The photograph below was recently posted in the "Corpus Christi, Texas History" group by John. L. Gower, the photographer, who took the photo around 1980.
North Beach Fire Station, Corpus Christi, Texas. Photograph taken on Kodak slide film ABT 1980 by John L. Gower. Used with his permission.
One can tell from its proximity to the Harbor Bridge that this is near the south end of the North Beach area in Corpus Christi. Of course, I wanted to know exactly where it was, and when it was built.*
It doesn't appear on the
January 1927 or 1931 Sanborn maps (the latter available through the
TexShare databases). It is listed in the 1940 Corpus Christi City Directory (
available on Ancestry dot com) as Fire Station No. 4 at 213 Bessie Street, so that told me it was built between 1931 and 1940.
Newspaper articles in the 1937 Corpus Christi Times (available at Ancestry dot com and Newpapers dot com) indicate the building was constructed that year. (*If you look closely above the door on the right in John's photograph, the "37" is visible.)
Final confirmation of the location came from the May 1950 Sanborn maps (also available in the TexShare Texas Digital Sanborn Maps database, a part of
Proquest Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970). Below is a snip of the relevant section of Sheet 63 of that series of maps:
Bessie Street was the southernmost east-west street on North Beach, and is long gone, now part of the Texas State Aquarium grounds. Hamilton Street has had
numerous names over the years, known at various times as Avenue B, N. Water, and today, Surfside (on the southern end of North Beach). All of this area is now part of the Texas State Aquarium grounds.
I haven't yet been able to determine exactly when the North Beach Fire Station ceased operations and was torn down. According to commenters in the Corpus Christi Facebook group, it served as the city fire department's training facility at least from the late 1960s through early 1970s - jokingly called "NBU," for North Beach University.
The land for the Aquarium was cleared by the end of 1988.
The May 1950 Sanborn map also includes a filling (gas) station across Bessie from the fire station, at the corner with Hamilton. I have to wonder if it is this one:
According to photographer Jay Phagan, who took this image after Hurricane Allen in August 1980, it was "on the south end of Corpus Christi Beach (North Beach) - now part of the aquarium grounds." There's a "319" painted on the column on the left in the photograph, but so far that hasn't helped me figure out where this was. More research!
© Amanda Pape - 2023 -
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