arankawa and Malaquite Indians were the first known inhabitants to fish Coastal Bend waters and hunt bison and deer on inland prairies. These hardy tribes handily adapted to a desolate, harsh environment, but not to a European population boom. Some anthropologists estimate that native Indians lived here 20,000 years, maybe more, yet their disappearance by accident or by intent was complete by the mid-1800s.

Spanish explorer Alonzo de Piñeda is credited with discovering Corpus Christi Bay in 1519, naming it after the Roman Catholic feast day on which he arrived. Two hundred years would pass before Spanish settlers established the first trading posts, laying claim to vast sections of a barren land named El Desierto de los Muertos, Desert of the Dead. As trading posts sprang up, bands of high seas pirates prospered smuggling contraband in and out of Corpus Christi Bay. A single navigable entrance and 40-foot watch-tower bluffs made it a haven for buccaneer operations.

In the early half of the 19th century, the lands north of the Nueces River were settled through land grants from the King of Spain who recruited immigrants from Ireland and the Canary Islands to develop “San Patricio.” Portions of those original land grants are the modern Welder and O’Connor ranches.

By the 1840s, towns sprang up wherever a living could be made in the territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, land claimed by both Mexico and by the Republic of Texas. Col. H.L. Kinney, a Pennsylvania-born Irishman, founded Corpus Christi as a settlement in 1839, calling it the Naples of the Gulf.

By 1846, the land between the two rivers became recognized as nutrient-rich ground for agriculture, and wars were waged. Bitter clashes between Mexico, the Republic of Texas, and the United States brought Col. Zachary Taylor and 4,000 troops to Corpus Christi to wage the Mexican-American War. Four future presidents of the United States and the Confederacy were in the ranks - "Old Rough and Ready" Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, and Franklin Pierce.

By the late 1800s, commercial harvesting of oysters and turtles prospered. Inland, celebrated cattle ranches, such as the King and Kenedy ranches, sprawled across sun-baked western and southern counties. Vaqueros fought thorn bushes, prickly cactus and Indians while rounding up longhorn cattle or corralling mustangs, breeding stock of the Texas cow pony. The perception of the "Wild West" and of gun-slinging cowboys and dusty cattle drives on the Chisolm Trail had begun.

As Corpus Christi grew, increased shipping through a deepened channel bolstered the area’s economy. Coastal factories processed and shipped tallow, hides, and pickled beef on schooners destined for New Orleans, Cuba, and England.

During the 1870s, Corpus Christi claimed one of the largest wool markets in America with more than a million sheep grazing in Nueces and Duval counties. Within a decade, soaring land and cattle prices forced many shepherds to sell or move their herds.

Fertile soil in the region's northern and eastern sectors appealed to farmers raising cotton, sorghum, and vegetables. The arrival of railroads in the mid-1870s made farmers' and ranchers' products available to otherwise inaccessible markets.

Despite devastating hurricanes and droughts, deadly yellow fever epidemics and bloody wars, both foreign and domestic, the area flourished. By 1926, the population had grown to 35,000. Agricultural commerce led the way in constructing the deepwater Port of Corpus Christi, and with the discovery of oil and natural gas, the Port began transporting higher volumes of petroleum products.

A heyday of expansion built the U.S. Naval Air Station, the Corpus Christi seawall and causeways to Portland and North Padre Island. In rural counties, innovative cultivation techniques and modern equipment heightened agricultural production.

By 1960, regional development slowed dramatically. Although oil and gas production continued, sparse new employment opportunities sent 32,800 people packing between 1960 and 1970. Their emigration foreshadowed economic calamity that would ultimately force one-third of the population to leave the Coastal Bend.

March 31, 1986, 11:32 a.m. Oil prices plummeted to $9.75 a barrel, straight down from a euphoric high of $40.25 per barrel at the peak of the oil crisis in the 1970s. The crash shattered the region's economic base, impacting the lives of everyone. Corpus Christi, the "Cinderella City of Texas," lost its principal means of support and found five years of staggering unemployment rates and bare-minimum wages.

Knocked down, but not out, the pioneering spirit of Coastal Bend citizens rose again to confront adversity with greater economic diversity. This sweeping curve of Texas Gulf shoreline is now home to more than half a million people. Twelve counties - Aransas, Bee, Brooks, Duval, Jim Wells, Kenedy, Kleberg, Live Oak, McMullen, Nueces, Refugio and San Patricio - reflect the influence of Spanish, Mexican, European, and American settlers.