Sometimes, the outside appearance of a building can do a good job at hiding its history.
In Corpus Christi, we have torn down many of our old, majestic buildings and altered others to the point where there is nothing "majestic" about them at all.
There is a four-story building at the corner of Chaparral and Peoples that some might think is hardly worth a second glance. But an old-fashioned fire escape on the back side of the building provides a clue to its age. It may look like a modern building, but it is actually one of downtown's oldest....and one with a storied past.
In 1905, a man named Clark Pease moved his family to Corpus Christi from Wisconsin to become President of a new bank....City National Bank of Corpus Christi. In 1908, the bank constructed an ornate, four-story building on the northwest corner of Chaparral at Peoples. The bank was a huge success in the growing city and Clark Pease became one of the city's most prominent citizens. In 1910, Pease would be elected Mayor of Corpus Christi.
From 1905 until the early 1930s, the bank prospered.....especially after the newly discovered oil and gas fields nearby, and from the opening of the port. From 1905 until 1931, the bank printed "National Currency Notes" worth $1,814,590. Many of those notes have become highly collectible and quite valuable.
Despite its success, City National became the first banking victim of the Great Depression in Corpus Christi. Loans that the bank had made with depositor's money could not be paid back as the economy collapsed. Without an FDIC to back up deposits, there was a "run" on the bank by depositors that guaranteed its collapse.
The bank closed its doors in 1932. (Clark Pease did not live to see the failure of his beloved bank. He had died in November 1929...just one month after the Wall Street crash).
After the bank's demise, the upper part of the building remained open with offices of prominent lawyers, architects, and realtors. In 1935, the building was sold to L. J. Scharlack of San Antonio, and shortly afterward, the once majestic lobby of the bank was converted into the Vo-Craft Shoe Store. It operated here until the mid-1940s when it became the Charles Shoe Store.
From 1950 to 1955 the building housed the Ann Lewis Dress Shop. That business was followed by the opening of Lane's Dress Shop in 1958. Lane's went out of business at the end of 1965.
For several years in the late 1960s, Levines used the building as a warehouse, but afterward, the building was boarded up and left vacant. All of downtown was rapidly being abandoned by businesses at this time.
The once majestic City National Bank building had become a "hotel for derelicts and winos" and a severe fire hazard according to a report by Fire Marshall, R. T. Gaulding, in 1974.
At some point in the 1950s, the once beautiful facade of the building was "modernized", and it no longer even remotely resembled the original 1908 building. Additional remodeling and modernization in the early 2000s further changed its appearance.
After being vacant for a number of years, the building...at least the ground floor...has come back to life with the opening of a series of pubs and bars over the last 10 or 15 years. They've included "Morgan's Sports Bar", "Che's Hideaway Bar", "The Grub Pub", and now "The Point".
In 2022, the north wall of the historic building was covered with Rafael Blanco’s “Born to Fly” mural. It's not the majestic-looking building that it was back in 1908, but it is one of downtown’s oldest buildings…… and it is still standing!
Robert Parks is a special contributor to KRIS 6 News. Parks was a history teacher at Carroll High School for 19 years and is now retired. His knowledge of Corpus Christi history makes him a unique expert in the subject.
