It was a hub of immigration, banking and trade, operating the biggest cotton port in the country. The city was incorporated in 1839 and was, for a brief time, the capital of the Republic of Texas.īy 1900, Galveston was a vibrant regional center, outpacing its rival, Houston, in many regards. Spanish explorers, French merchants, and even pirates followed. Native Americans, who hunted and fished in its swampy marshland, were the original occupants of the island. Located on a barrier island about 70 kilometers southeast of Houston on Texas' Gulf Coast, Galveston has a rich and colorful history. In the face of utter destruction, the survivors rallied, quickly setting their sights on recovery, determined to rebuild their community. In 1900, Richard Spillane, the editor of the Galveston Tribune, aptly named it the “Storm King.” More than half of the buildings in Galveston were destroyed, blown apart by winds estimated at up to 240 kilometers per hour or lifted from their foundations and tossed by the 5-meter storm surge that swept over the island. The storm that decimated Galveston on that day has no name it wasn’t until the 1950s that the National Weather Service (then called the Weather Bureau) began its naming convention. By the next morning, the city lay in ruin, blasted by a Category-4 hurricane that killed an estimated 10,000 people - a quarter of the island’s population - and more than the combined death tolls of all other landfalling U.S. 8, 1900, when the skies over Galveston, Texas, darkened with rain and the winds blew strong, residents of this booming barrier island community believed their city could weather any storm. City leaders saw no need for an expensive seawall, trusting local meteorologist Isaac Cline when he claimed that it was “impossible for any cyclone to … materially injure the city.” And so, on the morning of Sept. Credit: Library of Congress.Įveryone said it couldn’t happen. After the storm, debris clogged the Gulf Coast for miles. Wreckage in Galveston Bay near Texas City on the mainland.
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