#TBT: Breakers Hotel was premier resort on Corpus Christi's North Beach in early 1900s
North Beach was Corpus Christi's playground in the first half of the 20th century, and the Breakers Hotel was often the center of the entertainment.
North Beach was already a local destination when the Corpus Beach Hotel opened on July 4, 1912. Advertisements in newspapers around the state detailed amenities like fishing, boating, golfing, surf bathing, and a private bathhouse for hotel guests. The hotel was built in an area of North Beach where city butchers used to keep cattle before slaughter. The grand hotel faced the bay and was surrounded by palms and oleanders, lending to the tropical feel.
On April 7, 1918, the city received word that Beach Hotel, as it was usually called, had been selected as a site for a government convalescent hospital, called General Hospital No. 15. The modern hotel facilities would be converted to house soldiers from World War I needing to recuperate from their injuries. There was some fear after the Armistice that the hospital would close, but instead the U.S. Public Health Service took over the hospital in May 1919 from the U.S. Army, keeping it as a convalescent hospital.
Then came the hurricane in September; North Beach was swept clean, and the convalescent hospital was one of the only structures left standing, though the first floor was heavily damaged. Locals eagerly awaited the repair of the building and in October 1921, the hospital was reopened, this time under the charge of the Veterans’ Bureau. By 1925, the feds were ready to offload the building, and placed it up for auction. A firm led by Peter M. Chamberlain and made up of Washington D.C. investors purchased the building for $32,000, with the aim to convert it back into a full-service resort.
The refurbished hotel, now Hotel Breakers, formally opened July 7, 1926, managed by Jimmie Holmes. The opening night dinner dance cost $2, while Saturday night dancing cost $1.65 per couple and other nights $1 per couple. The hotel became known as a center for social activities on North Beach, particularly its Spanish village-inspired ballroom that overlooked the bay. Articles from 1926 pointed out the ample parking available, including for sailboats “within a stone’s throw of the building.”
More: #TBT: Seaside resorts flourished in Rockport, Aransas Pass in 1890s
The hotel changed hands a number of times through the 1930s and ‘40s, and even underwent a name change in 1931 to Chris Pearson Hotel, but the name didn’t stick since even advertisements continued to use the Breakers name in print. Like the rest of North Beach, the Breakers began to decline in the 1950s, then sank fast after the Harbor Bridge opened in 1959. Former Corpus Christi Mayor Albert Lichtenstein even tried to revive the hotel starting in the late 1940s and through the 1960s.
But by the late 1960s, the hotel’s decline continued. Hurricane Beulah damaged the aged structure in 1967, and Hurricane Celia sealed its fate in 1970, causing enough damage that the hotel needed to be torn down. The last caretakers of the hotel, Mr. and Mrs. R.B. Barbee, rode out both hurricanes inside the hotel, which had no guests after Beulah. The Barbees told Caller-Times reporter Margaret Ramage how they still received “numerous phone calls and letters from far places, asking for reservations or writing to roomers long since departed.” They were the last to live in the Breakers before it was razed in late 1970.
Allison Ehrlich writes about things to do in South Texas and has a weekly Throwback Thursday column on local history.
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Breakers Hotel was premier resort in Corpus Christi for decades
