DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Elihu Harrison Ropes. Now, some men come to Texas on purpose. They study the maps, they make their plans, they pack their bags with intention.
And then there's men like Elihu Harrison Ropes — who came on vacation. Ropes was born in 1845, and by the time he pointed himself toward Texas in the late 1880s, he'd already been a publisher, a realtor, and an insurance agent back in New Jersey. A man of many hats.
Could've stayed right there, comfortable, respectable. But something about the Gulf Coast got into him — and a vacation turned into something else entirely. What he saw along that coast was potential.
Big, wide-open, deepwater potential. Ropes cooked up a plan to develop a deepwater port for Corpus Christi — not just to put the town on the map, mind you, but to drive industrial development, stimulate growth, juice the whole economy. And while he was dreamin', he kept right on goin'.
He also envisioned a railroad running from that port all the way down to the lower Rio Grande Valley. And the Port Aransas cliffs along what is now Ocean Drive? He wanted to develop those too — a resort area, something grand.
Backed by Eastern investors, Ropes set his sights on dredging a fourteen-mile channel through Mustang Island. Fourteen miles. Through an island.
The man did not think small. But here's where the story starts to turn. His equipment — the machinery meant to make all that dredging happen — was constantly in need of repair.
Constantly. And then, like a cold wind off the water, the financial Panic of 1893 swept across the country. His backers pulled their money.
The channel project was abandoned. And that grand resort he'd imagined for the cliffs? He did manage to build a hotel — a real one, called the Alta Vista.
But it was never opened to the public. Not once. It stood there, that unopened hotel, until it burned in 1927.
Long after Ropes himself was gone. Because when the Panic of 1893 led his financial supporters to withhold their money, Ropes left Corpus Christi for New York. And that's where he died, in 1898.
A deepwater port never dredged. A railroad never laid. A resort never opened.
A hotel that burned empty. By almost any measure, Elihu Harrison Ropes came up short. And yet — the marker makes sure to note this — his dreams did something.
They stirred an interest in what Corpus Christi could be. Sometimes the dreamer doesn't build the thing. Sometimes he just makes it impossible for everyone else to stop thinkin' about it.
What the marker says
Speculator and developer Elihu Harrison Ropes (1845-1898) had been a publisher, realtor, and insurance agent in New Jersey before coming to Texas on a vacation during the late 1880s. A venture along the Gulf Coast resulted in his plan to develop a deepwater port for Corpus Christi in order to promote industrial development and thus stimulate the town's growth and economy. Ropes' dream for Corpus Christi also included building a railroad from the port to the lower Rio Grande Valley and the development of the Port Aransas cliffs along what is now Ocean Drive. Backed by Eastern investors, Ropes began his plan to dredge a 14-mile channel through Mustang Island. His equipment, however, was constantly in need of repair, and when the financial Panic of 1893 hit the country, the project was abandoned. Likewise, his dream for the cliffs resort area was not fully realized, as the grand hotel he constructed, known as the Alta Vista (burned 1927), was never opened to the public. When the Panic of 1893 led Ropes' financial supporters to withhold their money, Ropes left Corpus Christi for New York, where he died in 1898. Although Ropes' goals lay unfulfilled, they did stimulate an interest in Corpus Christi's potential for development. (1985)