The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 100, July 1996 - April, 1997 Page: 310
551 p. : ill. (some col.), ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
continent-it asks whether Houston is a Sunbelt city like Denver or like At-
lanta. It thus diverts attention from the much-needed task of tracing the
interaction of Texas's cities with their specific hinterland, region, and
network." The Sunbelt approach also encourages neglect of relations
between state governments and their cities, even though state gover-
nance and law regarding property, municipal authority, and city-county
relations may be a central factor explaining unusual features of Texas's
cities.12
Academic urban history, therefore, can offer little guidance to Cor-
pus Christians in how to develop a sharper sense for their urban history
while maintaining their sensibility for Texas. From the academic urban-
ist's perspective, "urban" and "Texas" fight each other too much and
complement each other too little for conceptual comfort. The pioneer-
and-outlaw notion of Texas does pose obstacles to urban-oriented histo-
ry. Yet it is possible, even necessary, to identify ways to recast Corpus
Christi's story in order to accommodate the city without excluding
Texas. Although fraught with problems, conventional Texas images and
themes in Corpus Christi's prevailing historical narrative appear indis-
pensible, since they draw attention to the city's place in the physical,
historical, and cultural environment of South Texas and of Texas over-
all.
How might one build a persuasive urban history of Corpus Christi
without dismissing residents' inclination to tie their city to Texas's rural-
dominated history, tradition, and myth? The remainder of the essay will
consider three motifs that recur over and over in business, civic, tourist,
and religious publications, as well as local historical writing. These are
Corpus Christi as setting for and player in the Texas drama; Corpus
Christi as a frontier of peoples; and Corpus Christi as a product of town
promotion. As the essay notes, Corpus Christians usually explore the
first two themes and sometimes even the third in ways that reinforce dis-
tracting aspects of conventional Texas lore. Still, the essay will show that
with recasting, these themes could serve as a basis for drawing together
South Texas's powerful rural heritage with the region's equally powerful
urban presence.
" Miller and Sanders (eds.), Urban Texas: Politics and Development, illustrates the influence of
the Sunbelt analysis on Texas urban history. Robert Fisher, "The Urban Sunbelt in Comparative
Perspective: Houston in Context," in Essays on Sunbelt Cities and Recent Urban America, ed. Robert
B. Fairbanks and Kathleen Underwood (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1990),
33-58, explores in an intriguing way Houston's relation to the Sunbelt pattern. Raymond A.
Mohl (ed.), Searchng for the Sunbelt- Historical Perspectives on a Region (Knoxville: University of Ten-
nessee Press, 199o), reveals growing skepticism toward the Sunbelt idea among some former
proponents.
" Robert Fairbanks, "The Identity of Texas's Gulf Cities," comment given at the annual meet-
ing of the Texas State Historical Association, San Antonio, March 3, 1995.January
310
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 100, July 1996 - April, 1997, periodical, 1997; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101218/m1/376/: accessed May 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.