Indigenous Groups Fight to Save Rediscovered Settlement Site on an Industrial Waterfront in Texas
INGLESIDE, Texas—The rediscovery of an ancient settlement site, sandwiched between industrial complexes on Corpus Christi Bay, has spurred a campaign for its preservation by Native American groups in South Texas.
Hundreds of such sites were once documented around nearby bays but virtually all have been destroyed as cities, refineries and petrochemical plants spread along the waterfront at one of Texas’ commercial ports.
In a letter last month, nonprofit lawyers representing the Karankawa and Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to revoke an unused permit that would authorize construction of an oil terminal at the site, called Donnel Point, among the last undisturbed tracts of land on almost 70 miles of shoreline.
“We’re not just talking about a geographical point on the map,” said Love Sanchez, a 43-year-old mother of two and a Karankawa descendent in Corpus Christi. “We’re talking about a place that holds memory.”
The site sits on several hundred acres of undeveloped scrubland, criss-crossed by wildlife trails with almost a half mile of waterfront. It was documented by Texas archaeologists in the 1930s but thought to be lost to dredging of an industrial ship canal in the 1950s. Last year a local geologist stumbled upon the site while boating on the bay and worked with a local professor of history to identify it in academic records.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23122025/texas-indigenous-groups-fight-to-save-site-on-industrial-waterfront/