Corpus Christi and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway

The canal Corpus Christi celebrates was an old idea that waited more than a century for money. Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin sketched a coastwise canal system in 1808, and Secretary of War John Calhoun urged the Army engineers to build one in 1819. Congress authorized a survey from Donaldsonville, Louisiana, to the Rio Grande in 1873, but railroads fought water competition and wars kept turning attention elsewhere. The channel reached Corpus Christi Bay by 1941 and was enlarged and extended to the Brownsville Ship Channel by 1949. Texas took over sponsorship of the main channel only in 1975.

What the plaque says

Corpus Christi and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway CORPUS CHRISTI AND THE GULF INTRACOASTAL WATERWAY THE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR BROUGHT THE U.S. INTO WORLD WAR II. NEW NAVAL TECHNOLOGY AND THE APPEARANCE OF GERMAN U-BOATS MEANT THAT AMERICA WAS VULNERABLE TO SEA-BORNE ATTACKS. CORPUS CHRISTI HAD OIL WHICH WOULD ALLEVIATE THE EAST COAST SHORTAGE AND HAD THE ABILITY TO SHIP OVER ONE MILLION TONS OF CARGO. WITH THE CREATION OF THE GULF INTRACOASTAL WATERWAY, SOON TO BE KNOWN AS THE CANAL, CORPUS CHRISTI BECAME AN ACTIVE AND EFFECTIVE PARTICIPANT IN WORLD WAR II BY LINKING ITS PORT TO HARBORS NORTH, SOUTH AND EAST OF TEXAS. IN 1905, CLARENCE S.E. HOLLAND CALLED FOR A CONFERENCE IN VICTORIA TO ESTABLISH AN INTRACOASTAL WATERWAY LOBBY. HE ENVISIONED A CANAL LINKING THE RIO GRANDE AND MISSISSIPPI RIVERS. THE INLAND WATERWAY LEAGUE, LATER RENAMED THE INTRACOASTAL CANAL ASSOCIATION OF LOUISIANA AND TEXAS (ICALT), WAS FORMED. IT WASN'T UNTIL 1930 THAT EASEMENTS WERE ACQUIRED TO SECURE PROPERTY FOR THE CANAL. ENGINEER GEORGE HOFFMAN'S CONCEPT FOR A LAND ROUTE WOULD PROTECT THE SHIPS FROM STORM CONDITIONS IN THE BAY, AND LATER, FROM THE ENEMY. BY 1944, THE CANAL WAS CARRYING OVER 900 OIL-LADEN VESSELS FROM CORPUS CHRISTI TO THE EAST COAST, AND BY THE END OF 1945, INTRACOASTAL WATERWAY SHIPMENTS TOTALED OVER ONE MILLION TONS. AS THE NATION ENTERED THE COLD WAR YEARS, PRODUCT WAS STEADILY MOVING OUT OF THE CANAL TO PROCESSING CENTERS IN OTHER STATES. BY THE END OF 1951, IT WAS CARRYING OVER 25% OF THE PORT OF CORPUS CHRISTI'S TOTAL TONNAGE. POPULATION ALSO INCREASED WITH THE CREATION OF THE CANAL. NUECES COUNTY GREW 80% AND CAMERON COUNTY GREW BY HALF. (2012)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Art Museum of South Texas — 0.2 mi
  Philip 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 — 0.3 mi
  A 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 — 0.5 mi
  An 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.
• Mirador de la Flor — 1.1 mi
  Corpus 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.

More markers nearby

• Early History of Port of Corpus Christi — steps away
• Nueces County — steps away
• Corpus Christi Longshoremen's Unions — 0.2 mi
• Jalufka-Govatos House — 0.4 mi