texas State Aquarium — 2.0 miA nonprofit aquarium on the tip of Corpus Christi Beach built around the Gulf and the Caribbean, with the largest coastal wildlife rescue center in Texas behind the exhibits.
- USS Lexington Museum on the Bay — 2.1 miAn Essex-class carrier of 1943 moored off North Beach, the Blue Ghost that Tokyo Rose kept reporting sunk, and the Navy's training carrier for nearly three decades after.