Nueces Hotel

In the early 1900s, leading Corpus Christi citizens realized that the city needed such a hotel to attract tourists and business and decided to build one downtown.

It had a classical-style lobby with Corinthian columns, decorated ceilings, and marble and tile floors, that was furnished with huge, plush chairs and couches.

The sun parlor had fine brickwork, potted plants, area rugs, and wicker furniture, and tall windows admitted abundant daylight, creating a pleasant dining experience with an outdoor atmosphere and indoor comfort; the tropical outdoor garden let guests and others enjoy their meals among palm trees, sheltered by walls from the street and from the prevailing winds that cooled the east lobby.

In 1940, Peoples Street reached to the T-head, a paved parking area shaped like a letter T extending out on the water for fishing and boat slips.

These were not considered demeaning jobs; bellhop Lincoln Daniels started a long career there in 1914 and as bell captain was liked and trusted by staff and guests.

Microfilm newspapers from the era, preserved in the Corpus Christi Central Library, list advertising that shows prices.

In addition to fine food, the Nueces provided professional entertainment, with dances on summer nights and weekends year round.

A newspaper ad from 1915 promises that Gayle Forbush and Morgan Wheeler of New York City, doubtless well known entertainers in the early 1900s, would perform exhibition dancing daily from 7 to 9 pm.

Soon after the hotel opened, a tightwire, or tightrope walker crossed Peoples Street six floors up from the City National Bank to the Nueces.

Pat Dunn, known as "the Duke of Padre Island" because he had owned much of the land there that later became county and federal parks and housing subdivisions, finally moved into town and lived at the Nueces.

Downtown was left a jumbled mass of lumber, masonry and glass, vehicles and boats, and often oil-drenched bodies of people and animals, with only the strongest structures remaining.

In 1939, when the Naval Air Station was being built, so many people came to work on it that the hotels were full and the Nueces set up extra beds in the Sun Room.

Riding with her father on a Sunday night, she sees the town dark and only the hotel's "flickering" neon sign is on, casting alternate red and blue light on the sidewalk.

During the 1950s, the Nueces began to lose out to the new crop of hotels and motels, perhaps making less and less of the money needed to maintain it, and suffering the occasional battering by hurricanes.

The Jones heirs finally decided to sell it, and in 1961, Joseph Barshop of San Antonio bought it, operating it as a hotel until 1967, when it became a retirement home.

The storm knocked down brick walls and flung signs, pieces of metal, wooden timbers, and other debris through the air and sometimes through buildings.

The fixtures and various items such as ash trays and dinnerware bearing the hotel name were sold to the public, and some things such as the lobby clock and the "flickering" neon sign ending up in the Corpus Christi Museum.

On the site, Barshop built a new inn, the La Quinta Royale, which opened in September 1973 with Mayor Jason Luby cutting the ribbon.