Gutzon Borglum and the Corpus Christi Bayfront

Borglum's bayfront plan was one stop in a Texas career. He moved to San Antonio in 1925 to model the Trail Drivers monument; money ran short, and it was not cast until 1940, at a quarter of the planned size. He lived at the Menger Hotel, then home to several artists. His Corpus Christi design, shown in 1928 as a 175-foot plaster model at the Nueces Hotel, would have cost $1.25 million and left out the municipal pier. The bond election never happened: the mayor canceled it, reportedly because he preferred a dam.

What the plaque says

Gutzon Borglum and the Corpus Christi Bayfront Well-known in San Antonio for his "Trail Drivers" sculpture on permanent display inside the Witte Museum, Danish-American artist Gutzon Borglum (1867-1941) made several proposals to the city of Corpus Christi in the early twentieth century for the beautification of the Bayfront. In 1928, he arrived in the area at the request of the city's Chamber of Commerce in order to plan for the incorporation of practical and visual improvements to the beach front. Eager to begin this project, Borglum generously offered his services at no cost to the city. He designed a promenade that would incorporate a system of parks and boulevards in addition to an improved seawall. Impressed at learning that Corpus Christi was the only city in the United States to bear that name, he sought to include a 32-foot-high Christ statue. Anchored in the seawall itself, the sculpture would appear to be walking on water with its hands upraised as though protecting the city from inclement weather. In preparation for carrying out his proposals for Corpus Christi, Borglum toured Gulf Coast cities in order to identify other effective examples of harbor improvement. In the spring of 1928, city property holders approved part of his plan, but a subsequent bond election for the entire proposal was cancelled. A further attempt by the sculptor to secure new deal funds for the Bayfront was unsuccessful. Ultimately, his plans for sculpting four of the nation's foremost presidents onto Mount Rushmore redirected Borglum's attention away from Corpus Christi and its needed seawall. (2016)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mirador de la Flor — steps away
  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.
• Art Museum of South Texas — 1.0 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 — 1.3 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 — 1.3 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.

More markers nearby

• 1941 Corpus Christi Seawall — steps away
• 1966 Farm Workers Rally and March — steps away
• Site of Old Salt Mill — steps away
• The Ranchero — steps away