Corpus Christi History by Murphy Givens

City's most famous hotel was St. James

Corpus Christi's first major hotel was the St. James, an oasis for cowboys and ranchers and famous throughout Texas.
   It was built in 1869 by builder E.D. Sidbury for J.T. James, who owned a cattle ranch on Mustang Island.
   The St. James was on the corner of Lawrence and Chaparral, the site once occupied by the Union Theater built in 1845. Shortly after it opened, James sold the hotel to William Rogers. Rooms in 1870 cost $1 to $2. Beginning in 1877, the hotel was run by William Biggio, a veteran of the Confederate Navy.
   Politicians, gamblers, and gunfighters stayed at the St. James. A Caller-Times article in 1937 said:
   "While governors and congressmen banqueted in the dining rooms, gamblers and cow punchers faced each other across tables in back rooms - with poker chips drawn up in neat stacks before them and loaded revolvers beside them. John Hardin, outlaw who was later killed in El Paso, was often at the hotel. Another frequent customer was Ben Thompson, one of the worst of Texas many desperadoes." The St. James was torn down in 1937.
   The Crescent Hotel was built on Chaparral in the 1870s. It was called the Steen Hotel after 1883, after its manager, one-legged ship captain Fred Steen, who was famous locally for having once seen Napoleon.
   The Constantine was built in 1890 at Mesquite and Lawrence by Nick Constantine. It was sold to Justina (Bluntzer) Stevens, who renamed it the Bidwell. The new owner converted one of the 25 bedrooms into a bathroom. The newspaper reported that "this is a place in which you are supposed to wash yourself all over in a tub. There is such a thing as being too nice. This craze about washing all over has even spread to Brownsville. . . ."
   President William Howard Taft had been expected to put up at the Bidwell on his visit to Corpus Christi in 1909, but he decided to stay at La Quinta, his brother's house on the Taft Ranch. The hotel had ordered an extra large bathtub to accommodate the president. The Bidwell was turned into a furniture showroom in the 1940s and torn down in 1999.
   The city's first resort hotel was the fancy, 125-room Alta Vista, built in 1890 by E. H. Ropes on a point overlooking the bay south of town. Ropes went broke and the unfinished hotel became a derelict. It reopened briefly after the turn of the century, before it burned in a spectacular fire in 1927.
   The Miramar, another resort hotel, was built on North Beach. Three months after it opened in May, 1891, it burned to the ground.
   The beginning of the tourist industry is usually linked to the opening of the Seaside Hotel at Water and Taylor. Jack Ennis, a Beaumont oilman, bought the old John Dix home, built in 1845, enlarged it, and turned it into the Seaside Hotel, which was shaded by a grove of salt cedars.
   Guests could sit in the shade under a roof of cedar limbs and watch sailboats on the bay. This was a fancy place for Corpus Christi in the early 1900s. It was famous for its food. Featured items on a menu in 1908 included "Stuffed Red Head Duck with French Dressing" and "Broiled Oysters a la Maitre d'Hotel."
   Capt. Andy Anderson once told this story about "Old Jack" Ennis. He was sweeping the cement floor under the salt cedars when a woman guest mistook Ennis for a hired hand. She asked him how much he earned and he said, "Oh, about enough for my tobacco." She gave him two dollars and told him to buy something for himself. He said nothing about being the owner of the hotel, but when she checked out, she discovered her bill had been cancelled. "No woman as kind-hearted as you," Ennis told her, "shall pay a cent at my hotel."
   Ennis also built the Seaside Pavilion in 1909 on a pier off Taylor Street. This was a mixture of hotel, dance hall, and carnival. Rooms cost 75 cents a day. Both Seaside hotels were damaged in the 1916 storm and then washed away in the great storm of 1919.
   This is the second of three columns. Part three will appear in this space next Wednesday.
  
   Murphy Givens can be reached by phone at 886-4315 or by e-mail at givensm@caller.com.
  
  
  

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