Believe it or not, Corpus Christi is one of the very few towns and cities in the U. S. that does not have a "Main Street" in its downtown area. That is due "mainly" to the fact that Henry Kinney, the founder of Corpus Christi, laid out and named all of the city streets himself....and Main Street was not on his agenda. He preferred animal names (Leopard, Tiger, Buffalo, Antelope), names of friends (Peoples, Twigg, William, Taylor, Schatzell), Indian tribes (Carancahua, Tancahua, Lipan, Comanche), and natural names (Chaparral, Water, Mesquite, Lantana). No Main Street.
The issue of not having a Main Street became a heated topic of discussion in June of 1934.....so much so that even the New York Times ran an article about the controversy!
Several prominent business owners on Peoples Street, including Jack Bonner and Fred Quaile petitioned the City Council requesting that the name be changed to Main Street.
They were so confident that their request would be honored that they had already changed the addresses on their receipts and stationery...and their ads in the newspaper...to read "Main Street" instead of Peoples. In their view, Corpus was a city of only 32,500 people in 1934, and most of them had no idea where the name "Peoples" had come from anyway. Besides, every U.S. town had a Main Street....it was as American as Apple pie.
But, there was a very vocal group of oldtimers in the city, and this proposal made them mad as hornets! For one, they were quite proud of the fact that Corpus was "not like every other city in the country" with a Main Street. Beyond that, they understood that Peoples Street had been named after a specific person from the early days of Corpus Christi.
John H. Peoples was an officer in Zachary Taylor's army, which camped in Corpus Christi in 1845-46, before the war with Mexico. He returned to Corpus after the war and was instrumental in establishing the first newspaper in the city (the Corpus Christi Star). Peoples was an engineer who helped Kinney with the work of laying out the Corpus Christi townsite. His invaluable contributions to the city are the reasons why Kinney named a street in his honor. Those against the name change also pointed out that Peoples Street was only three blocks long. The name change would make it the shortest “Main Street” in the nation and an embarrassment for the city.
The Corpus Christi City Council called for a public hearing on the petition request for January 10, 1934. Four factions of people appeared at the hearing:
1. Those in favor of the name change to Main Street
2. Those who believe in preserving the memory of a pioneer settler by not changing the name.
3. Those who are proud of the fact that Corpus Christi is one of the few cities in the U.S. without a Main Street
4. Those who opposed the name change UNLESS the Main Street name is given to Chaparral Street instead of Peoples Street.
The hearing was guaranteed to be a loud and chaotic affair as each faction made its point. But Main Street’s most vocal proponent, Jack Bonner, was not even present. He was at home, in bed with an illness. Realizing that they were greatly outnumbered, proponent Fred Quaille rose to speak in place of Bonner. He recognized his opponents and quietly announced that the petition to change the street name would be withdrawn. Despite the withdrawal, the City Council decided to take a vote on the matter. It voted unanimously to retain the Peoples Street name.
In 2025, ninety-one years after the hearing, Peoples Street still exists, and Corpus Christi remains one of the few U.S. cities without a downtown Main Street.
Unfortunately, John Peoples succumbed to gold fever. He left the city in 1849 during the California Gold Rush, and died somewhere along the route to the gold fields.
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.
