DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm happy to pass it along. Patrick Francis Dunn — son of Irish immigrants Thomas and Catherine H. Dunn — came into this world on October 10, 1858, right here in Corpus Christi.
Born to an immigrant family, raised on the Texas coast, and destined to become the man they'd eventually call the Duke of Padre Island. Now, the marker doesn't use that title, so I won't either — but the life it describes? It earns something close.
Pat married Clara J. Jones on August 30, 1883, and if he thought that year was going to slow him down, he was mistaken. Come December of that same year, he entered a partnership with his mother Catherine and his brother Thomas to graze cattle out on Padre Island.
And in January of 1884, he didn't just invest — he moved out there. Picked a spot twenty miles down the coast and set up life on a long, wind-scoured barrier island where the Laguna Madre ran on one side and the Gulf of Mexico rolled in on the other. Those two bodies of water served as his natural fences.
No need to string wire along a hundred and ten miles of island when the sea itself does the work. Come roundup time, ranch hands drove the stock into corrals scattered up and down that hundred-and-ten-mile stretch. It was an operation that worked with the land rather than against it.
Eventually, when his children reached school age, Dunn moved the family back to Corpus Christi and set up the ranch headquarters at the north end of the island — practical man, keeping one foot in each world. Then came 1907. Pat bought out his brother Thomas's interest in the operation, and to mark the occasion he built himself a two-story house right on Corpus Christi Pass, half a mile east of where you're standing.
Now here's the detail that tends to stop people cold: he built that house using lumber washed ashore from shipwrecks. Much of the house — and the corrals — were constructed of fine mahogany. Shipwreck mahogany.
On a barrier island. That is either the most resourceful thing you've ever heard, or it's a ghost story waiting to happen, and either way Padre Island was already providing the material. That house stood until 1916, when a hurricane destroyed it.
The same year, 1916, brought the death of his mother Catherine, which left Pat Dunn as the sole owner of the ranch. The sea took his house, and the year took his mother. He carried on.
Pat Dunn sold his Padre Island interests in 1926, but he wasn't done with the place — he retained grazing rights, and he used them, right up until his death on March 25, 1937. After Pat passed, his son Burton Dunn took up the work and continued ranching operations on Padre Island until his own death on September 8, 1970. And after Burton was gone, the last cattle were removed from Padre Island.
Just like that, an operation that had run since January of 1884 came to a quiet close. The Laguna Madre and the Gulf still run on either side of that island, same as they always did. But the corrals are gone, the mahogany house is long gone, and the Dunn cattle with them.
The island kept its shape. The ranch did not.
What the marker says
Patrick Francis Dunn, the son of Irish immigrants Thomas and Catherine H. Dunn, was born October 10, 1858, in Corpus Christi. He married Clara J. Jones August 30, 1883. In December 1883, Pat Dunn entered a partnership with his mother and brother, Thomas, to graze cattle on Padre Island, and as manager moved to the island in January 1884. Settling 20 miles down the coast. Laguna Madre and the Gulf of Mexico served as natural fences; during roundup, ranch hands drove stock into several corrals scattered along the 110-mile island. When his children reached school age, Dunn moved back to Corpus Christi and established headquarters at the north end of the island. In 1907, after buying his brother's interest, he built a 2-story house on Corpus Christi Pass (0.5 mile east), using lumber washed ashore from shipwrecks. Much of the house and corrals were constructed of fine mahogany. The house was destroyed in the hurricane of 1916, the year of his mother's death, which left Dunn as sole owner of the ranch. Pat Dunn sold his Padre Island interests in 1926, retaining grazing rights, which he used until his death March 25, 1937. His son, Burton Dunn, continued ranching operations until his death Sept. 8, 1970, after which the last cattle were removed from Padre Island. (1973)