Galveston: Gateway to Texas

Seawolf Park began in 1971 as a memorial to the submarine Seawolf, lost in World War II, and the boat most visitors take for the Seawolf is actually the Cavalla. On her first patrol Cavalla sank the 30,000-ton Japanese carrier Shokaku on June 19, 1944, and earned a Presidential Unit Citation. The Navy transferred her to the Submarine Veterans of World War II, Texas in 1971. When the Navy planned to scrap the destroyer escort Stewart in 1974, the veterans had her towed here too, so the park holds hunter and protector side by side.

What the plaque says

Galveston: Gateway to Texas From the time of the earliest documented history, the Gulf of Mexico has been the main point of entry into Texas. Some settlers of the 1820s even came by keelboat, going ashore along the way to kill game, the same way an overland party would live off the country while traveling. Some settlers did choose to come to Texas by land, but a poor system of wet and rough roads was crossed by countless rivers. In most cases, the rivers were crossed only by costly, ill-tended ferrier, many of which were manned by unscrupulous operators who preyed upon naive Travellers. Galveston in the 19th century was a chief port of entry into Texas. It was sister city to New Orleans, so well-organized was passage from one to the other. Texas ports of entry included the Velasco, Quintana, Lavaca, Indianola, Matagorda, Port Isabel, Houston and Corpus Christi. Yet Galveston - with the best natural harbor between Pensacola and Veracruz - dominated travel both into and out of Texas. This port welcomed statesmen, speculators, teachers, soldiers, clergymen, doctors, merchants, craftsman and tourists. Galveston's prominence among the major ports of entry in North America led to the construction by the United States government of important quarantine and immigration stations that replaced earlier ones built and operated by the City of Galveston and the State of Texas. These stations saw tens of thousands of immigrants enter Galveston. While sone settled within the city and contributed to Galveston's diverse population, most dispersed across Texas and aided in the growth and development of the state. (1965, 2010)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Seaport Museum and the Elissa — 2.1 mi
  An iron barque launched in Aberdeen in 1877 that called at Galveston twice, ended up smuggling in the Adriatic, and was bought back from a Greek scrapyard to sail again from Pier 22.
• The Strand — 2.2 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.
• 1892 Bishop's Palace — 2.3 mi
  Nicholas Clayton's stone house on Broadway for the railroad lawyer Walter Gresham, later home to Galveston's Catholic bishops and one of the most admired Victorian houses in the country.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 2.6 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.

More markers nearby

• Galveston Quarantine Stations — steps away
• SS Selma — steps away
• World War I Physicians from Galveston — 1.7 mi
• Galveston Seawall — 1.8 mi