C
orpus Christi ushered in the New Year with an historic event. The first shipment of crude oil to leave the United States in 40 years sailed out of the Port of Corpus Christi on December 31st. It’s held up well for a 90-year-old highway, and the future is looking bright for that 400-foot-wideswath of blue, sparkling water, known as the Port of Corpus Christi. It has seen millions of tons of cargo, ranging from iron and steel to petroleum products and machinery pass through since it first opened in September 1926. Continuous improvements over the years have helped keep it profitable and competitive, generating 66,000 direct and indirect port-related jobs and $315 million in state and local tax revenues in 2011, according to a regional impact study commissioned by the Port in 2013. But John LaRue, Executive Director of the Port, said none of it would be possible without the channel. “It’s our road, it’s a highway. You can’t see it, it’s all underwater, and it all looks the same, but there is a Channel that goes all the way across, 45 feet deep,” he said.
42 The Bend
In 1923, according to the History of the Port of Corpus Christi section on their website, the U.S. Congress authorized the Corps of Engineers to construct a channel 25 feet in depth with a 200 foot bottom width, from the Gulf through the jetties at Port Aransas to a point on the shoreline on Corpus Christi Bay at the mouth of a shallow bayou. Channel dredging began in January 1925 and was completed one year later, at a cost to the United States of $1.8 million. Proceeds from the sale of the $1 million worth of bonds, authorized when the District was created, were used to acquire land, to dredge the turning basin and to construct the first docks. In those early years, cotton was the Port’s main export, until large oil fields were discovered in Nueces, San
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