Where Texas Meets the Sea: Corpus Christi and Its History by Alan Lessoff (review)

With Where Texas Meets the Sea, Alan Lessoff has created a book of big ideas focused on a specific locality from an urban historian’s perspective and a local resident’s appreciation of people and places that only comes from living in an area for a while. Readers should not expect a full history of Corpus Christi or a chronicle of certain periods or communities; many of those histories already exist or are left for other studies. Lessoff instead highlights the process of city planning in a midsize or “secondary city,” and by doing so argues that such an urban experience defines Texas and the rest of the United States more accurately than the exceptionally large metropolises on which other urban histories often focus.

At times, the book seems to bounce back and forth from examples of provincialism that appeared regularly to haunt and divide the city to stories of locals who rose to become the voices of regional and sometimes national and transnational communities. This seems to be the fate of a middle city—stuck somewhere between prominence and obscurity. Through the book’s six chapters, the author analyzes Corpus Christi’s creation and the development of an urban environment, explains the different local perspectives of southwestern culture that dominate the identity and historical lore of the city, deconstructs conflicts over public art and city planning, and ends with an examination of the political economy of the place in the late twentieth century.

The book, organized thematically instead of chronologically, is broken into chapters that shift between the different measures city and community leaders used at various times to create a singular identity for Corpus Christi. Some readers may find the thematic chapter organization frustrating to read because the book does not have a linear storyline. But this approach more accurately reflects the uneven history of urban development in Corpus Christi. From the late nineteenth through the early twenty-first century conflicts over art, historical identity, ownership and purpose of public space, city direction, and economic development have stalled and derailed what different ethnic, racial, economic, and political groups have viewed as progress.

What many residents have often viewed as a series of failures, Lessoff shows as something else—the effects of colonialism and especially post colonialism on urban identity, planning, leadership, and creative production. Because of the diversity of the city’s residents, no one group has dominated all areas of the city or all periods of its history. This lack of cultural homogeneity has provided an environment for many different claims to space and ownership. This book is a model for other historians to test in other places—in Texas, the Southwest, and in other regions. It is a great urban history and an excellent source for readers both familiar and new to the city’s history.