John Dunn, Jr. Homesite

Duane's take

Now, I'm bringin' you this one straight from the official marker, my own telling of what it records. Pull up a seat and let me tell you about a piece of Nueces County ground that carries more than a century of one family's story. It starts, as so many Texas tales do, somewhere else entirely.

John Dunn, Sr., was born in Ireland in 1803, and in 1851 he made the crossing to the United States. He landed, he looked around, and he started buying land. Nueces County land, specifically, and a good deal of it.

In 1868, he purchased this very site from a man named Jonas Pickles. That name is worth savoring for a moment. Jonas Pickles.

But the land itself is the real character here, and it was just getting started. Now John Dunn, Sr., had a youngest son. John Dunn, Jr., born in 1853.

And that boy did not have a gentle introduction to ranch life. He started out as a young boy herding sheep for his father. Not visiting the sheep.

Not admiring the sheep. Herding them, out on that Nueces County brush country, learning the land from the ground up. When it came time for schooling, young John Dunn, Jr., went to Father Gonnard's School for Boys in Corpus Christi.

And as he grew into a young man, the frontier demanded more than book learning. He rode with posses that captured Mexican raiders and horse rustlers. This was not a quiet coming of age.

But here is where the story turns from survival to something larger. John Dunn, Jr., eventually acquired nearly twelve thousand acres of ranchland. Twelve thousand acres.

And he became known throughout the Corpus Christi area not just for the size of his holdings, but for what he did with them. His philanthropic land donations, particularly to the Roman Catholic Church, gave him a reputation that spread well beyond his fence lines. In 1889, the year his father passed, John Dunn, Jr., built a one-story home right here on that land his father had bought from Jonas Pickles.

He built it in anticipation of his marriage to Mary Tom, who had been born in 1856. The house started as headquarters for his ranching operations, and as the family grew, the home grew with it. John Dunn, Sr., came ashore in 1851.

The land at this site came into Dunn hands in 1868. John Dunn, Jr., lived until 1941. That is a long, long arc of one family woven into one piece of Nueces County ground.

And the homesite still stands there, quiet and weathered, reminding anyone who stops to read the marker that early settlement in this county had names, and faces, and twelve thousand acres of story behind it.

What the marker says

John Dunn, Sr., (1803-1889) immigrated to the United States from Ireland in 1851. He began acquiring large amounts of property in Nueces County, including this site which he purchased in 1868 from Jonas Pickles. This section of his landholdings was inherited by his youngest son, John Dunn, Jr. (1853-1941). Dunn, Jr., began working as a young boy herding sheep for his father. He received most of his schooling in Father Gonnard's School for Boys in Corpus Christi. As a young man, Dunn participated in posses that captured Mexican raiders and horse rustlers. He eventually acquired nearly 12,000 acres of ranchland and was known throughout the Corpus Christi area for his philanthropic land donations, particularly to the Roman Catholic Church. The one story section of this home was built by Dunn in 1889 in anticipation of his marriage to Mary Tom (1856-1937). The home served as headquarters for Dunn's ranching operations and was enlarged as his family grew. Located on land that has been in the Dunn family since 1868, the homesite stands as a reminder of early Nueces County settlement. (1985)