Old Galveston Market House and City Hall

The stone building that replaced the frame market has the longer record. The city hired Alfred Muller, who designed it in the French Renaissance style, and its cornerstone was laid on March 2, 1888. Market stalls kept the ground floor, as in the old building, with the municipal offices above. The 1900 storm damaged it heavily, one history blog notes, and parts of it survived into the 1960s. City government used the building until 1916, and it was demolished in 1966.

What the plaque says

Old Galveston Market House and City Hall During the 1830s, an informal, outdoor market started in the half-block north of Market Street between 20th and 21st streets. In 1846, mayor John Sydnor hired Ives and Crow to build a 260-foot long structure in the center of 20th Street between Mechanic (C) and Market (D) streets to serve both as a produce market and as the city hall. The Colonial style white frame building had four dormer windows and a roof cupola. The ground floor originally housed 34 meat, vegetable and coffee stalls, with the city offices, including the police department, and a large public meeting hall located on the second floor. A fish market operated across the street. Galvestonians celebrated the building's opening with a grand ball. The market stalls were stocked with produce, meat, fish and other goods brought in from the bay area on catboats that landed at the nearby Brick and Kuhn's Wharves. Before the Civil War, annual stall rents ranged from a high of $100 (meat) to a low of $35 (fish) and the city added a 100-foot extension to meet the demand for stalls. On Oct. 7, 1862, Galvestonians gathered in the market and voted to peacefully accept Union occupation. Having escaped damage during the Civil War, the market house survived serious threats from fire in 1865 and again in 1885. Installed in 1867, a bell in the cupola rang to tell the time of day. After the Civil War, critics found the market house run-down, but expense deterred renovation. One of the last improvements occurred in 1874 when the city installed pavers. An attempt to use the attic as a holding cell in the 1870s ended when a woman prisoner broke through the roof. In 1888, a new three-story stone building replaced the 1846 frame structure. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Strand — steps away
  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.
• Texas Seaport Museum and the Elissa — 0.2 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.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 0.5 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.
• 1892 Bishop's Palace — 0.6 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.

More markers nearby

• American National Insurance Company — steps away
• Galveston Historical Foundation — steps away
• The Stewart Building — steps away
• Juneteenth — steps away