THROWBACK THURSDAY

#TBT: Corpus Christi's Suter Wildlife Refuge holds ancient history and vital ecosystem

Allison Ehrlich
Corpus Christi Caller Times

Along the Cayo del Oso, a Corpus Christi city park created in the 1950s has grown to become an important protected habitat for area wildlife. But it also has ties to the Native Americans who inhabited the area going back thousands of years.

The park, known these days as Hans and Pat Suter Wildlife Refuge, began as South Guth Park in the early 1950s. The park's roundabout creation began in 1931 when snowbird Henry Guth died. Guth was a big grain farmer in LaGrange, Illinois, but as soon as the harvest was done, he packed his family up to spend six months in their second home in Corpus Christi. At the time, the city had no central area for a marketplace, so Guth bought a block of land bordered by Coopers Alley, Kinney, Water and Chaparral streets to be used as a farmers market.

TOP: Pat Suter, widow of Hans A. Suter, looks through the telescope to observe some birds along the Cayo del Oso during the dedication ceremonies of the Hans A. Suter Wildlife Area on May 5, 1987. The wildlife refuge was created from a portion of land in South Guth Park. BOTTOM LEFT: Larry Running Turtle Salazar (left) plays the drums in four different directions for the disturbed spirits around the area as Felipe "Paipo" Rodriguez (right) cleanses himself with sage during a Spirit Offering at Hans and Pat Suter Wildlife Refuge on Ennis Joslin on Jan. 20, 2005. BOTTOM RIGHT: An article from the Aug. 3, 1951, Corpus Christi Caller notes the need for a road through the new South Guth Park to alleviate traffic along Ocean and Alameda drives to Naval Air Station Corpus Christi.

More:#TBT: What's that park called again? The origin of some Corpus Christi park names

His farmers market never came to fruition, and when Guth died, he willed the land to the city, stipulating it be turned into a public park. The city debuted Guth Park in 1939 with trees and flower beds tended by the Business and Professional Women's Club. 

But Guth Park fell into disrepair, and in 1950 the city sold the land to Joske's department store for $151,000, using the money to purchase two tracts in other parts of the city for parkland. An 80-acre site off Up River Road became West Guth Park, and 71 acres on Cayo del Oso became South Guth Park. The Guth heirs sued the city for selling the original downtown park in 1953, but the judge eventually ruled in the city's favor.

While the city waited for approval on sale of federal bonds to fund the two parks' improvements, they offered a leasing arrangement for area farmers to use the land. Some farmers took the offer and grew cotton and other crops on the land in return for giving the city a portion of the gross sales.

Ennis Joslin Road was built in 1954 to help alleviate some of the traffic to the naval air station along Ocean Drive and Lexington Boulevard, and ran through a portion of South Guth. In the late 1950s, the Oso Little League and Little Miss Kickball leased portions of the park for ball fields. And when the Pharaoh Valley Subdivision was built on the edge of the park in the early 1960s, the neighborhood association frequently worked with the city to adopt portions of the park to share in caretaking duties.

With its prime spot along the Cayo del Oso, it's no surprise that portions of the park were well known by birders. There was an ill-advised attempt in the 1970s to fill the submerged area with dredge, and a Dallas-based company even gained exclusive rights to come up with a development plan. The city then commissioned a study for best use of bayfront land covering North Beach all the way to the naval air station, and the recommendation for the area known as the blind Oso was, surprise, to leave it as it was — an environmentally important estuarine nursery for marine life and feeding area for shore birds.

More:#TBT: Corpus Christi's Cole Park created because someone plowed wrong land in 1926

Local environmentalists Dr. Hans Suter and Patricia Suter also fought extensively to keep this park and the surrounding area free of development. Hans, a Swiss native, worked for Celanese Research Center as a chemist before becoming a consultant in environmental protection and wrote a guest column for the Caller-Times for nearly 20 years. Patricia was a chemistry professor at Del Mar College and head of the Audubon Outdoor Club.

In 1986, the 22 acres along the Oso got some improvements, including an 800-foot boardwalk over the marshlands and 3,500-foot-long hike and bike trail connecting the birding area of the park with a recreational area featuring picnic tables and a playground. The spot was also renamed the Hans A. Suter Wildlife Area in honor of the conservationist, who died in 1984.

The remainder of South Guth Park on the other side of Ennis Joslin Road got a few improvements over the years, but as Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi expanded, it was in need of more housing. The sports leagues built new homes, and in 2008, the city gifted about 137 acres of land to the university that included South Guth. The wildlife area and park along Cayo del Oso remained, and after further improvements in 2011, the wildlife area was rededicated as the Hans and Pat Suter Wildlife Refuge.

But like all land in this area, it originally was the home of the Native Americans in the region. In the mid-1990s, the Texas Department of Transportation began work on upgrading Ennis Joslin Road. In the course of widening the road, workers found evidence of Native American use. Excavations conducted near the Cayo del Oso in the 1930s by University of Texas archeologists had uncovered confirmed burials in the area, unearthing the remains of 60 people.

In 1996, an archeologist was hired to conduct test excavations in this new section, and eventually TxDOT and the Texas Historical Commission determined portions of the area had been used as burial grounds sometime between 1000 B.C. and 1000 A.D.

More:#TBT: Surfing pier was big attraction of new J.P. Luby Surf Park in 1984

Researchers determined the people were likely ancestors of the Karankawa tribes that lived in the area up through the 1850s. The Karankawas were systematically killed by settlers, and the remaining tribe members fled to northern Mexico in 1858. The tribe was thought extinct for many years, but surviving tribe members managed to intermarry and pass down portions of their tribal culture and language for several generations. The Karankawa Kadla have now banded together to preserve their heritage.

Local Native American activists, led by Larry Running Turtle Salazar of the South Texas Alliance of Indigenous People, were angered by the continual disturbance of the burial grounds, especially because they did not receive notice of the remains until 2005. State officials said they didn't notify tribes sooner because they wanted to avoid looting of the dig sites. 

Requests to stop the disturbance and to rename the road in honor of the Native Americans were refused. Instead, the park now houses a medicine wheel where Salazar hosts an annual blessing of sacred grounds, with hopes to eventually construct a monument commemorating the burial site.

Allison Ehrlich writes about things to do in South Texas and has a weekly Throwback Thursday column on local history. Support local coverage like this by checking out our subscription options and special offers at Caller.com/subscribe.