Coastal Bend World War II Heritage Trail
In December 2022, the National Park Service designated Corpus Christi and the Coastal Bend as an American World War II Heritage City, the only community in Texas to receive this honor. It recognizes the extraordinary role our region played during the war, from the cadets who trained at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, once the largest naval training facility in the world, to the ranches, ports, and communities that supported the war effort at home.
The WWII Heritage Trail brings that history to life through 15 sites across Corpus Christi and the wider Coastal Bend, from Nueces and Kleberg counties to Kingsville, Port Aransas, Aransas Pass, and Beeville. Along the route you'll find major attractions like the USS Lexington Museum, quiet memorials, and buildings that still carry their wartime stories, including our own home at 100 North Shoreline Boulevard.
Learn more about the full trail and heritage city designation at unitedcorpuschristi.org/world-war-ii-heritage-trail.
USO Building, 100 N Shoreline Blvd
Today, the Art Center of Corpus Christi
As war spread across Europe in the late 1930s, the U.S. Navy identified Corpus Christi as the site for a major new pilot training facility. Naval Air Station Corpus Christi was commissioned on March 12, 1941, and almost overnight, the city became home to thousands of young cadets and sailors far from their own families.
To meet the need for wartime recreation, the federal government funded construction of a USO center on the bayfront, built on land donated by the City of Corpus Christi. Remarkably, the building went up in just 58 days, at a cost of $79,419. The South Texas USO chapter was chartered on April 2, 1941, making it one of the earliest USO centers established in the nation.
Inside, the building offered exactly what its cadets and sailors needed: a ballroom for dances, game rooms for cards and billiards, a library, counselors to talk to, free meals, and stationery for writing home. For servicemen facing an uncertain future overseas, it was a genuine home away from home during their time in Corpus Christi.
The USO closed its doors here on March 16, 1947. In the decades that followed, the building had several lives: home to the American Legion, then the Nueces County Tax Office, then the City Hall Annex. It survived three separate proposals for demolition before local artists rallied to save it, raising the funds to convert it into what is now the Art Center of Corpus Christi, opened in 1991.
Just south of the building stands Sherrill Veterans Memorial Park, named for Warren Joseph Sherrill, a 21-year-old Navy yeoman aboard the USS Arizona and the first Corpus Christi resident killed in World War II. Together, the USO building and Sherrill Park form a single chapter in the story of how this city answered the call of war, and how it has chosen ever since to remember those who served.
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Special thanks to the Corpus Christi Public Libraries and the Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History for the historical images featured on this page.