EP. 40 Raising Galveston and Walling Off the Sea
Wise About Texas
Ken Wise
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 22 May 2017
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
One of the greatest example of resilience in Texas, indeed United States, history was the building of the Galveston seawall and the raising of the city. After the Great Hurricane of 1900, the easiest thing to do would have been to abandon Galveston Island. But that wouldn’t be the Texan thing to do. Instead, the people of Galveston appointed three engineers to figure out how to defeat the next big hurricane. The 3-member board suggested the construction of a 3-mile seawall to protect the city against a storm surge. But they went even further. They proposed raising the city as much as 17 feet in some places, houses, buildings an all. So the citizens of Galveston went to work and created the Galveston we know today. Buildings as large as 3000 tons were raised one-half inch at a time! It worked. For over 100 years, the Galveston seawall has been a center of tourism in Texas as well as a barrier against destruction. It passed its first test in 1909 and its first big test in 1915–with flying colors. Tune in to this latest episode of Wise About Texas and get ready for hurricane season!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Howdy and welcome to Wise About Texas, the Texas History Podcast |
| 0:12.8 | This is your host Ken Wise and I want to thank you for tuning into this episode |
| 0:17.3 | to learn a little something about Texas history. |
| 0:20.6 | Well it's been a busy spring around Wise About Texas World Headquarters. I've had lots of speaking |
| 0:25.7 | engagements this spring in connection with the podcast. I thoroughly enjoy those and always love |
| 0:31.9 | to do them. We're starting to book things around the state. |
| 0:34.4 | So if you've got a group that you think would enjoy some discussions of Texas |
| 0:38.2 | history and some of the stories from the podcast and other stories, well me know give me an email at host |
| 0:44.2 | at Why is about Texas I'm always happy if possible to go anywhere to share the |
| 0:48.6 | history of this great state I've been spending a lot of time in Austin this |
| 0:51.8 | spring connection with my day job as a lot of time in Austin this spring in connection with my day job. |
| 0:54.3 | There's a Court of Appeals Justice in doing some legislative work. |
| 0:57.0 | The legislature is about to end their regular session this week. |
| 1:01.6 | This episode is being released on May 22nd, 2017. I've been |
| 1:05.7 | spending a lot of time up there and doing some Texas history along the way of course. So once we |
| 1:11.5 | get the kids out of school here in a couple of weeks, we're getting our summer together, |
| 1:17.0 | it's always a busy time. |
| 1:19.0 | But as June 1 approaches in Texas, that means one significant event that affects everybody on the Texas coast and that's |
| 1:26.4 | hurricane season. So today I want to talk about a topic that was current in the late 1800s and it's still being discussed today and that is defending our coast from hurricanes and I want to tell you the story the background of one of the greatest civic projects in the history of the country |
| 1:46.2 | and certainly in the history of Texas and that is the building of the Galveston Sea Wall and the |
| 1:52.0 | raising of Galveston Island. |
| 1:54.2 | So let's go back to around 1900 and get Wies About Texas. |
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