Lone Star Fair

Kinney's next scheme was larger. In 1855 he and Joseph Fabens organized a colony for Nicaragua, were arrested in New York over the Neutrality Act, and he slipped out of the city on bail. In August he wrote that he stood on Central American soil with a hundred men. His followers elected him governor, but William Walker's regime annexed his domain in February 1856. The Handbook of Texas says the venture left him financially ruined. He was killed in a gunfight between local factions in Matamoros on March 3, 1862.

What the plaque says

Lone Star Fair Henry L. Kinney (b. 1814), founder of Corpus Christi, began by October 1851 to organize the Lone Star Fair to boost local economy. The fair was publicized to attract new settlers to the area, but was a thinly-veiled attempt to recruit men for the army of Gen. Jose J.M. Carbajal, a Virginia-educated revolutionary who was trying to liberate northern Mexico. Kinney called on Dr. Ashbel Smith of Galveston, Governor P.H. Bell, and ex-governors J.P. Henderson and G.T. Wood to help promote the fair. Kinney advertised internationally and went deeply into debt to build the facilities. When the fair opened, May 1, 1852, main attractions included races on a new racetrack, bullfights by the noted Mexico City Matador, Don Camarena, the popular Maltby's Circus, a theatrical troupe from New Orleans, philosophical oratory, stock and agricultural shows, and exhibitions of horsemanship and wild bull riding, with prizes for all competitive events. Kinney planned for an attendance of 30,000, but only 2,000 visitors appeared. The failure of the fair was attributed to the remoteness of Corpus Christi, poor transportation, and the revolutionary activity the fair supported. The venture bankrupted Kinney and he soon departed for Nicaragua to recoup his fortunes. (1973)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mirador de la Flor — 0.3 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.
• 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 — 1.2 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

• Mother Margaret Mary Healy Murphy — steps away
• John Bernard Murphy — steps away
• Site of the Corpus Christi Lighthouse — steps away
• Old St. Patrick's Church — steps away