Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi plans to bring history into downtown space

In just under 6,000 square feet at the Bell Library at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, the Special Collections and Archives department keeps thousands of books and manuscripts documenting the lives of everyday people and Corpus Christi giants like Hector P. Garcia.

But it could use twice as much space for the over 320 collections currently in the archives. To address the problem, the university has its eye on a downtown building it bought four years ago.

The university envisions a place for the community to engage with history, including a space large enough for all collections and future growth, as well as an exhibit space for items like a surfboard collection.

To do it, the university will need to raise $2.4 million.

The university kicked off fundraising Wednesday night with tours of the downtown building, also celebrating a fund-matching agreement from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

“This award demonstrates recognition that our local history matters at a national level,” Dean of University Libraries Catherine Rudowsky said, noting that only 28% of programs that apply to the NEH program are funded.

The federal government will match every dollar the university raises over the next three years, up to $500,000.

“There are three critical reasons for doing this — space, preservation and community,” Rudowsky said.

The university can’t currently house everything on site; several collections are in storage in San Antonio.

If a researcher wants to see these documents, including the papers of congressmen Solomon P. Ortiz and John Young, they have to wait days for the documents to be shipped back to Corpus Christi.

“Our hope is to be able to pull something the day somebody comes in and not have to have that waiting period,” archivist Amanda Kowalski said. “And we’re going to be able to grow with the community and collect so many more things.”

Additionally, the now-closed Texas Surf Museum is waiting to donate some of its collection to the university.

The university has accepted the museum’s paper records and plans to display some of the museum’s locally relevant surfboards, Rudowsky said, adding that the new building, a former JCPenney at the corner of Chaparral and Water streets, is close to the museum’s original location.

The location is also convenient for the History Harvest program, when the university collects donations or digital scans of family records during downtown ArtWalk events.

“We’re hoping local associations will have meetings there,” Rudowsky said, leading a tour of event attendees up a freight elevator and into the empty second floor of the building and pointing out where a multipurpose room will be. “We’re going to do educational outreach events here.”

Most of the former JCPenney building is currently gutted, though the Corpus Christi Downtown Management District currently has offices on the ground floor.

The new archives space is planned for the second floor, hopefully high enough to be protected if the ground floor floods and low enough to not be impacted if the roof is damaged in a storm. Already, the building has survived numerous hurricanes.

Attendee Jim Moloney told the gathering of alumni and potential donors Wednesday that he intends to contribute to the project. Moloney is a frequent visitor to special collections who has written several books about South Texas history.

He also intends to leave his 7,000-piece local postcard collection to the university, Moloney said.

Moloney has been talking with university leadership about the need to protect the Special Collections and Archives from coastal storms for years. He recalls conversations with university President Kelly Miller about protecting the collections during Hurricane Harvey and noted that the university acted quickly in finding and purchasing the downtown building in 2019.

“It’s just important to keep this stuff preserved where it won’t be destroyed, and this building over here, the JCPenney building, is the solution,” Moloney said.

Downtown Corpus Christi's Texas Surf Museum closing its doors

From VCR to digital, A&M-Corpus Christi works to preserve local history

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi plans to bring history downtown