b'Among Klebergs properties when Miller met him was the newly-chartered St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway Company, known as the Brownie, which made the first, direct land connection between Brownsville and Corpus Christi, then on to Houston. Kleberg, who had been running and building one of the biggest business empires in the world since Miller was an infant, was impressed with the young mans intellect and ability to communicate and ex-ecute. Kleberg hired him to run advertising and immigration operations for the railroad, which also operated a rail bridge over the Rio Grande between Matamoros and Brownsville in cooperation with the Mexican government.In 1906, two years after moving to Corpus Christi to work for Robert Kleberg, Roy Miller married Maude Heaney, the daughter of a prominent medical doc-tor, who bore three sons. Still in his mid-20s, Miller was building a reputation as the wunderkind of commerce in South Texas, a trusted manager for the Klebergs and the King Ranch and taking a leadership role in the newly-formed Commerce Club. After working for the railroad, Miller was appointed publish-er of the Corpus Christi Caller, another Kleberg property, a position in which he would hear from all sides of all issues of importance to Coastal Benders.Roy Miller was forming a vision for the future of Corpus Christi as he en-gaged with business owners, investors, government officials, and especially the public, on matters that would be filtered through the newspaper. In 1911, Miller was elected to the City Commission, precursor to the Council, at age 27. Inspired by a mission to develop his new hometown and empowered with the connections that came with a trusted position in a Texas business empire, Roy Miller embarked upon a political career with a civic purpose.Mayoring Corpus Christi Into the 20th CenturyRoy Miller was in Houston blazing through high school when Eli Ropes made his way to Corpus Christi, in 1888. Inspired by the success of the Port of New Orleans, the entrance of which was established with the construction of jetties at the mouth of the Mississippi River in 1877, Ropes ventured down the Texas Gulf Coast in search of potential sites for a new, deep-water port. Like Roy Miller, Ropes worked as an advertising man and newspaper publisher who saw the vast potential of South Texas, including the opportunity for a seaport to catapult industry in the Coastal Bend.At the end of 1888, Ropes purchased Mustang Island for $25,000, established Ropesville at the northern tip of the island, and the Port Ropes Company was formed with $5 million in capital for the purpose of dredging a 15-foot channel through the island, creating a navigable passage from the Gulf of Mexico into Corpus Christi Bay. For four years, the Coastal Bend experienced the Ropes Boom, as the prospect of a deep-water seaport spurred investment, both pri-vate and public. The 125-room Alta Vista Hotel opened downtown, the citys first streetcar system was installed, and luxury mansions began popping up on the high South Bluff.The Panic of 1893 rattled the national economy, and investment money into the Port Ropes Company dried up. By the end of the century, the dredging hadlongstopped,thecompanysequipmenthadbeenauctionedoff,and Ropesville changed its name to Tarpon, which of course, later became Port Aransas. Ropes fled Corpus Christi, vowing to return with more money to complete his work, but never did and died alone at age 53 in a far-flung Latin American village. The idea of a deep-water port in Corpus Christi was tabled by city leaders in favor of building up North Beach.Twenty years after the collapse of the Ropes Boom, Roy Miller was elected Top/Left: An edition of the Corpus Christi Caller from 1911, when Roy Miller was editor. Top/Right:Mayor of Corpus Christi at age 29, referred to by some as the Boy Mayor, who won on a platform of modernizing the city and dragging it into the new FDR with a young LBJ, whom Miller hired in his first job in politics. Middle: Many years after servingcentury. Galveston was still being rebuilt more than a decade after its great as mayor, Miller helped land NAS Corpus Christi. Bottom: The 1914 Nueces County Courthouse. storm, and Miller saw a void of opportunity to be filled in South Texas.66THE COASTAL BEND GUIDE TheCoastalBend.com'