DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about this place — and friend, it is a story worth stopping for. Sometime in the late 1850s, Colonel John M. Moore set his sights on something ambitious: dredging operations out in the bay to carve out a large harbor for Corpus Christi.
And right in step with that vision, the U.S. Lighthouse Service purchased this very site from J. Burnside and Company on March 13, 1857, and before long they had themselves a proper brick lighthouse standing here — a beacon for the vessels that would come rolling into the new port.
Now, harbors and lighthouses are fine things in peacetime. But the Civil War had a way of rearranging everybody's plans. Harbor construction?
Interrupted. And that lighthouse — that careful, brick-built beacon — got repurposed by Confederate forces as a powder magazine. So there it stood, holding gunpowder instead of guiding ships.
Then comes 1863. Word arrived that a Federal invasion was threatening, and that's when a group of young Confederate loyalists decided to take matters into their own hands. No orders.
No authority. Just a conviction that that arsenal could not be allowed to fall to the enemy. Now here's where the story gets memorable.
These boys — these loyal Confederate youths — did not have cannons or demolition equipment. What they had was a butter churn. They filled it with gunpowder, set it beside the structure, and let it do its work.
The explosion came. The fire followed. The tower was damaged.
And then — silence. Because that butter churn and all its drama had failed to ignite the main storehouse of powder sitting right inside. The grand destruction they intended simply did not happen.
So what do you do after something like that? You hide. And hide they did — first in a nearby cemetery, which has a certain poetry to it, and then they fled north of the city to a salt marsh.
And for years, their identities remained a well-kept secret. The kind of secret a small town carries quietly, everyone knowing something, nobody saying it out loud. After the war, repairs were made, the lighthouse came back into service, and life went on.
But the old beacon's days were numbered. By the mid-1870s it was abandoned and falling into disrepair. Around 1878, the city aldermen looked at what remained and declared it a dangerous public nuisance.
And not long after that declaration, it was dismantled. A lighthouse built to guide ships in. Used to store powder.
Nearly blown apart by a butter churn. And finally taken down by a city council vote. That right there is a Texas story — grand ambitions, a little improvisation, and an ending nobody quite planned for.
What the marker says
In the late 1850s, Col. John M. Moore began dredging operations in the bay to create a large harbor for Corpus Christi. The U.S. Lighthouse Service purchased this site from J. Burnside and Co. on March 13, 1857, and soon built a brick lighthouse to serve as a beacon for vessels approaching the new port. The outbreak of the Civil War interrupted plans for harbor construction. During the war Confederate forces used the lighthouse as a powder magazine. In 1863, a Federal invasion threatened, and a group of loyal Confederate youths decided, without authority, to destroy the lighthouse arsenal to prevent its capture. They filled a butter churn with gunpowder and placed it beside the structure. The resulting explosion and fire damaged the tower, but failed to ignite the storehouse of powder inside. The boys first hid in a nearby cemetery, then fled to a salt marsh north of the city. Their identities were, for years, a well-kept secret. After the war, repairs were made to the lighthouse and it returned to use. The old beacon was abandoned in the mid-1870s and soon fell into disrepair. About 1878, city aldermen declared it a dangerous public nuisance and it was dismantled shortly thereafter. (1973)