Mapping Texas: The Gulf Coast — Coastal Cities
The Texas General Land Office and the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum are pleased to jointly present Mapping Texas: The Gulf Coast, which includes ten unique maps covering 252 years of Texas history, from 1740–1992. The maps showcased in this exhibit demonstrate the diverse history of Texas’ Gulf Coast.
With 367 miles of beaches on the Gulf of Mexico, more than 3,300 miles of bays and estuaries, and hundreds of communities, Texas has one of the longest, most vibrant coastlines in the United States. From the earliest days of European settlement to modern navigation and oil drilling, the mapping of Texas’ coast has always been of vital importance.
Ingleside, Texas
First established in 1854 as a coastal community on the eastern tip of San Patricio County in Corpus Christi Bay, Ingleside (old Scottish for “Fireside”) was reportedly named by John W. Vineyard for his ancestral home in Scotland. The early settlers to the area were mostly farmers and the cultivation of grapes was a large part of the local industry. The Vineyard family took advantage of a perfect climate for grape growing, producing good wines and table grapes until the 1930s.[1]
In the late-nineteenth century, there was a push to expand and develop Texas Gulf Coast towns. As with its close neighbor Rockport, developers marketed Ingleside, Texas as a place of beauty and prosperity. This desire to promote cities as places of health and cleanliness was part of the nineteenth-century City Beautiful Movement.
The City Beautiful Movement began as a response to the influx of people to large American cities and advocated that cities and towns focus on health and beautification, which would lead to civic loyalty, virtue, and morale. Its leading claim was “design could not be separated from social issues and should encourage civic pride and engagement.” Taking its influences from major European cities, the architects, landscapers, and urban planners of the movement emphasized the connection of civic centers, city parks, and grand boulevards.[2]
This gorgeous colored 30.4 x 25.36in lithograph is a promotional map published in St. Louis, Missouri, for the developers D. C. Kolp and E. D. Allen. Displaying lots for sale of varying sizes and emphasizing the development’s proximity to the coast, this advertisement boasts of the viability of the land for growth and showcases a variety of parks and green spaces, including a Driving Park for carriages and a circular drive and man-made lake.
An unusual aspect of this map is the inclusion of an advertisement for the Hotel Ingleside. Including a reputable, first-class hotel spoke to the wealthy clientele Kolp and Allen were trying to attract for their development.
The inset of Corpus Christi Bay highlights the proximity of Ingleside to other coastal towns via boat and connects the city to the rest of the state with the inclusion of accessible railroad lines. Noting railroad lines to Mexico and South America, as well as the deepwater terminal across the bay, emphasizes access to international trade for the city’s businesses and travel opportunities for Ingleside residents.
Donations from The Summerlee Foundation and Friends of the Texas General Land Office in 2002 funded the conservation of this map.
Mapping Texas: The Gulf Coast runs through January 2017. For more information about viewing the exhibit, please visit http://www.thestoryoftexas.com/visit/exhibits/mapping-texas.
To learn more about the Texas Coast today, please visit txcoasts.com
[1] For more information on the city of Ingleside, Texas see: Handbook of Texas Online, Keith Guthrie, “Ingleside, TX (San Patricio County),” accessed October 06, 2016, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/HFI01.
[2] For more on The City Beautiful Movement see https://www.britannica.com/topic/City-Beautiful-movement
