American Red Cross, Galveston County Chapter

Clara Barton came to Galveston on a newspaper's money. The New York World offered to collect relief if the Red Cross president would distribute it, and her party left Washington within two days. They spent a night in open cars at Texas City waiting for the one ferry and reached the island on September 15. The gift was assigned to Galveston alone, which left twenty mainland counties unserved, so she moved supplies to Houston. Farmers there had lost their strawberry fields, and within two weeks the Red Cross had a million and a half plants in the ground.

What the plaque says

American Red Cross, Galveston County Chapter Within days of the devastating storm of 1900 Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, arrived in Galveston with personnel, supplies, and relief funds. Assisting the relief effort, which included Galveston Island and several mainland counties, was a group of Galveston women who formed a Red Cross auxiliary and operated distribution centers throughout the area. Galveston County's American Red Cross Chapter was formally established in 1916. The chapter established branch organizations throughout the area in support of servicemen and women during World War I. Since its formation the Galveston County chapter has been at the forefront of countless relief efforts in response to regional, state, national, and world disasters. It established relief shelters and food distribution centers during the Great Depression, provided goods and services for servicemen and women during World War II, inventoried and distributed medical and other disaster relief supplies to victims of the Texas City harbor explosion of 1947, and provides groceries and other supplies to victims of hurricanes along the Texas Gulf Coast. Galveston County's chapter joined the Greater Houston Area Chapter of the American Red Cross in 1987. (1994)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Galveston Seawall and the 1900 Storm — steps away
  The concrete wall along the Gulf that Galveston built after the hurricane of September 8, 1900, which killed between 6,000 and 8,000 people in a city of 38,000.
• Moody Mansion — 2.2 mi
  A four-story, 28,000-square-foot house on Broadway, finished in 1895, that W. L. Moody Jr. bought just after the 1900 storm and his family kept until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 2.3 mi
  A brick Italianate house on Broadway, built with enslaved labor in 1859, whose lawn has held Galveston's Juneteenth commemoration of General Orders, No. 3 every year since 1979.
• The Strand — 2.7 mi
  Five blocks of iron-front brick buildings near the harbor that were once called the Wall Street of the Southwest, emptied after 1900 and brought back by preservationists from the 1960s.

More markers nearby

• The Original Galveston Seawall — steps away
• Peter Leroy Colombo — 0.5 mi
• Burial Site of David G. Burnet — 0.6 mi
• The Rev. Henry P. Young — 0.6 mi