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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: GAG-GEO |
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GALVESTON , a city and port of entry and the county-seat of Galveston county, Texas, U.S.A., on the Gulf of Mexico, near the N.E. extremity of Galveston Island and at the entrance to Galveston Bay. It is about 48 m. S.E. of Houston and 310 M. W. of New Orleans. Pop. (1890) 29,084; (1900) 37,789, (6339 were foreign-born and 8291 negroes); (1910) 36,981; land area (1906) 7.8 sq. m. It is served by the Galveston, Houston & Henderson, the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio, the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe, the Trinity & Brazos Valley, the International & Great Northern, and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railways, and by numerous steamship lines to Gulf ports in the United States and Mexico, and to Cuba, South America, Europe and the Atlantic ports of the United States. Galveston Island is a low, sandy strip of land about 28 m. long and 11 to 3.1 M. wide, lying from 2 to 3 M. off the mainland. The city, which extends across the island from Gulf to Bay, faces and has its harbour on the latter. The island was connected with the mainland before the 1900 storm by a road bridge and several railway bridges, which, a short distance W. of the city, crossed the narrow strip of water separating the West Bay from Galveston Bay proper; the bridge least harmed (a single-track railway bridge) was repaired immediately and was for a time the city's only connexion with the mainland, but in 1908 bonds were issued for building a concrete causeway, accommodating four railway tracks, one interurban car track, and a roadway for vehicles and pedestrians. An enormous sea- wall
wall
hall
The government of the municipality was long vested in a council of ward aldermen, controlled by a " machine," which was proved corrupt in 1894 by an investigation undertaken at the personal expense of the mayor; it gave place in 1895 to a city council of aldermen at large, which by root had proved its inefficiency especially in the crisis following the storm of the preceding year. Government then seemed a business question and was practically undertaken by the city's commercial experts, the Deepwater commission, whose previous aim had been harbour improvement, and who now drew up a charter providing for government by a board of five appointed by the governor of the state. A compromise measure making three members appointees gent Galvanometer. of the governor and two elected by the voters of the city was in force for a time but was declared unconstitutional. A third charter was adopted providing for five commissioners, chosen by the people, dividing among themselves the pests of mayor-president and commissioners of finance and revenue, of water-works and sewerage, of streets and public property, and of police and fire protection, each commissioner being held individually responsible for the management of his department. These are business departments carefully systematized by their heads. The legislative power is vested in the commission as a whole, over whose meetings the mayor-president presides; he has a vote like every other commissioner, and has no veto power. The success of this commission government has been remarkable: in 19011908 the city, without issuing bonds except for grade raising, paid off a large debt, raised the salaries of city employees, paid its running expenses in cash, planned and began public improvements and sanitary reforms, and did much for the abolition of gambling and the regulation of other vice. The Galveston Plan and similar schemes of government have been adopted in many other American cities. Galveston's manufactories, the products of which in 1900 were valued at $5,016,360, a decrease of 12'4% from 18go (value of products under " factory system," $3,675,323 in 1900; $2,996,654 in 1905, a decrease of 18.5%), include cotton
cotton
York
The harbour of Galveston seems to have been named about 1782 by Spanish explorers in honour either of Jose de Galvez, Marquis of Sonora, or his nephew Bernardo, governor of Louisiana; and in the early days of the 19th century was the principal rendezvous of a powerful band of buccaneers and pirates, of whom, for many years, the notorious Jean Lafitte was chief
Commander
sharp
Commander
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