Corpus Christi

About Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi is a sunny port city on the Texas Gulf Coast, curving around a broad bay sheltered from the open Gulf of Mexico by Mustang and Padre islands. Spanish explorer Alonso Álvarez de Pineda is said to have named the bay in 1519 on the feast day of Corpus Christi, and the city itself began as a frontier trading post founded by Henry Kinney in 1839. It grew as a cattle and cotton port, and the opening of the deep-water Port of Corpus Christi in 1926 turned it into one of the busiest ports in the country.

Today Corpus Christi has about 315,000 residents and a relaxed coastal character. Its two-mile seawall, designed by Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore, lines Shoreline Boulevard with palm trees, sailboats and stairs down to the water, and the city's steady breezes make it one of the top windsurfing and kiteboarding spots in the country. It is also the hometown of Tejano music star Selena Quintanilla, honored by the Mirador de la Flor memorial on the bayfront.

Visitors come for the water and the wildlife. The USS Lexington, a World War II aircraft carrier, is now a museum docked on North Beach next to the Texas State Aquarium, and Padre Island National Seashore protects more than 60 miles of undeveloped beach and dunes where Kemp's ridley sea turtle hatchlings are released each summer. Mustang Island State Park, the beach towns of Port Aransas, world-class birding along the Texas Coastal Bend and fresh Gulf seafood make Corpus Christi a favorite Texas getaway.