Sidbury House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight with a little Corpus Christi salt air on the side. The Sidbury House. Charlotte Scott was born in North Carolina in 1830, and before she was old enough to have much say in the matter, her parents packed up and brought her to Sterling Robertson's colony, right here in Texas, before the Revolution of 1836.

She married John Wesley Scott in 1848, and the two of them made their way to Nueces County. John died there in 1867, leaving Charlotte to carry on. She carried on just fine.

In 1875, she married again, this time to a builder named Edward D. Sidbury. Now Edward was a civic leader, a bank director, a man of standing.

But when he died in 1881, Charlotte didn't step back into the shadows. She stepped forward and took over management of his lumber company herself. Let that sit a moment.

Now, the house we're talking about, it wouldn't exist without a particular chapter of Corpus Christi ambition and heartbreak known as the Ropes boom. Colonel E. H.

Ropes, all the way from New Jersey, had a grand vision. He planned to make Corpus Christi a deep water port. He started dredging a channel across Mustang Island.

He had the plan, he had the dredge in the water, he had the dream. What he ran out of was money. He abandoned the project, and the boom that bore his name faded, but not before it had already set off a wave of construction in the early 1890s.

Charlotte Sidbury caught that wave. Around 1893, she built two rent houses up on the bluff in what was called the Bluff Addition, on upper North Broadway. This Victorian structure was one of those two.

Two stories, an elaborate bay, decorated galleries going around, the kind of place that announced someone with resources and taste had put it there. For several years, the tenant was a man named Patrick Dunn, born in 1858, a rancher out on Padre Island, a figure unto himself. Later, Mrs.

Sidbury's descendants sold the house, and in 1926 it was moved, physically moved off the Bluff, to its present location in a neighborhood the old maps called Old Irishtown. Charlotte Scott Sidbury died in 1904. The house she built outlasted the boom that made it possible, outlasted the bluff it stood on, and outlasted just about every expectation a Victorian rent house could reasonably have.

Some structures just refuse to be finished with the story.

What the marker says

Charlotte Scott (Mrs. Edward D.) Sidbury (1830-1904), the builder of this house, was born in north Carolina and came with her parents to sterling Robertson's colony before the Texas Revolution (1836). She married John Wesley Scott in 1848; they moved to Nueces county, where he died in 1867. In 1875, she was married again to builder Edward D. Sidbury. A civic leader and bank Director, Mrs. Sidbury became manager of her husband's lumber company after his death in 1881. This structure was part of the expansion resulting from the ropes boom of the early 1890's. Colonel E.H. Ropes of New Jersey planned to make Corpus Christi a deep water port. He began dredging a channel across Mustang Island but ran out of money and abandoned the project. One of two rent houses originally constructed by Mrs. Sidbury about 1893 in the bluff addition on upper north Broadway, this victorian structure featured a two-story bay surrounded by elaborately decorated galleries. It was occupied for several years by Padre Island Rancher Patrick Dunn (1858-1937). Later sold by Mrs. Sidbury's descendants, the house was moved off the Bluff in 1926 to this location in the historic "Old Irishtown" neighborhood.