Galveston Seawall

The wall the plaque describes was only the first stretch. Finished on July 29, 1904, it ran about 3.3 miles, stood 17 feet high and cost almost $1.6 million. Congress then paid for a second segment to protect Fort Crockett, 4,935 feet long from 39th to 53rd streets, built between December 1904 and October 1905. The wall was extended west to 61st Street in 1927 and to 99th Street in 1963. Walking the Seawall west from 39th Street crosses the later stages in order.

What the plaque says

Galveston Seawall After the catastrophic destruction and loss of life caused by the legendary 1900 hurricane, Galveston City officials authorized creation of a seawall to protect from future storms. The project was completed in stages. The original 12-foot-high seawall, finished in 1904, ran east along the gulf starting at 39th Street and curved north along 6th Street, ending at Strand Street, following the general path of destruction of the 1900 hurricane. Later, the 6th Street section was buried as further eastward sections of the island were raised to protect new eastern developments. In 2012, an excavation project revealed a portion of the original section of the seawall on what was then the UTMB campus. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• 1892 Bishop's Palace — 0.7 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.
• Texas Seaport Museum and the Elissa — 1.1 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 — 1.2 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.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 1.3 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.

More markers nearby

• St. Mary's Hospital — steps away
• World War I Physicians from Galveston — 0.3 mi
• General Sidney Sherman — 0.4 mi
• George Washington Chapter - DAR — 0.5 mi