Pod Insights American History Tellers The 1900 Galveston Hurricane | City of Doom | 3 About this episode On September 9, 1900, the residents of Galveston, Texas woke up to find their island in ruins. Entire neighborhoods had vanished overnight. Telegraph, telephone, and electrical lines were destroyed, as were the four bridges connecting Galveston to the mainland. Bloodied men, women, and children stumbled through the streets. And thousands of corpses were strewn amongst the wreckage, victims of what remains America’s deadliest natural disaster.
As the survivors reckoned with the challenge of rebuilding their lives, Clara Barton, the 78-year-old founder and president of the American Red Cross, rushed to Galveston to aid with relief.
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0:17 Lindsay Graham? Imagine it's the afternoon of Sunday, September 9, 1900, somewhere outside of League City, Texas. You and five other men left Galveston on a boat this morning to begin a 50-mile journey to Houston in order to alert the world about yesterday's devastating hurricane. Since reaching the mainland, you've been pumping your way north in a small rail handcart. Your arms are sore from the work, but the repetitive motion is a helpful distraction from your shock and grief. All right, keep going, boys. Just a few more miles. At first, you think the sun is playing tricks on you, but then you see a southbound passenger train rounding a bend ahead. You straighten up and wave your arms. Stop, stop, we can't take stop!
1:01 Lindsay Graham? The train manages to slow to a halt, and you climb off the handcart. The conductor flings open the door. What the hell are you men doing? We're from Galveston. We're heading to Houston to wire the governor and the president about the storm. Galveston, huh? I heard you got some rain. It wasn't just rain. It was a worse storm than anything you can imagine. Please, can we come aboard? After a moment's hesitation, the conductor jerks his head. All right, come on up, but be quick about it. So you'll turn around, take us to Houston? Turn around? Absolutely not. We're not going to Houston until I drop these passengers off in Galveston. These people pay to travel south. Oh, sir, you don't understand. Galveston's gone. The city's in ruins. Every bridge, every railroad track on the island has been washed away clean.
1:46 Lindsay Graham? The mayor deputized us to seek help. Hundreds have died, maybe more. Hundreds? Oh, come on now. It's clear you're worn out, and that's perfectly understandable, but I think things couldn't be that bad. Oh, look, can we come aboard or not? Be my guest.
2:03 Lindsay Graham? You climb up into a passenger car with the rest of your party. Heads turn immediately, men and women eyeing your soaked, salt-crusted clothes with a mixture of curiosity and alarm. But it doesn't matter. You'll know they'll finally understand when the tracks run out, when they start seeing the bodies.
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3:47 Lindsay Graham? From Audible Originals, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story.
4:08 Lindsay Graham? On September 9, 1900, a small group of survivors of the Galveston Hurricanes set out on an emergency mission to Houston, commandeering a boat and a rail handcar in order to make their way 50 miles north. With Galveston's telephone and telegraph lines down and all bridges onto the island destroyed, they needed to tell the world that their city was in desperate need of relief. Because back in Galveston, only 24 hours had passed since an unprecedented hurricane had struck the city. Days survivors grappled with unimaginable loss. Thousands of homes had been leveled, and the island was littered with mountains of debris, animal carcasses, and corpses that signaled a death toll far beyond what anyone initially realized.
4:50 Lindsay Graham? A thriving cosmopolitan community had been torn apart, and now the survivors faced the staggering challenge of picking up the pieces of their shattered lives. This is episode 3 in our three-part series on the 1900 Galveston Hurricane: City of Doom.
5:10 Lindsay Graham? The Sunday of September 9, 1900, dawned on a city in ruins. In less than 24 hours, a vibrant and modern seaport full of homes, businesses, wharves, and warehouses had been reduced to a sodden wasteland. All across Galveston, survivors of the hurricane emerged from their hiding places and took in the desolation. The sky was clear and blue, and the sea was calm and quiet. The flooding had receded, but thousands of homes had disappeared overnight. And in the streets, bloodied men, women, and children stumbled, shocked and confused. Everywhere they looked, there were corpses. Forty-three bodies were lodged in the cross braces of a railroad bridge.
5:52 Lindsay Graham? In a grove of salt cedar trees, 100 bodies were found in the branches, some with double puncture wounds left by snakes. One witness to the destruction was 18-year-old PG Tip, who had left Galveston on a fishing trip four days earlier and came home early Sunday morning aboard a small sailboat. He later recalled the harrowing sights that greeted him as he drifted closer to shore, writing: "We kept running into so many dead bodies that I had to go forward with a pike and shove the dead out of the way. Men, women, children, babies, all floating along with the tide. Hundreds of bodies, going bump, bump, hitting the boat. I was sort of in a daze, picking them out of the way. It was the most horrible thing I have ever seen."
6:35 Lindsay Graham? But the survivors still had no idea how many victims the hurricane had claimed. Early estimates put the death toll at 500. Only much later would they learn that between 6,000 and 8,000 had lost their lives. To this day, the Galveston hurricane remains the deadliest natural disaster in the history of North America. The storm had carved a large swath of destruction, leveling nearly two-thirds of Galveston structures, amounting to between 17 and 30 million dollars in property losses. Entire neighborhoods had vanished, homes swept up from their foundations and broken apart, joined a battering ram of debris that cleared a 1,500-acre stretch of the coastline, before coming to rest just south of Broadway, the city's central thoroughfare.
7:19 Lindsay Graham? There, a 30-foot-high, three-mile-long mound of wreckage, concealed bodies and animal carcasses, and slowed the drainage of floodwaters. Making matters worse, telegraph, telephone, and electrical lines were all destroyed, as were the four bridges connecting Galveston to mainland Texas. The city was cut off from the outside world in a moment when it desperately needed aid. So the surviving city leaders knew they needed to tell the world what had happened. They enlisted six men to serve as messengers. These men found one of the few boats still intact, and set out across the bay to begin a 50-mile trek to Houston. Upon reaching the mainland, they made their way across the flooded plains to the town of La Mark.
8:01 Lindsay Graham? There, they found a rail handcar, which they used to crank their way 15 miles north to League City. It was there that they encountered an oncoming train from Houston and climbed aboard. Despite their warning that Galveston was inaccessible, the conductor refused to turn around, so the messengers were forced to retrace their steps south. It was only when the tracks gave out, as the men said would happen, that the first train turned back to Houston. While these messengers traveled north that afternoon, Galveston's mayor Walter C. Jones, a former police chief who was popular among the city's working class, called a meeting at the Trebonnet Hotel to organize relief. The citizens that gathered there formed what they called the Central Relief Committee, led by the mayor and eight chairmen.
8:46 Lindsay Graham? To better coordinate relief efforts, they created subcommittees to oversee public safety, hospitals, burials, water, finance, transportation, and correspondence. And they divided Galveston into twelve wards, each with an elected chairman who would manage teams of men tasked with collecting bodies and debris, digging drainage ditches, and disinfecting the streets. These were volunteer teams, but there was a warning that any able-bodied men who refused to work would not be fed. And because the first priority was obtaining fresh water, the committee immediately set about recruiting 100 men to begin work on restoring the water system. While this was happening, at 3:00 a.m. on Monday, September 10th, the six messengers sent to Houston finally managed to place phone calls to the Texas governor and U.S.
9:31 Lindsay Graham? President William McKinley, who pledged to provide army supplies. Thankfully, the people of Houston had already anticipated the need for relief, and at 4:00 on Monday morning, 250 volunteers set out with a railcar of provisions, followed by a steamer loaded with additional supplies and 100,000 gallons of fresh water. However, they were forced to travel the last few miles to the edge of Galveston Bay on foot, hauling goods to the shore. From there, a small party rode across the bay, reaching Galveston at 1:00 that afternoon. Over the next few days, rescuers from the mainland continued to arrive on the island in shifts, some to help deliver aid, others to search for lost loved ones. But every one of these rescuers was shocked by what they found.
10:16 Lindsay Graham? General Chambers McKibben, commander of the Texas Department of the U.S. Army and a veteran of one of the Civil War's bloodiest battles, wrote: "I'm an old soldier. I've seen many battlefields. But ever since I helped the man in the boat to steer clear of the floating bodies of dead women and little children, I have not slept one single moment." It was difficult for the rescuers and their survivors to even comprehend the sheer number of lives lost. There were so many bodies that disposal became the Central Relief Committee's prime concern. Because with corpses quickly decaying in the relentless heat, they knew that unless the remains were cleared soon, Galveston would face a different kind of catastrophe.
11:00 Lindsay Graham? Imagine it's Monday morning, September 10th, 1900, in Galveston, Texas. You're the chief of the local weather bureau, and you press a handkerchief over your mouth and nose as you enter a large warehouse serving as a makeshift morgue. Hundreds of bodies are laid out in rows, stretching wall to wall. Distraught, men and women move among them, looking for their lost loved ones. The scent of death and decay is sickening, but you're desperate to find your own loved one, your wife Cora. A volunteer in mudcake boots hurries by, and you catch his arm. Excuse me, I'm looking for my wife. We lost her on Saturday night. We hoped we might find her alive, but it's been two days. She has dark brown hair, wearing a blue dress.
11:43 Lindsay Graham? Volunteer takes a long drink from a flask. His hands trembling as he puts the cap back on. I'm sorry, mister, can't say I've seen her. There's just too many to keep track. Well, she had a diamond ring on her left hand. I hope for your sake she's still wearing it. What do you mean? Has there been looting? We caught a group of boys stealing a gold watch just this morning. You steady yourself against a support beam. The volunteer puts his hand on your shoulder. Look, I'm sorry. I don't think I've seen your wife, but that doesn't mean she isn't here. Best thing you can do is look for yourself. You nod, and force yourself to start moving down the row, peeling back sheets and blankets to expose the faces underneath.
12:24 Lindsay Graham? You pull back the edge of a tattered quilt and stumble backwards as you recognize your longtime friend Henry. His face is bruised and bloated, but there's no mistaking it's him. Oh, sir, I know this man. His name's Henry Carter. Volunteer returns to your side and scribbles on a clipboard. All right, that's good. We know one more, thank you.
12:49 Lindsay Graham? As you stare down at Henry's distorted face, all you can think of is his wife and his sons, who are the same age as your eldest daughters. You wonder if they've survived, or if their bodies are laid out somewhere here, too. You suddenly realize that you can't stay a moment longer. So you run out of the warehouse and into the blinding morning sun and gasp for air. But the scent outside is almost as sour. You know that you and your daughters won't find peace until you find Cora, but you're not sure you have enough strength for the search. In the days after the hurricane, Galveston's burial committee organized gangs of men to round up hundreds of bodies, sending them out in 30-minute shifts and fortifying them with whiskey to steady their nerves.
13:34 Lindsay Graham? They then laid the corpses out in makeshift morgues to await identification. Meteorologist Isaac Klein was one of the thousands of survivors desperate to find a lost loved one. He searched for his wife Cora among the dead, but she was nowhere to be found. But there was the opposite problem, too. Volunteers discovered that many of the dead victims had no surviving family members left to claim their bodies. The death toll was simply overwhelming, and it soon became clear that the ground was too soaked for burials. But with the bodies rapidly decaying, there was no time to waste. Fearing the spread of disease, the committee decided that burial at sea was their only option. So on Monday, September 10, workmen loaded roughly 700 bodies onto three waiting barges,
14:19 Lindsay Graham? while deputized white citizens rounded up 50 black men at gunpoint and forced them to board the barges and handle the task of disposal. That night, the crews traveled 18 miles offshore, only to find that the darkness made it impossible to do the work, leaving the men to spend the night at sea, surrounded by the dead. Finally, at dawn on September 11, the workmen began attaching weights to the bodies to help them sink. They worked quickly, anxious to complete this grim task. But to everyone's horror, later that afternoon, scores of bodies washed ashore, some with the weights still attached. By then, decomposition had made the bodies hard to handle. So despite the fact that cremation was relatively unusual in America in 1900, and sacrilegious
15:04 Lindsay Graham? to many, the burial committee concluded that the only option left was to burn the bodies. Crews began the work of building funeral pyres on the beaches, spaced a few hundred feet apart. And for the next two months, the stench of burning bodies would permeate the city. It was so strong that sailors could smell it fifty miles out at sea. Eighteen-year-old PG Tip, who led a crew of eight workers later recalled, "I had done so much burning and so much work that I just gave out. I was sick for a long time. I can still smell the dead and the burning bodies like burnt sugar." The devastation proved too much for many, and in the days immediately following the hurricane, several survivors decided that rather than stay and face the horrors around them,
15:49 Lindsay Graham? they would escape the island altogether. Grief, shock, fear of disease and food and housing shortages led some six thousand people, mostly women and children, to flee Galveston by boat. A relief worker in Texas City just across the bay from Galveston wrote, "The boat came filled with refugees from the city of doom. Mothers whose babies had been torn from their arms, children whose parents were missing, fathers whose entire families were lost. A dazed and tearless throng." Between the deaths and this mass exodus, Galveston lost one-third of its population. But for those who remained, security soon became a major concern too, as reports of looting emerged. When the chief of police insisted that he needed more manpower than his seventy officers,
16:34 Lindsay Graham? Mayor Jones deputized white union workers, and on September thirteenth, the mayor called in the Texas militia, led by Brigadier General Thomas Scurry, who declared martial law. Troops guarded warehouses and commissaries and set up tents for homeless women and children. But despite the presence of this militia, sensationalist stories of looting continued to spread, with racist newspaper accounts adding fuel to the fire. Several reports accused black men of mutilating corpses to steal jewelry. On September thirteenth, an Alabama newspaper alleged that fifty black looters had been shot to death in Galveston, declaring the ghouls were holding an orgy over the dead, though there was no evidence that these incidents occurred.
17:16 Lindsay Graham? But even as officials worked to improve sanitation and security on the island, food shortages emerged as the most pressing challenge. And beyond rations, survivors also desperately needed clothing, bedding, furniture, and stoves. Because although the weather was still warm, soon cooler temperatures would arrive, making the housing shortage even more urgent. Galveston's needs were far beyond what the disaster-stricken city could handle, and supplies were fast running out.
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19:37 Lindsay Graham? On Monday, September 10, 1900, news of the hurricane in Galveston had reached Clara Barton, the 78-year-old founder and president of the American Red Cross, who was known as "the angel of the battlefield" for her efforts tending the wounded during the Civil War. The Red Cross had led relief operations in the wake of other major natural disasters, including the 1889 flood that killed more than 2,000 people in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. And despite suffering from a lingering illness, Barton was determined to lend her expertise to Galveston, too. So on September 13, she set out from Washington, D.C. with a team of Red Cross workers. Four days later, they reached Galveston by boat. Upon arrival, Mayor Walter Jones welcomed them and set them up at the Tremont Hotel.
20:22 Lindsay Graham? And although Barton was used to scenes of death and destruction, the scale of devastation in Galveston shocked even her. She wrote, "It was one of those monstrosities of nature which defied exaggeration." She was especially struck by the way the survivors moved around in a daze, writing, "There was an unnatural calmness that would astonish those who do not understand it." But once Barton and the Red Cross were on the ground, they immediately partnered with a local central relief committee, aiming to support rather than replace local leadership. And drawing on prior experience, the organization implemented a two-phase plan. For the first two weeks, they would focus on emergency relief, providing food, clothing, and household goods to families based on need.
21:05 Lindsay Graham? The second phase was rehabilitation, which meant assessing what needed to be done to re-establish homes and livelihoods. To assist in these efforts, a wealthy local resident donated a four-story warehouse to serve as Red Cross headquarters, where staff tracked donations, corresponded with donors, managed supply distribution, ran an orphanage, and operated a kitchen to feed the hungry. Because Barton was a trusted national figure, her presence in Galveston not only generated publicity, but also reassured donors across the country that their gifts would be used appropriately. She issued press statements confirming the devastation had not been exaggerated and urged Americans to donate what they could.
21:46 Lindsay Graham? She also actively leveraged her networks, issuing appeals, wiring other relief organizations, and communicating with President William McKinley himself to secure much-needed supplies and funds. Soon, household goods, disinfectants, clothing, and money poured in from individuals and businesses from across America and around the world. Barton made a special plea for cash donations, so that relief workers could buy supplies from local merchants to help the city's suffering economy. She also formed a Red Cross Auxiliary for Women, who undertook the daunting task of sorting and distributing supplies. Women canvassed their wards to document losses, then allocated clothing, food, and other materials to those in need.
22:29 Lindsay Graham? But soon, troubling reports of discrimination began to surface, deepening the wounds the storm had already opened.
22:39 Lindsay Graham? Imagine it's mid-September 1900 in Galveston, Texas. You and your two young boys have been lined up at your neighborhood relief station for two hours, waiting in the heat to pick out some new clothes. At last, you step to the front of the line, where a white woman sits behind a makeshift table made of warped planks laid across two barrels. She taps a wooden crate with the tip of her pencil. "Here, look through these." The smell of old, swack, and damp wool hits you, as you peer inside, find a jumbled pile of clothes. You pick up a shirt with a stained collar. Beneath it sits a pair of trousers with a hole in the knee. You lift them up and jump as a bug skitters away. "Ma'am, these clothes aren't fit to wear." The woman looks up sharply.
23:22 Lindsay Graham? "You ought to be grateful you're getting anything at all." "I'm not asking for fine things, just some clean clothes to keep my boys warm at night." "You have anything else in the back?" "No, you should have come earlier. What you see is what we've got." "But I did come early. They said to line up at noon, and that's when I came. We've been waiting here for two hours." "Oh, you people are always finding something to complain about, aren't you?" "Ma'am, you don't understand. This storm took everything from me, you and everyone else. But none of these clothes will even fit my boys. They're too little. These clothes are for grown men." You place your hands on your son's shoulders, and they press closer to your side. The woman shakes her head, though, flicking her eyes to the people behind you in line. "Look, there are people waiting. Pick out what you're taking and move along." "But ma'am, next."
24:08 Lindsay Graham? You let out a sigh of defeat and take two shirts, both too big and missing buttons. And as you and your boy step away, you feel a new sense of loss. The hurricane took your home, your husband, and all of your belongings. But it's the smaller cruelties in the days since that have stripped you of your dignity. In September 1900, a black reverend lodged a complaint that white ward volunteers were discriminating against black survivors, giving the best donated goods to white residents in the morning and reserving poor-quality leftovers for black residents in the afternoon. Clara Barton stepped in as mediator, working with the respected principal of Gallison's
24:49 Lindsay Graham? All-Black Central High School to form a Black-Red Cross auxiliary so that black relief workers could distribute aid to the black community. By late September, Barton turned her focus to the problem of housing. For weeks, homeless families camped out in damaged public buildings, churches, and overcrowded homes, or fled to stay with relatives when surviving structures proved uninhabitable. Many survivors scavenged materials to construct shacks for themselves or pitched donated tents on their empty lots. Hundreds more camped in what became known as the White City on the Beach, a miles-long temporary settlement erected with surplus Army canvas tents. But with fall and winter approaching, Barton worried about how the people living in these tents would survive the colder months ahead.
25:33 Lindsay Graham? So she started a letter-writing campaign to urge Red Cross supporters to provide money for building materials and labor. She also asked the Central Relief Committee to develop a comprehensive rebuilding plan. A reconstruction committee would then spend roughly $450,000 rebuilding and repairing thousands of homes, mostly modest three-room cottages. However, the people of Gallison knew that these efforts would go to waste if they could not revive the local economy, so they immediately began working to restore crucial city infrastructure and transportation lines. The downtown business corridor had reopened early on, with stores offering damaged goods at reduced prices, while Western Union employees quickly restrung telegraph wires and workers
26:16 Lindsay Graham? labored around the clock to restore city utilities. Within a week of the storm, banks reopened, streetcars resumed service, and Gallison newspapers began publishing again. Meanwhile, neighbors improvised, pooling whatever resources they had to rebuild their communities and daily routines. Surviving houses of worship opened their doors not only to their own congregations, but to displaced worshippers across the city. One Baptist woman recalled with gratitude how a Jewish synagogue welcomed her congregation after the hurricane swept away their church buildings and 50 of their members. While still grieving the loss of his wife, Isaac Klein returned to work at the Galveston Weather Bureau. And on September 28th, he read a five-page letter in the Houston Post, written by U.S.
27:00 Lindsay Graham? Weather Bureau Chief Willis Moore, in which Moore falsely claimed that Galveston had received hurricane warnings prior to the storm. He also heavily exaggerated Klein's heroism on September 8th, claiming that after all communication lines failed, Klein had fought his way through the raging wind and rising water to a remote telephone station at the end of a bridge. There, he supposedly sent the city's final message before the hurricane cut Galveston off entirely, only to return home afterward and discover that his house had been destroyed and his wife and child were gone. Klein had long considered Willis Moore a friend, but he was troubled by the claim that the Weather Bureau had successfully predicted the hurricane. He sent Moore a letter emphasizing that no warnings had reached Galveston before the
27:43 Lindsay Graham? wires failed, but Moore continued to portray the Weather Bureau as having expertly tracked the hurricane. In Collier's Weekly, one of the era's most influential magazines, he claimed that the Bureau detected the storm early and issued timely warnings. Cuban meteorologists countered these statements, publicly pointing out that they had accurately predicted the storm's Texas landfall while the U.S. Bureau was adamant it was heading for the eastern seaboard. But most U.S. newspapers accepted Moore's claims as truth and applauded the Weather Bureau's efforts. The Boston Herald called the service "excellent," the Buffalo Courier cited its "advanced efficiency," and Chicago's Inter-Ocean demanded public recognition for the Bureau and its chief. In the meantime, the residents of Galveston continued to reckon with the devastation to their
28:28 Lindsay Graham? city and their lives. It was not until September 30th that a crew of workmen finally uncovered Cora Klein's remains in the mountain of debris south of Broadway near where Isaac's family had floated to safety. Years later, he wrote, "Even in death, she had traveled with us and near us through the storm." Isaac recognized his wife's body from the diamond ring on her finger, which he kept and later wore as a memento. In the end, Cora was one of the few hurricane victims given a burial. As funeral pyres for other victims continued burning through October, crews worked to repair Galveston's damaged wharves and warehouses while also completing construction on scores of new houses. On October 14th, 30,000 bales of cotton left Galveston's port, something the city
29:13 Lindsay Graham? celebrated as a sign of recovery. By October 22nd, schools began to reopen, though extensive damage and racial segregation created overcrowding problems. The situation was especially dire for black students. One all-black school was destroyed, and another would be unusable for months, leaving students from all three segregated black schools to squeeze into a single, small elementary school. Finally, on October 25th, the relief stations closed, followed soon after by the Red Cross Warehouse and Orphanage, whose wards have been sent to live with relatives or placed with new families. In mid-November, Clara Barton at last left town, confident that Galveston was firmly on the road to recovery.
29:54 Lindsay Graham? And as the Central Relief Committee disbanded, its members looked back on their extraordinary efforts. Over one and a quarter million dollars were raised, streets cleared of debris, businesses reopened, homes reoccupied, and ships once again filling the wharves. By New Year's Eve, 1900 Galveston was a city reborn. But already, residents were contemplating radical changes to make sure nothing like the events of September 8th ever happened again.
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32:18 Lindsay Graham? Imagine it's January 1901 in Galveston, Texas. You're a local cotton exporter and you're walking along the wars with George Hodges, a prospective investor visiting from Chicago. Carpenters are busy putting the finishing repairs on your warehouse, which was destroyed in the hurricane. You turn your gaze from the workman to Hodges, trying to gauge his interest. So you can see, the whole city's made remarkable progress these past few months. Soon you won't even be able to tell there was a hurricane. Hodges nods, tilting his neck as he watches the carpenter fit a window in place. Well, it's certainly impressive to see you all bounce back so quickly. When I was in Houston last week, the local business league made it seem like Galveston was doomed. Well, they underestimate us. Galveston is just as sound an investment as it ever was.
33:03 Lindsay Graham? Hodges scratches his beard and shifts his way from one foot to the other. Eh, still, I wonder if I might be better off investing in Houston. I won't lie to you, I like the idea of placing my money further inland, closer to the major railroads. Well, that's understandable, but Houston doesn't have a deep-water harbor. Here, the Gulf is on our doorstep. Houston's a full 50 miles from the shipping channels. Its sole connection to the sea is a narrow, muddy bayou. Shipping your goods there will add extra cost to your business. Yes, that may be true now, but there's talk in Houston of dredging the bayou. They're planning to carve out their own deep-water channel. Oh, that's a fantasy, and an expensive one at that. I assure you, nothing is going to change the fact that Galveston is home to the premier deep-water port in Texas.
33:47 Lindsay Graham? Yes, but your coastal setting is still precarious, isn't it? Even if you manage to rebuild the city and recover your population, the ground we stand on is still barely above water. What happens if, God forbid, another hurricane comes and wipes out Galveston for good? How are you going to convince me to stomach that risk?
34:06 Lindsay Graham? You open your mouth to reassure him, but realize you don't have a good answer. You're hit with the difficult truth that if Galveston is truly going to endure for the long term, it's going to require drastic action.
34:22 Lindsay Graham? In the aftermath of the Galveston hurricane, newspaper editors across the country questioned whether the devastated city would ever recover its status as an economic powerhouse, and Houston leaders cautioned investors to stay away from their longtime rival. But the local business community refused to let the hurricane threaten the city's future. The editors of the Galveston Daily News declared, "Galveston does not intend to succumb to her crushing misfortune, but will again resume her place as the great port of the Gulf." So, once the city's most immediate needs had been taken care of, local leaders turned to long-term planning to restore Galveston to its former glory. And in the months after the storm, an influential group of businessmen known as the Deep Water Committee seized
35:04 Lindsay Graham? the opportunity to overhaul the local government. For years, many residents had complained that the mayor and city council were plagued by inefficiency and infighting. To address this issue, the Deep Water Committee drew up a new city charter, proposing replacing the sitting mayor and city council with a five-member city commission, with each member overseeing a key department, including police and fire, finance and revenue, streets and public improvements, and water and sewers. The goal was to make the city government more business-like and nonpartisan. In an address to residents justifying the change, the committee declared, "We believe that municipal government, as it has been administered in this community for the past 20 years, is a failure. It did not require the storm
35:47 Lindsay Graham? to bring a realization of this fact, but it brought it home with greater force upon us. It is a question with us of civic life or death." In July 1901, over the protests of sitting city council members, the Texas state legislature approved the new city charter. And two months later, a mix of elected and governor-appointed commissioners took their seats. In the years that followed, hundreds of other cities across the country adopted what became known as the Galveston Plan, from Houston, Texas, to Oakland, California, as the reforms undertaken in Galveston did make the government more efficient and business-like, helping to reassure potential investors. Still, it was clear to many that if Galveston was going to truly recover, the city commission would
36:30 Lindsay Graham? need to take drastic steps to prevent future disasters. So they finally began making plans to build a protective seawall around the island. In November 1901, the commissioner selected a board of engineers to design and build the seawall. The following year, construction began on a concrete barrier, beginning on the eastern end of the island and extending more than three miles along the beach. It stood seventeen feet high and curved toward the Gulf, designed to toss waves back on themselves. The entire project cost 1.5 million dollars, and when the seawall was finally completed in 1904, McClure's magazine called it "one of the greatest engineering works of modern times." The wall would later be extended, reaching its final ten-mile length in the 1960s.
37:15 Lindsay Graham? But city engineers knew that all the expense and effort of the seawall would be wasted if nothing was done to raise the elevation of Galveston itself. So in 1903, a monumental effort began to raise the ground by as much as seventeen feet. In the mid-19th century, parts of Chicago had been raised to improve drainage, but there was no precedent for a project of this scale. Workers used manual screwjacks to raise some 2,000 buildings, including a cathedral, and then filled the space underneath with millions of pounds of sand dredged from the Gulf. They raised streets, water mains, trolley tracks, and gas lines, the entire city infrastructure. But while the city took responsibility for raising municipal property and providing
37:59 Lindsay Graham? fill, private property owners were required to pay for the raising of their own homes, businesses, and barns. Many homeowners who could not afford the cost simply moved upstairs and allowed the first floor of their homes to be filled in. During these years of construction, Galveston was a city on stilts, and residents got around on a constantly changing network of elevated wooden catwalks. When the work was finally finished in 1911, 500 blocks had been filled in with more than 16 million cubic yards of sand, at a cost of 3.5 million dollars. And just four years later, the monumental effort and expense for the project paid off, when on August 17, 1915, another immensely strong hurricane struck Galveston.
38:44 Lindsay Graham? This time, despite the same high winds and elevated tides, there were only 11 deaths. And there were other encouraging signs of recovery. By 1910, Galveston's population had bounced back to nearly 37,000 residents, just 800 fewer than there were in 1900. And by 1912, Galveston was the second most valuable port in the United States, surpassed only by New York City. But in the years that followed, despite the best efforts of citizens and city leaders, Galveston would lose its prominence to Houston, its longtime northern rival. In January 1901, Texas saw its first major oil discovery at the Spindletop Oil Field in Beaumont, Texas.
39:25 Lindsay Graham? And as oil production skyrocketed, Houston's business leaders argued that the nation needed a reliable inland port to serve this booming industry. They convinced Congress to fund the dredging of the Buffalo Bayou, and by 1914, Houston had a 50-mile deep-water channel linking the city to the Gulf of Mexico. This new waterway, combined with Houston's inland location and access to rail networks, made the city far more attractive to oil companies and shippers than Galveston. So over time, Galveston's trade dominance waned and its population stagnated. Ultimately, it would thrive mainly as a seaside getaway for visitors from Houston, never regaining its pre-storm economic status.
40:07 Lindsay Graham? By then, Isaac Klein and his brother Joseph had long since moved on to new posts within the Weather Bureau. Isaac was transferred to New Orleans, where he devoted himself to the study of hurricanes, becoming one of America's leading experts until his retirement in 1935. Writing about the 1900 hurricane in his autobiography, he conceded, "I did not foresee the magnitude of the damage it would do." But for the most part, he remained defensive about his actions leading up to the storm. He claimed that he hurried from one end of the beach to the other on the morning of the hurricane, personally warning thousands about the approaching threat, and asserted, "Some 6,000 lives were saved by my advice and warnings." However, no white witnesses corroborated this account,
40:49 Lindsay Graham? and limited transportation options out of the city make the evacuation of that many people unlikely. Still, for Isaac, Joseph, and all the other survivors of the horrors of September 8th, 1900, the Galveston hurricane became the defining event of their lives. Years later, at the age of 79, survivor P.G. Tip reflected on what he experienced during the storm, writing, "I will never forget those days. I roamed around for 61 years after that, never able to sit down. That old hurricane didn't even have a name, but she packed a mighty punch." In the aftermath of the storm and in the face of overwhelming loss, the people of Galveston displayed remarkable resilience and ingenuity. They rose from the rubble to reshape Galveston's politics and even its geography,
41:34 Lindsay Graham? driven by bold vision and aboundless faith in the island city that they called home.
41:40 Lindsay Graham? From Audible Originals, this is episode three of our three-part series on the 1900 Galveston hurricane for American history tellers. In the next episode, I speak with historian Patricia Bixel, co-author of "Galveston and the 1900 Storm: Catastrophe and Catalyst." We'll discuss the dramatic aftermath of the hurricane and the audacious steps the city took to achieve one of the most remarkable rebuilds in American history.
42:07 Lindsay Graham? "American History Tellers" is only possible because of listeners like you, so thank you. And don't miss an episode. Be sure to follow American History Tellers on Audible or wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. And to find out more about me, including my other podcasts, my live show, the history tours I'm arranging, and all sorts of other things, go to historyishuman.com. That's historyishuman.com.
42:43 Lindsay Graham? American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsay Graham, for Airship. This episode is written by Ali Stanton, edited by Dorian Marina. Senior producers are Elida Rozansky and Andy Backerman. Managing producer Desi Blalock. Audio editing by Mohamed Shazib. Music by Thrum. Sound design by Molly Bach. Executive producer for Audible, Jenny Lauer Beckman. Head of creative development at Audible, Kate Navy. Head of Audible Originals North America, Marshall Louis. And chief content officer, Rachel Giatza.
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