Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi traces back to 1839, when Henry Lawrence Kinney established a trading post on Corpus Christi Bay. The city was formally incorporated in 1852.

On September 14, 1919, a catastrophic hurricane struck the city with an 11.5-foot storm surge. The official count was 284 dead, but the true toll is believed to be far higher, as bodies were swept into the bay and many victims were never identified.

The city's answer to the tragedy was the seawall. A three-year project (1939–1941), the mile-and-a-half-long stepped concrete armor along the downtown bayfront holds back the Gulf to this day — and its top is now downtown's favorite evening walk.

A new cable-stayed Harbor Bridge opened over the ship channel in June 2025. At 538 feet, it is the tallest structure in South Texas and the longest bridge of its kind in the country. It replaces the old steel-arch Harbor Bridge, an iconic part of the Corpus Christi skyline for decades. Our photo here shows the new bridge while it was nearing completion.

Spanning 7.3 acres, the Texas State Aquarium is the largest aquarium in the state. It opened in 1990 and doubled in size with the 2017 Caribbean Journey expansion.

Over 300 species live across its permanent exhibits: the Caribbean Sea (a 400,000-gallon shark and stingray habitat), the Jungle (flamingos, a sloth), Otter Creek, and the hands-on Stingray Lagoon touch tank.

The aquarium has been AZA-accredited since 1995 and operates an on-site wildlife rescue center billed as the largest coastal wildlife rescue facility in Texas.

It sits on North Beach right beside the Lexington, so the ship and the aquarium make an easy pair on one trip across the ship channel from downtown.

Padre Island National Seashore is the wild one — 70 miles of what's often called the longest undeveloped barrier island in the world. Texas law lets you drive straight onto the sand and camp where you like, and the farther south you go, the emptier it gets.

It's the most important U.S. nesting beach for the endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle. On summer mornings the park holds public hatchling releases — rangers carry the newborns down to the surf while a crowd watches from the dunes. It also sits on the Central Flyway, so the birding is serious. Conditions, driving rules, and the release schedule are at nps.gov/pais.

And then there's the bayfront itself. Downtown meets the water along the seawall promenade, where the marina's T-head piers reach out into the bay and McGee Beach sits a few steps away. In the evening, once the heat lets go and the breeze finally wins, this is where Corpus comes out to walk.

Inside, the Art Museum of South Texas holds a collection of more than 1,850 works centered on the art of the Americas, with a deep pull toward Texas and Mexico — paper, paintings, photography, glass, and ceramics rotating alongside traveling shows.

The building is a draw in its own right. The original bay-facing structure of poured white concrete was designed by Philip Johnson, a founder of postmodern architecture; in 2006 Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta added a wing that nearly doubled its space.