Old Bayview Cemetery - The Career of A Monument

The Career of A Monument

Although Old Bayview Cemetery continued to receive new burials, other cemeteries were created. Between the years 1914 and 1916, when Rose Hill Cemetery on Comanche Street was opened, a number of remains were removed from Old Bayview Cemetery to be reinterred there as others had been at New Bayview. During this time some families had their relatives removed and reburied in family plots elsewhere, often out of town, but a plan to transport all military personnel to a military cemetery in San Antonio was rejected. Possibly at this time the cemetery was reduced to its present size.

The twentieth century through the 1960s was a time of stringent racial segregation when the area around Old Bayview (and New Bayview) Cemetery lost an early ethnic diversity and became largely a neighborhood of black people. White as well as black persons who remember the time may recall that the neighborhood was called "Harlem" and had a lively, nonsegregated nightlife. Possibly the tensions that did exist then contributed to a lack of maintenance.

West Broadway Street separated the cemetery from railroads that carried freight to the Port of Corpus Christi and from a wastewater treatment plant on a part of the Nueces River that served as a ship channel. The entire region was far different from the quiet semi-wild place where the Dayton casualties were laid to rest.

Memorials were added to the Confederate monument. In 1935 a new marker was placed for Corpus Christi's first mayor, B. F. Neal. In observation of Texas' 1936 centennial the state put a stone memorial over the grave of George W. Hockley and also installed a memorial for all Texans who fought in the Civil War who were buried there and in nearby cemeteries.

Apparently Old Bayview Cemetery was again suffering wear and tear and Texas' centennial had renewed interest in local history because a renewed Old Bayview Cemetery Association met in May 1940 at the Nueces Hotel. Headed in 1942 by Mrs. Sam Rankin, its purpose was to make the cemetery the state monument it did become.

For a while maintenance may not have been routine, since in 1953 a family complete with dogs and rabbits in hutches was living in one corner of the cemetery, burning their trash on graves.

The problem must have been solved, because in 1957 Ms. Webb wrote that "Today the old military cemetery presents an appearance in keeping with its historical associations. Grass and native trees, mesquite and Texas Persimmons, vines, and blooming shrubs lend an air of peace to the hallowed ground while the Stars and Stripes marking each veteran's grave flutter in the cool gulf breeze."

Thirty years later on 26 February 1987 the Corpus Christi Times reported that the Bayview mesquite had died, a venerable tree beside which the Dayton funeral was held that was listed among the Texas Forest Service's "Famous Trees of Texas". The offer of a Cuero, Texas lumber mill "to make something of lasting beauty" of it was taken up. Park Superintendent Mike Gordon said cross sections displaying the growth rings would be made.