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 GALVESTO.V-PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
^hc ©nijclhartJt -Series : 'American ®i<ic0. 
 
 By Andrew Morrison. 
 
 n 
 
 IThe Port of Galveston. 
 
 g^HATEVER geographical or social distinctions were once defined by 
 
 ^ ^^ the terms " the East " and " the West " applied to the States of the 
 Union, they describe now, sections, in many particulars, of widely 
 variant industrial conditions. The two divisions have the common bond of 
 federation and nationality, but their commercial interests, over so vast a realm, 
 are far from identical, and in many respects are decidedly antagonistic; just 
 as debtor and creditor have amicable relations, but occupy adverse ground. 
 
 The East is compactly peopled. The West, while a fourth at least, of the 
 inhabitants of the country, is dispersed over its prodigious area, is but sparsely 
 settled yet. The East has its lands partitioned, and, as a whole, highly cultivated 
 and improved. The West has spacious provinces still unconditioned, and an 
 agriculture involving, in many parts, costly works of irrigation and novel meth- 
 ods 'of tilth. The East has its resources largely determined and utilized. The 
 West is revealed, by the shallow surveyance already made, and not half its 
 superficies fairly explored, indescribably endued with natural wealth. 
 
 The East dominates in trade, manufactures, finance, transportation, and coun- 
 cils of State. And the West, with its infant industries and inceptive projects, is 
 chiefly indebted to it for the means to pursue them, as it likewise is for the migra- 
 tion, which, proceeding out of the older States, arterializes the new. The East 
 has splendid and opulent cities, adorned with the triumphs of architecture and art ; 
 great capitals of fashion and luxury, as well as of commerce; established -.en- 
 ters of institutions and ripened civilization. In the West, where all is evolution 
 and transition, the essays at these, in the main, are inconsiderable yet. The one, 
 in short, is the blossom of progress; the other its bloom. 
 
 But the blossom is one of glorious promise as a full-blown flower. The West, 
 we may assume for argument's sake, is the trans-Mississippi region, although it 
 may be more accurately divided perhaps, at the 92nd Meridian, from which the 
 industrial conditions graduate, much like the modifications of climate from the 
 
equatorial line. This West then, beyond the Mississi})pi, embraces 820,000,000 acres 
 or G7 per cent of the Union. It has a demesne of forest broader than all the British 
 Isles. It is the principal source of the World's supply of the precious metals. 
 Colonization of it proceeds faster than anywhere else on Earth. And measured 
 by the productive capacity of an equal area of Europe, it would support easily, 
 if its arable lands were as thoroughly tilled, 240,000,000 souls. 
 
 With a little less population than Spain — about 15,000,000, — it had a sur- 
 plus of the staples of husbandry in 1889, worth more than the entire revenue 
 of that proud and ancient power. The estimate of its production of the fovir 
 leading staples that year, in round numbers was : Cattle 4,990,000, cotton 2,000,000 
 bales, wheat 242,000,000 bushels, corn 1,001,500,000 bushels. The estimated 
 excess of these products over consumption was 4,170,000 cattle, 1,950,000 bales of 
 cotton, 169,000,000 bushels of wheat, and 785,500,000 bushels of corn; or reduced 
 to tons, 28,637,722, enough to freight 9,545 vessels of 3,000 tons each. 
 
 And yet, notwithstanding this extraordinary surplus, farm mortgages accumu- 
 late the labors of Sisyphus for the cultivators of the soil in some of the most fruitful 
 districts of the West, and they have been driven to the expedient of making a fuel 
 of their corn. Multifarious circumstances conjoined, have produced this situa- 
 tion, but the opinion is concurrent that it arises largely from inadequate outlets 
 for exportation. The ports of the Pacific are too far distant from the World's 
 great markets to be generally available. Those of the Lakes are winter-ljound, 
 and those of the Gulf and Southeastern seaboard, of insufhcient accommodations 
 for the shipping required. And although the West has a quarter of the railroad 
 mileage of the world, and nearly half of that in the country at large, transporta- 
 tion charges, over the distances that must be traversed to the North Atlantic 
 Coasts, are practically an emijargo upon its foreign trade. 
 
 The West, clamoring, by special convention, for removal of these disabilities 
 has been heard at the seat of government. A commission of Engineers, ordered 
 to find, on the Texas Coast, a site for a harbor nearest to all points inland beyond 
 the Mississippi, has made choice of the Port of Galvkstox. That city, slowly, 
 accreting, like the shelf of the sea on wliich it is founded, lias Ijeen known hitlierto 
 as the furthermost American cotton port, second in rank of those in tiie South, 
 and as the foremost city of Texas. Tlie certainty of an appropriation of $6,200,- 
 000 by Congress, to complete the improvement of its harl)or, long under way, 
 ordains it, at length, the Seaport of the West, and unfolds it a destiny of mar- 
 itime ascendancy, of grandeur and of power. 
 
GALVESTON BRIEFLY DESCRIBED. 
 
 THE ISLAND, BAY AND PORT. 
 
 ALVESTON ISLAND rises 
 from the foam of the Mex- 
 ican Gulf, where it lashes 
 the coast of Texas, about 
 sixty miles southwest from 
 the Louisiana line, a long, 
 low, narrow bank of sand, stretching, as 
 it seems from the open sea, leviathan-like, 
 motionless, upon the heaving waters. It 
 bears away from Northeast to Southwest, 
 with an extreme width of three miles and 
 length of twenty-eight, and lies so low that 
 a single fathom's rise of the inconstant 
 sea, might easily submerge it. Bolivar 
 Peninsula, a slender strip of the mainland, 
 prolonged Southwest so that it nearly 
 aligns it, is the counterpart of the island 
 in all but complete isolation, and these 
 two natural storm-barriers, breakwater 
 the bay of Galveston, which has an area 
 of 455 square miles. The entrance to the 
 bay is between them. It is about a mile 
 and a-half wide, and has thirteen and a 
 quarter feet least depth at the bar. Just 
 inside it is the harbor, a basin, by official 
 measurement, affording 463 acres of thirty- 
 foot anchorage, and 1,304 of twenty-four. 
 Government improvements of both bar 
 and channel are now in progress. 
 
 The Island itself is largely desert, and 
 as rude a creation as ever was summoned 
 out of the depths. Artesian soundings 
 
 disclose it a concreted mass of marine 
 debris, clay-marl chiefly, thinly coated 
 with sand and disintegrated shell. Inlets, 
 bayous and lakes intersect it, but much of 
 its surface is as barren as if fresh from old 
 Neptune's hand. It is however, gener- 
 ally, though scantily clothed, with stunted 
 sylva and indigenous brush, and the gay 
 patches of garden and thrifty truck farms, 
 scattered here and there upon it, are indi- 
 cations that its soil is kindlier disposed to 
 verdure, than at the fii'st sight it would 
 seem. And out of this same sterile soil, 
 at the uppermost end of the Island, 
 spreading the full width of it there from 
 bay shore to sea shore, up springs the 
 city of Galveston, the very flower of 
 Texas cities, expanding gloriously, if 
 slowly, among the brilliant blossoms of 
 Civilization in that garden of the South- 
 west, like its own oleander, the South 
 Sea rose. 
 
 Very lovely is Galveston, this Oleander 
 City of Texas, far from destitute of either 
 picturesque prospects or urban charms. 
 Far different too, its aspects, from those 
 at its genesis, in IS37, when it was visited 
 by the distinguished ornithologist Audo- 
 bon, who, beholding nothing more invit- 
 ing, of its site, than marsh and mud flat, 
 and its only rara avis disporting in the 
 well-ruftled plumage of the then new- 
 made Lone Star Republic, " was not 
 much impressed with the place." The 
 morass he saw has been converted since, 
 
6 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 partly by filling and partly by dredging, 
 into solid quays and docks, along which 
 compact lines of warehouses, compresses, 
 factories and freight yards, stretch away 
 for a couple of miles. 
 
 The languor of a perennial summer 
 land may pervade its embowered resi- 
 dence precincts, but the port of Galveston 
 is instinct everywhere with varied phases 
 of maritime traffic. Out here on the 
 wharves, where the welkin creaks, like a 
 
 land ; and here, where swart Piscator is 
 idling the hours away angling for crabs 
 and pan-fish, the mosquito fleet, a maze 
 of coasters, steam and sail, is relieved of 
 its burthens, — shingles and cordwood 
 from the Sabine region, sugars from Bra- 
 zoria, wool and hides and horns from 
 Corpus Christi, Black Warrior coals, and 
 Kennebec ice, cedars and fustic, perhaps, 
 from the Carib Sea, and Mexican ixtle. 
 At all these docks, shipping and rail- 
 
 RESIDENCK OF A 
 
 plague of frogs, with the echoes of maul 
 and capstan and horse-hoist, drowning the 
 hoarse rejoinders of seamen to landsmen, 
 and the air is heavy with odors of hemp 
 and tar and bilgy effluvia, brawny black- 
 skinned longshoremen swarm, dispatching 
 the lading of sea-tramps. It is here that 
 the cotton and cotton-oil cake, destined to 
 feed the looms and the herds of Europe, 
 is exchanged for the wines of Bordeaux, 
 the coffees of Rio, the hardware of Shef- 
 field, the Portland cements, and the tiles 
 and glassware of Antwerp. 
 
 It is there yonder, the shallops' land, 
 with the ovsters and truck of the main- 
 
 road meet, and all along shore, are scenes 
 of animation and bustle and commotion. 
 Even there, out where Ariel sportively 
 ripples the stream, eddying the scum and 
 the drift ashore, where the passing cloud 
 and the bellying sail, and " the yachts that 
 flout with pinions spread, like the birds 
 of passage overhead, are imaged faintly 
 as in a glass" — there too are puffing tugs 
 in their harness of hemp, with funnels 
 belching inky smoke, straining away at 
 ponderous tows, as if perforce, they must 
 bear them bodily out to sea. For it is at 
 the port of Galveston, that as exuberant 
 an emperv of Nature as there is in the 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 New World, pours, from its horn of 
 plenty, its contributions of textiles 
 and provisions and breadstuffs, to 
 clothe and sustain and enrich the 
 Old. 
 
 DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 The traveler approachingj Gal- 
 veston from the mainland by rail. 
 over either of the trestles that bridge 
 the shoals of the bay, beholds the 
 city first in the least inviting of its 
 aspects. But, as the docks where 
 the depot is, draw nigh, it is evident 
 that the salt ponds and tide lands, 
 that are such conspicuous features of 
 the landscape, have commercial, if 
 not picturesque perspectives. This 
 part of the city is given over for 
 terminal grounds, to the three great 
 Southwestern railroad systems, — 
 Gould's, the Southern Pacific and 
 Santa Fe, — that connect at the 
 wharves with the merchantmen fre- 
 quenting the port. 
 
 Our passenger by train is deposited in 
 
 NEW CITY HALL. 
 
 RESIDENCE OF G. H MENSING, OF MENSING BROS. & CO. 
 
 the midst of the business quarter, which, 
 with its salients of water front piers and 
 causeway, is projected over the area of at 
 least a hundred squares. The wholesale 
 district covers, compactly, twenty-five of 
 these. Imposing magasins of trade, 
 here, in one instance extending the full 
 length of a block, give to this part of the 
 city a decidedly metropolitan character, 
 and it is easy to credit the statement, in 
 view of the show the warehouses make, 
 that three of the jobbing houses of the 
 city do a business aggregating $6,500,000 
 a year. One street, the Strand, so-called 
 because it marks the inner line of reclama- 
 tions from the bay, is occupied generally 
 by the houses engaged in the various 
 branches of the traffic in cotton — factors, 
 exporters, buyers, brokers and the like. 
 The offices of the steamship lines that 
 carry the staple as freight, the importers, 
 the banking, insurance and other financial 
 concerns of the city, are also upon it, or 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 on the parallel thoroughfare beyond, and 
 the intersecting streets. Factories and 
 cotton, coal, and lumber yards, flank this 
 
 board and crystal glazing ; which glazing 
 mirrors the passing throng. 
 
 And images all the contrasts of condi- 
 
 RESIUEN'CE OF GEORGE SEALY, OF BALL, HUTCHINGS 4; CO., BANKERS. 
 
 district as far out as the new manufactur- 
 ing quarter of the West End. 
 
 Back of this realm of Commerce-in- 
 Bulk, is its life-like diminutive, the 
 domain of the shop-keeper of Galveston. 
 Here, aggregated upon three long, and 
 from the rectangular plan of the city sur- 
 vey, straight streets, are representatives of 
 all the ancient and honorable guilds and 
 crafts, antedating the rise of the jobber: 
 Messrs. Mercer and Draper and Cord- 
 wainer — next neighbors to Mme. !Modiste 
 and M, Perruquier, — Sir Leech and Sir 
 Knight of St. Ci'ispin. Or, to descend 
 from metaphor to every day terms, the 
 quarter of retail dry goods dealers, gro- 
 cers, shoemakers, milliners, druggists, 
 pawn-brokers, barbers, restaurants and 
 hotels. Here are the big department 
 stores, carrying as varied a stock in trade 
 as anywhere under the sun, gay with 
 extrinsic embellishment of gilded sign- 
 
 tion, complexion, occupation, and cos- 
 tume, a Southern seaport can show: 
 Sailors in shore togs, cowboys in from the 
 range; hawkers of smuggled fabrics, 
 fakirs, tourists, mendicants ; darkies in 
 tatters, butterflies of fashion tricked out 
 in the latest mode ; fustian and jeans 
 everywhere elbowing purple and fine 
 linen, like the push-carts in the roadway 
 obstructing the progress of the sumptuous 
 equipages of wealth and state. All this 
 and very much more, instantaneously 
 imprinted ; and disclosed by the sunlight 
 flashing alternately from show window 
 on this side, to show window on that. 
 Ending here where honest traffic degener- 
 ates into pitfalls for Jack Ashore. And 
 exhibiting, side by side, the social extremes 
 of city life. 
 
 Nothing provincial the night scenes 
 here, in the balmy winter season, when 
 the cotton "is moving" and the streets 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 9 
 
 are alive with " samplers " and " screw- 
 men," spending prodigally a weekly 
 stipend that would be considered a hand- 
 some recompense in many of the learned 
 professions. Nothing apparent here that 
 the retail trade of the city is circumscribed 
 at all by its insular position, as by some 
 it is said to be. Crowds on the corner, 
 at yon stand of the pinchbeck vendor. 
 Crowds at the theatre door. Crowds 
 surging by. Shop doors wide open. 
 Lights. Music. A little Vanity Fair, 
 like Broadway and the Bowery in minim. 
 Galveston, as yet, makes little preten- 
 sion to the monumental in architecture. 
 It has some types, however, distinctive 
 among its public edifices, for a certain 
 strength of design and simple effective- 
 ness, if not also of- grace and originality. 
 The Cotton Exchange is one of these, 
 and is also a building becoming the rank 
 
 of the port in the trade. The Custom 
 House, with its shapely tower, is a some- 
 what stately structure, and there are ele- 
 ments, at least, of the impressive in the 
 long facades of the Ball and Rosenberg 
 Schools, to which an additional interest 
 attaches, in the fact that they were gifts 
 from the public-minded millionaire resi- 
 dents, whose names they respectively 
 bear. Many of the business fronts of 
 Galveston are disfigured by the ever-pres- 
 ent wooden awning, extending out to the 
 curb. The elevations of the Masonic 
 Temple are thus barbarously obscured. 
 
 The forty-three residence blocks of 
 Galveston, swept clean by the fire of 
 1SS5, have been almost entirely rebuilt. 
 This restoration has been made in the 
 architectural styles prevailing since, and 
 it has given to the residence quarter, in 
 conjunction with the additional* building 
 
 JOHN SEALY HOSPITAL AND STATE MEDICAL COLLEGE. 
 
10 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 improvements of the last few years, a 
 new and modern face. Some few exam- 
 ples are left yet, however, of the old time 
 broad-verandaed, Grecian pillared, South- 
 ern home, sun^iving amidst its surround- 
 ings of innovation and transition, like its 
 occupants of the old school, in a new day 
 and generation. The costly mansions of 
 Galveston, new and old, bear out the 
 assertion frequently made, that the city, 
 long since recovered from the waste of 
 war, is, for its population, one of the 
 richest in the world. There are two at 
 least of its homes, the Gresham and Sealy 
 residences, truly palatial. 
 
 In August, iSS6, a phenomenal tidal 
 wave crept into the very heart of the 
 city, nipping in its course, as if by a 
 Northern frost, the beautiful but tender 
 oleanders that formerly hedged the high- 
 ways. It is to be regretted that they were 
 never replanted in the streets ; but they 
 flourish again as luxuriantly as of old. 
 along with the rose, the magnolia and 
 jasmine, in every garden. Such an 
 encroachment of old Ocean is unlikely 
 to happen again, for the island is be- 
 yond the usual path of the eciuinoctial 
 storms, and the formation of the beach 
 is such as to break the force of the angry 
 waves. 
 
 And such a beach as it is I Stretching 
 for thirty miles, from end to end of the 
 island. A firm, hard driveway, smoother 
 than any asphalted road. And breaking 
 upon it, its entire length, a surf, in which 
 all the sun-baked denizens of midland 
 Texas might disport, if they wished. 
 With its Beach Hotel and Pagoda baths 
 for these sojourners. Boulevard, sea- 
 ward prospect and public baths, within 
 the very gates of the city. A Commons 
 such as no other possesses. And over all 
 the radiant Southern sun, his beams tem- 
 pered by the cool Gulf breeze. Over all 
 the blue empyrean or the star-lit vault. 
 And in this setting, Galveston, the Gem 
 of the Gulf. 
 
 HISTORY AXD GROWTH. 
 
 The Island of Galveston figures in 
 American history first in the romantic age 
 of Spanish discovery, and it has been the 
 scene of casual events that incidentally, 
 but inseparably connect it, with the rise 
 and decline of the Spanish power. 
 
 While the all-conquering Hernan Cortes 
 was still engaged in subjugation of the 
 Aztecs, Pineda, a captain in the service 
 of the governor of Jamaica, was circum- 
 navigating the Gulf from Yucatan to 
 Florida ; seeking, in accordance with the 
 dim impressions prevailing then respecting 
 the continent, a passage to the Pacific, and 
 thence to the Indies. He explored care- 
 fully every bav and inlet on his way ; 
 among the rest, doubtless, the bay of Gal- 
 veston. 
 
 In 1537, Narvaez was commissioned to 
 extend the Empire of Charles the Fifth in 
 the unknown lands of, the West. The 
 circumstances of his ai^pointment made 
 him the especial rival of Cortes, by whom, 
 on a prior occasion, his projects were 
 boldly thwarted, and he himself returned 
 amain to port from the high seas. He set 
 sail this time, however, from Cuba, in 
 force, but the strength of his expedition 
 was very much wasted by innumerable 
 adversities sustamed in the Everglades of 
 Florida ; and he finally entrusted his per- 
 son and fortunes, in a frail makeshift of a 
 craft, ont of a number of cockles com- 
 prising his fleet, to the open Gulf — a 
 gulf destined to be a Gulf of Oblivion for 
 liim, in wliich his star should be extin- 
 guished forever. 
 
 In a terrible storm, somewhere off the 
 moutlis of the Mississippi, his boat 
 foundered, and he was drowned; and the 
 expedition was scattered, literally to the 
 four winds of heaven. A single boat's- 
 crew of survivors sought refuge on Gal- 
 veston Island — a sorry enough asylum, 
 betwixt the range of the red cannibals of 
 the mainland, and the deep sea. The 
 
r 
 
 '^fe5^1!i 
 
 
12 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 savages at first treated them with kindness, 
 but afterwards with extreme cruelty, pro- 
 voked very likely, by their own ungra- 
 
 The Isle of Misfortune, Galveston 
 remained, until, in course of time, that 
 disparaging title was converted into Isla 
 
 RESIDENCE OF B. ADOUE, BANKER. 
 
 cious conduct. A remnant of fourteen 
 was held in captivity for six long years, 
 and in remembrance of their sufferings, 
 past and present, they called their prison 
 Misfortune Island. 
 
 Four, at length escaped, de Vaca, 
 Castillo, Dorantes and a negro, and beset 
 with perils all the way, traversed, in the 
 guise of " medicine men," the wearisome 
 breadth of the continent, to the settle- 
 ments of their kinsmen on the Gulf of 
 California. There, afterward, the negro 
 enlisted with Coronado for that chimerical 
 quest of his, of the fabled Madre de Oro, 
 and its seven treasure cities of Cibolo ; in 
 pursuance of which wild goose chase, he 
 is believed to have scaled the lofty peaks 
 of Colorado, and crossed the trackless 
 prairies of Kansas. Thus, three centuries 
 and a half ago, the first Christian denizen 
 of the Island, penetrated the hostile 
 regions that are bound now to Galveston, 
 with iron bands of trade. 
 
 Blanca, an epithet suggested doubtless, 
 to the mariners of the Gulf, by its barren 
 stretches of sea-bleached sand. And at 
 some particularly propitious phase of the 
 seasons, it must have been, that it was 
 styled, again, the Isle of Ai-anjuez, which 
 name, a corruption of the Latin for "Altar 
 of Jove," was borrowed from a charming 
 resort of the Spanish court. The bav, 
 meanwhile, had been christened Espiritu 
 Santo, a name profaned, while it served 
 to harbor those scourges of the Spanish 
 Main, the Dutch and English and mongrel 
 buccaneers of the seventeenth and eight- 
 eenth centuries. It was surveyed, in 
 1783, by order of Viceroy Galves, some- 
 time also,du ring the Spanish regime. 
 Governor of Louisiana ; in a long line of 
 incompetents and corruptibles, one man, 
 at least, of honor and abilities and action. 
 From him, island and bay and city have 
 finally derived the modern appellation, 
 which is one and the same for all three. 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 13 
 
 And now enters upon the scene, an 
 erratic, an extraordinary personage. Not 
 to say an enigmatical also. The most 
 singular in all these chronicles of Galves- 
 ton. Interesting and picturesque, like 
 Robin Hood and Rob Roy, whom he may 
 some day rival in song and story, to a 
 humdrum and prosaic age like this. But 
 not perhaps to be judged by iis standards ; 
 by those rather of the season and the cir- 
 cumstances of which he was the product. 
 Jean Lafitte, the outlaw of Barataria. 
 Lafitte, smuggler, slaver and privateers- 
 man. Pirate, perhaps, also. Who 
 knows } 
 
 And yet, no less a judge of men, and 
 of mettle too, be it said, than Old Hickory 
 himself, clasped hands with this same 
 Jean Lafitte, and entrusted a post to him, 
 as honorable as dangerous, the command 
 of the artillery, on that field, memorable 
 to our cousins-german the British, the 
 
 ers there, procured straightway from the 
 master of the White House then, an 
 amnesty for all their past offenses — 
 offenses, prosecutions for which, instituted 
 by Governor Claiborne, of Louisiana, 
 were then hanging over their heads. 
 
 Fiction blends easily with the facts of 
 history in the accounts of such a man. 
 In person, tall, of course, handsome, 
 symmetrical and stately. In manners, 
 bland and dignified and courtly. In char- 
 acter, reserved and silent ; not without 
 policy ; as absolutely correct in his habits 
 as his attire. In action, intrepid. And 
 terrible as a lion when roused. The 
 conventional attributes — fashionable in 
 dress, easy in deportment, French in 
 accent, polished and fluent in conversa- 
 tion, agreeable, and if need be, generous ; 
 but inexorable when occasion required. 
 And born to rule. " The front of Jove, 
 Hyperion curls, an eye " — he had a habit 
 
 Kt:.-5lDENCE UF CAIT. CHAS. FOWLER, 
 AGENT OF THE MORGAN LINE OF STEAMERS. 
 
 field of Chalmette, the field of the de- 
 cisive battle of New Orleans. And the 
 services rendered bv him and his follow- 
 
 of drooping the lid of one, — " like Mars 
 to threaten and command." Romance, 
 truly, enwreathshim, with its immortelles. 
 
14 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 '•A stray sheep" he calls himself, in 
 his correspondence with Claiborne, ''wish- 
 ing to return to the sheep-fold." A 
 sailor " under the flag of the Republic of 
 Cartagenia," and w-ith papers regularly 
 drawn. "A loyal citizen still," if he has 
 " evaded " the payment of customs — the 
 said evasions consisting in armed resist- 
 ance to authority as w^ell as contraband 
 trade. All his offenses " forced upon 
 him by certain vices of the laws." He 
 and his adherents " still worthy to dis- 
 charge the duties of citizens : still ready 
 to exert their utmost efforts in defense 
 of their country," provided., ah! pro- 
 vided: "a stop is put to the proscrip- 
 tions against them." And declaring in a 
 fine spirit of afnor patrice, that if an act of 
 oblivion introduced in the Territorial 
 legislature by his friend, John Blanque,and 
 urged by his lawyer, Edward Livingston, 
 fails to receive executive sanction, that he 
 will " instantly leave the country, to avoid 
 the imputation of having co-operated 
 toward an invasion which cannot fail to 
 take place, and, so rest secure in the 
 accjuittal of conscience." 
 
 Claiborne is charged with a sort of 
 activity in this matter, pernicious in war 
 time ; but properly conscientious, and 
 thoroughly patriotic on both sides, are the 
 negotiations throughout. Was it that 
 Jackson recognized in the smuggler chief 
 a kindred spirit } Or merely a knight in 
 the great chess game he must play.'' Cer- 
 tain it is, at all events, that Lafitte rejected 
 some very tempting Bi-itish bribes. And 
 whatever his sins in the eyes of the law, 
 they were countenanced, and justified, by 
 many of the honest men of his day ; were 
 such, in fact, as the accompanying cir- 
 cumstances extenuate, if they do not en- 
 tirely efface. 
 
 By virtue of his Cartagenian letters of 
 marque, Lafitte took possession of Gal- 
 veston Island in 1S17. What need of 
 more formal title r Don Luis Aury, 
 grandiose as ''commodore of the com- 
 
 bined fleets of Mexico, New Granada 
 Venezuela and La Plata," did indeed 
 claim prior occupation, but his pay chest 
 was exhausted, and his paymaster took 
 service with the new Lord of the Isle. 
 Under whose banner too, soon assembled 
 as motley, as precious a lot of rascals — 
 adventurers, refugees, outlaws, cutpurses, 
 of every empire and rule, and past mas- 
 ters in every degree of crime, as ever con- 
 sorted in frontier camp, which, in its gam- 
 ing and drinking and brawling. Cam- 
 peachy, Lafitte's settlement, somewhat 
 resembled. 
 
 But a decent semblance of order was 
 strictly enforced. And by one man's will 
 was the simple but ample code main- 
 tained. With neither scepter, nor crozier, 
 nor Senate, nor gray goose quill, nor yet 
 with my ladies fan, did our Caesar reign 
 supreme. And yet by a moral suasion 
 that had the weight of lictor's rods. In 
 the midst of the town a gallows was 
 raised, from which, significant of the 
 master's displeasure, once dangled the 
 body of a certain Captain Brown, who 
 had been guilty of depredations on the 
 soil of the Union, contrary to orders. 
 When the officers of the United States 
 came to 'demand him, the corpus delicti 
 w^is gravely delivered to them, with judg- 
 ment duly certified. A whole decalogue 
 of injunctions was condensed in that leaf- 
 less gallow-trec. Barring Lafitte, the 
 place was the ideal commune. Liberty. 
 Equality and Fratei'nity — share and share 
 alike, — of toil, of hazard, of hardship, and 
 of rich reward. 
 
 The usual population of Canipeachy 
 was about 1,000. Its commerce for the 
 size of the place, was enormous. The 
 waning marine of old Spain was fright- 
 fully harried by the privateers of Cam- 
 peachv. Hither flocked Puritan Boston, 
 and Quaker Philadelphia, to mingle with 
 the unregenerate and trade their produce 
 for foreign brandies and fabrics. The 
 old relations w^ith New Orleans were 
 
[ii'iiri IP PI I' iTi I'f 
 
16 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 renewed. But the most profitable traffic 
 was in slaves. The Bowie Brothers, 
 Resin, and Jim— he of the Alamo— were 
 in it. 
 
 vSuch was Galveston Island from 1S17 
 to 183 1. Until, in fact, Lafitte's occupa- 
 tion was rendered unprofitable by the 
 acknowledgement of the independence 
 of the Spanish colonies, and his location as 
 untenable by the surveillance of the United 
 States. He, therefore, piped a picked 
 crew aboard his flag-ship, the Pride; 
 applied the torch to Campeachy, and with 
 white sails checkered against the blue 
 void, soon left its red embers behind. 
 But no memory of his exploits thereafter, 
 good or ill, is embalmed now either in 
 sea myth or Creole lore. Fading fast- 
 fading — faded — out of mind, is Jean 
 Lafitte, like the Pride vanishing upon the 
 dim horizon that day. 
 
 For fifteen years after Lafitte's depart- 
 ure the Island was abandoned to the 
 osprey and the sea mew. Austin pater 
 fat rice of the Texans, endeavored to 
 obtain a grant of it from the Mexican 
 government, to found a city upon it, but 
 was unsuccessful. In 1836-7 it was 
 identified with the Texas revolution ; 
 merely, however, as a haven for the 
 dependents of the patriots in the field. 
 The Ilium of that Homeric age was San 
 Antonio. And as Troy's were to the 
 Greeks, its traditions are likely to be an 
 inspiration for the Texans, when its stones 
 have crumbled. 
 
 The city of Galveston was founded in 
 1838 by Michael B. Menard, a French 
 Canadian, who had been one of the most 
 active partisans of the Lone Star Repub- 
 lic. He paid the Republic $50,000 to 
 confirm him the headright of Seguin, 
 4,621 acres, the site of the city, and 
 organized the City Company, from whom 
 all the land titles of Galveston descend. 
 
 Grim war discovered Galveston in i860, 
 a busy city of 7,300 souls, with $10,000,- 
 000 of aggregate annual trade. It left it in 
 
 1865, pillaged, ravaged, and well-nigh 
 desolated. It was alternately beleagured 
 by North and South. And incidents of 
 that unhappy period are, to many of its 
 residents, living memories yet. With 
 peace, however, prosperity returned. 
 Recuperation thereafter was rapid. The 
 steamship lines were re-established. The 
 railroads projected before the war. from 
 the city as a terminus, were constructed. 
 The growth of the city since in popula- 
 tion, trade and wealth, is due mainly to 
 these augmented and still augmenting 
 facilities for internal transportation, link- 
 ing it to twenty-two States and Territories 
 of the West, and to those of our neighbor 
 of Mexico, where not even post roads 
 were made before. 
 
 In 1870 the population of Galveston 
 was 13,898. Its aggregate business for 
 the year was $18,320,000. In 1880 it had 
 22,248 inhabitants and $30,000,000 of 
 trade; $2,375,965 of that, the value of 
 its manufactures. In 1885 the population 
 was 40,000 and the trade $47,000,000. In 
 1887, the fraction of commerce repre- 
 sented in the cotton trade of the city was 
 $35,000,000 alone. The wholesale trade 
 w-as $20,000,000 besides, and the manufac- 
 tured product, $3,315,000. The assessed 
 valuations had been raised from $10,000,- 
 000 in 1870 to $14,904,856 in 1880 and 
 $21,000,000 in 1887, at which conserva- 
 tive figure they have been continued 
 since. 
 
 The population, h\ the last (issued city 
 directory, is 51,443; the jobbing trade, 
 $25,000,000 ; the exports, foreign, $65,000,- 
 000 ; the imports, foreign, $2,000.000 ; the 
 domestic imports, including goods in transit 
 and destined for California, the West and 
 Mexico, $85,000,000. The bank clearances 
 of 1889, were $70,000,000; the output of 
 manufactures (estimated), $5,003,800. 
 The progress of the city has been most 
 notable in the traffic in cotton, exports of 
 which were 800,000 bales in the season of 
 1S89-90, nearly twice as much as in 1S80- 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 17 
 
 8i ; in manufactures, which have increased 
 in respect of product ii3 per cent in 
 the last decade, and in shipments west- 
 bound, in transit, the increase of which 
 in late years has exceeded the most san- 
 guine anticipations of the common car- 
 riers, sail and rail. 
 
 THE CITY AND THE W^EST. 
 
 Vistas of a mighty Galveston in the 
 future, are disclosed in this growth of the 
 port as an entrepot and emporium for the 
 West. For eighteen years the govern- 
 ment has been engaged, in the desultory 
 way characteristic of the execution of 
 national improvements, in the work of 
 removing the bar at the entrance to Gal- 
 veston harbor, so as to make it a port of 
 the first class, namely, one having thirty 
 feet of water at its mouth. This work, 
 as one affecting not merely local interests, 
 but the commerce of half the Union, has 
 never, until lately, received the attention 
 it deserves. 
 
 Efforts to hasten it have been per- 
 sistently made by the city at successive ses- 
 sions of Congress, but usually with little, 
 and sometimes, no avail. The auxiliai-y 
 work of the inside bar was undertaken by 
 the city itself. Municipal moneys were 
 also expended for professional opinions 
 as to the feasibility of the undertaking in 
 government hands. So eminent an engi- 
 neer as the late Capt. Eads, was willing, 
 in his lifetime, to contract for it, at the 
 government's own figures ; but he declined 
 to lobby a contract through. And the 
 national appropriations for the work, 
 meanwhile, were doled out with a sparing 
 hand. 
 
 Meanwhile, too, the Occident was com- 
 pacting apace, — -in population, in indus- 
 tries, in influence and in wealth. Its 
 pastures were teeming with cattle. Its 
 fields producing a superfluity of the sta- 
 ples of export. Its mines and its woods as 
 bountiful as its soil. But with its avenues 
 
 to tidewater leading chiefly to the Atlantic, 
 a long and costly haul, in some parts, 
 particularly in Kansas, a strictly agricul- 
 tural State, the conditions of production, 
 transportation and market, approached 
 the anomaly of famine impending where 
 the granaries were fairly bursting with 
 corn. This state of things was of vital 
 concern to all ; it affected the railroad of 
 the West, as well as the merchant and 
 farmer. 
 
 The West was roused to action. It 
 met twice in convention. It secured an 
 examination, by engineers, of the Texas 
 coast, for a deep v/ater harbor. The engi- 
 neers decided Galveston the only availa- 
 ble point. The West urged upon Con- 
 gress an appropriation of $6,300,000 to 
 complete the work begun there. A bill, 
 making this provision, has passed the 
 Senate. It is pending, at this writing, in 
 the House. The prospect is, that it will 
 pass. 
 
 CLIMATE, HEALTH, WATER SUPPLY. 
 
 Winter and summer alike, the Gulf 
 moderates the climate of Galveston, mak- 
 ing it at once the pleasantest and healthi- 
 est city of the South. But for its daily 
 breeze the ardent addresses of Old Sol all 
 summer long, would be almost unbear- 
 able ; but for it the mistral of Texas, the 
 " norther," descending regularly from the 
 Dakotas during the winter, would robust- 
 iously prevail. Drafts from the deep, 
 cool in the hot season, warm in the cold, 
 mollify them both. 
 
 The maladies of the dog-star are rari- 
 ties here. His flame is neutralized, for 
 man and beast, in an atmosphere charged 
 with ozone. And once only, within 
 memory, has old Boreas invaded this 
 province of Phoebus, on Christmas day of 
 that winter of rigors, 1885, upon which 
 occasion the shipping in the harbor was 
 coated with ice ; a freak of the Frost King, 
 impressive, to many of the i-esidents of the 
 
18 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 city, as the most signal meteorological 
 manifestation of their lives. 
 
 July is the hottest month at Galveston. 
 Its maximum temperature is usually 93 : 
 its average 83. The range of the ther- 
 mometer in December, by reports of a 
 term of vears, is between 18 and 72. and 
 the mean temperature for that month is 
 53. And though the island lies five de- 
 grees to the north of the zone of the 
 banana, its winter extreme of 18 degrees, 
 permits that fruit to mature. 
 
 Hvgeia has an ally here in Nature it- 
 self ; in the sea and the soil and the savory 
 air. The breeze, blowing steadily and un- 
 obstructed over the low-lying island, bears 
 away the noxious exhalations of the popu- 
 lation. The porous sands of the site of 
 the city, absorb, not only the surface 
 drainage, but also the fifty inches of an- 
 nual rainfall which is constantly leaching 
 it out ; for Galveston has no public sewer 
 system yet. Malaria is infrequent at Gal- 
 veston. There are no diseases especi- 
 ally prevalent. Quarantine, strictlv en- 
 forced against all infected ports, is a 
 sufficient barrier to Yellow Jack. Natur- 
 ally one of the healthiest cities in the 
 world, the death rate of Galveston, four- 
 teen to the thousand, is lower than that of 
 any seaport of the land, 
 
 A general water supply, which was long 
 a desideratum hardly second in import- 
 ance to improvement of the harbor, has 
 been provided by sinking artesian wells. 
 The city has eight of these wells, flowing 
 altogether 2,000,000 to 2,500,000 gallons 
 every twenty-four hours, and five others 
 besides ; and these, with six or eight deep 
 wells sunk by private enterprise, and the 
 cisterns filled by the rainfall, with which 
 every household is supplied, furnish an 
 abundance of the element for domestic 
 and sanitary necessities, for the extinguish- 
 ment of fires, and for manufacturing pur- 
 poses. From wells alone four million 
 five hundred thousand to five million 
 gallons are obtained, and this quantity 
 
 can be increased a third at least, by 
 pumping. 
 
 The city has provided a pumping sta- 
 tion to facilitate the flow from its wells, a 
 reservoir and stand pipe ; and thirty-three 
 miles length of mains have been laid in 
 the streets to distribute the water. The 
 pumps have 6,000,000 to 7,000,000 gal- 
 lons, and the storage tank i , 174,000 gallons 
 capacity. The stand pipe is 152 feet high 
 and will hold ^47,000 gallons. The works 
 complete, cost $450,000, for which amount 
 5 per cent 40 year bonds were issued. 
 The water is drawn from "veins " — which 
 from the volume they yield, might rather 
 be called rivers — situated from 795 feet 
 least, to 1,346 greatest depth underground, 
 and it is exceedingly wholesome and 
 clear. 
 
 GOVERNMENT, TAXES AND DEBT. 
 
 Galveston presents the outward sem- 
 blance at least, of an orderly and well 
 governed city. While it has always a 
 large floating population of seafarers, and 
 a very gregarious element in its twelve 
 and a half per cent of negroes, a police 
 force of forty men suffices for the protec- 
 tion of property and life. The lesson 
 that ^•ice thrives in darkness, has been 
 mastered bv the authorities ; and the 
 streets are lighted throughout by the city's 
 own electric plant. R. A. Fulton, Mayor 
 at present, is authority for many of the 
 statements made herein. 
 
 The corporate limits embrace an area 
 of six and a half square miles. There 
 are 128 miles of streets and 17 of alleys, 
 and two and a quarter miles front of 
 wharves to be patrolled and maintained. 
 Three and a half miles of the business 
 streets are paved with wooden blocks, 
 and four miles with shell. Where neces- 
 sary the grades have been raised, and fill- 
 ing is in progress to improve the drainage 
 of the streets. A system of water and 
 sewer mains combined, has been proposed, 
 but the work has not vet been commenced. 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 19 
 
 The annual expense of the principal 
 branches of the public service is, approx- 
 imately, as follows : General salaries 
 $30,000, police department $32,000, fire 
 department $45,000, street lights $30,000, 
 street improvements and other public 
 work $32,000, public health and hospital 
 $23,000, schools, city's share, $40,500, 
 interest and sinking fund $100,000. 
 
 Taxes were levied to provide for these 
 disbursements during the fiscal year 18S8- 
 89, at the rate of $1.70 on the hundred 
 dollars, against property valuations of 
 $20,314,334, which is about two-thirds 
 only, of the real value of the property 
 .assessed, personalty excepted. This 
 assessment was seggregated as follows : 
 Lands $9,506,019, improvements thereon, 
 $6,188,676; personal property (about a 
 tenth of actual values) $4,619,639. Of 
 the $1.70 tax rate, 20 cents went for the 
 schools. The revenue derived by taxes, 
 $345,000, was, however, scarcely a third 
 of the city's receipts. The tax funds 
 were augmented by licenses, market rents, 
 dividends from wharf property, etc. , so 
 that the total revenues of the year, were 
 $903,000. The disbursements were $722,- 
 000. The total tax rate, city, county and 
 State, for all purposes is $2.57^. 
 
 The bonded debt of the city, largely a 
 legacy of the corrupt and disorderly era 
 of Reconstruction, is $1,500,000. It is 
 funded so as to be in gradual process of 
 extinction. Assets of the city, consisting 
 of taxes due, wharf and railroad stock, 
 public property, like market, school and 
 engine houses, the city hall, hospital, etc., 
 more than offset it. The hospital is 
 valued at $35,000; the city hall and 
 market house, $80,000, and an additional 
 market $10,000; five public squares and 
 a pai-k site, $133,000. 
 
 The fire department has apparatus worth 
 $46,500; its buildings ai'e valued at $18,- 
 500. It has been a paid department five 
 years. There are 51 men enrolled in the 
 corps. It has five steamers, one Hayes 
 
 truck, six hose carts equipped with 7,000 
 feet of hose, and twenty horses. The 
 various houses make five stations for the 
 command. The water supply is now con- 
 sidered ample for any exigency. There 
 are 350 double hydrants attached to the 
 thirty-three miles of water mains of the 
 new works, and the old street cisterns are 
 still serviceable. In case of fire among 
 the shipping, the lighters in the harbor 
 act as auxiliaries to the department. The 
 efficiency of this arm of the body politic 
 is illustrated in the fact that the loss last 
 year, upon property valued at $400,000, 
 was but $7,000. 
 
 PLACES OF RESORT STREET RAILROADS. 
 
 While some of the public squares have 
 been dressed in floral garb, little attention 
 has yet been given to the matter of a 
 public park. The beach, however, which 
 is a thoroughfare and resort for all the 
 people of the city, rich and poor, high 
 and low alike, supplies in large measure 
 this w^ant of general recreation grounds. 
 In the outskirts, too, are Woollam's Lake 
 and the Fair Grounds, and a number of 
 gardens to which the denizens of Gal- 
 veston betake themselves for relaxation, 
 among them that of the Garten Verein, 
 a social organization of the wealthier resi- 
 dents which has reclaimed an enclosure of 
 several acres from the waste of sand. It 
 is not a garden of flaunting blossoms in 
 brick-bordered, mathematical beds, but a 
 lovely place of floral parterres, and 
 shrubbery, and velvet sward, of rustic 
 arbor and shady nook, with a club house 
 and pavilion where the members and 
 their families find respite from the dust 
 and heat and turmoil of the heart of the 
 city. 
 
 The Pagoda Baths, situated on the 
 beach, facing the Beach Hotel, take this 
 name from their architectural style. They 
 cost the company that constructed them 
 $12,000. They afford facilities for 600 
 
20 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 persons to bathe in the surf an hour, and 
 unlimited room for sight-seers besides. 
 
 The general plan of these baths is that 
 of a grand promenade leading from the 
 beach to a hundred-foot pier, flanked on 
 either side by octagonal structures that 
 have lono- wings extending out from them 
 
 furnished with the artesian water of Gal- 
 veston, and no extra charge is made for 
 the use of these accessories. The prom- 
 enade is 30 feet wide and is furnished 
 with seats. 
 
 This bath house replaces one built some 
 vears ago, which was insufficient to accom- 
 
 ■RUEHEART, REAL ESTATE AGENT. 
 
 over the waves. The entire building 
 rests upon piling about 15 feet high, and 
 the water is reached by a broad stairway 
 descending from the center. The pago- 
 das are So feet broad, and the wings are 
 5S by 150. In these latter are 120 
 single and 94 family dressing rooms. 
 Shower baths are provided, which are 
 
 modate the summer visitors to the beach. 
 It is said to be the most commodious, and 
 is certainly one of the handsomest estab- 
 lishments of the kind in the country. Ar- 
 rangements have been made for the safety 
 of those who divert themselves in the 
 breakers, and for the comfort and enter- 
 tainment of their companions as well. 
 
THE CITT OF GALVESTON. 
 
 21 
 
 These baths are owned by a stock 
 company of prominent residents. F. M. 
 Spencer, Col. Walter Gresham, C. D. 
 
 city, and furnish transit facilities to all 
 these places of resort for a five-cent fare. 
 The lines of Galveston are all owned and 
 operated by a single corporation, the 
 Galveston City Railroad Company, which 
 has $937,000 invested in its venture. 
 The Beach Hotel was built and is owned 
 it. This companv is about to substi- 
 
 VIEWS OF GALVESTON. 
 
 Holmes, George Murdock and J. H. 
 Atchison are its directors ; F. M. Spencer 
 is president, J. H. Atchison, secretary 
 and Geo. Murdock, manager. 
 
 Street railroads, passing through the 
 principal streets, ramify all quarters of the 
 
 tute the over-head electric system for 
 horses as motive powder. And this step 
 Is but one of many examples of re- 
 awakened enterprise since Galveston has 
 been wedded in interest with the Great 
 West. 
 
22 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 SCHOOLS, PLBLIC AND PRIVATE. 
 
 On Avenue H, Galveston, there is an 
 imposing edifice, crowned with a sort of 
 cupola or dome. It derives from its 
 great length, almost the full measure of 
 the block on which it stands, a certain air 
 of architectural dignity, and its spacious 
 inner corridors and halls, produce a cor- 
 responding effect. Graven upon the 
 stuccoed front of this building are the 
 words: Ball High School; and in 
 one of its chambers has been set up, by 
 the school children of the city, a marble 
 bust of its founder, the late George Ball, 
 of Ball, Hutchings & Co., bankers, who 
 supervised, as well as paid for its con- 
 struction, and presented it, ground 
 included, a gift unconditional, to the city 
 in which his fortune had been acquired. 
 
 In another district of the city, on 
 Eleventh street, between Avenues G and 
 H, is a building scarcely less striking with- 
 out and as thoroughly appointed within. 
 This also is a school and a gift to the city, 
 the gift likewise of a banker. Henry 
 Rosenberg, who, as Ball, his exemplar 
 did, has raised, while still in the flesh, 
 the most enduring memento of his life. 
 This school cost the donor $79,000 ; the 
 Ball school is valued, wjth its site, at 
 $90,000 ; and at K and Twentieth streets 
 is another, built with the public funds, 
 that cost $35,000. The eight public 
 schools of the city with their furniture and 
 fixtures and grounds, are scheduled at 
 $300,803. 
 
 Donative or tax-built, tliese schools of 
 Galveston, all things considered quite 
 equal to those of which the Hub of New 
 World culture boasts, are an embodiment 
 of the sentiment of the community with 
 respect to education. A sentiment 
 grounded in its public policy, by the 
 very founders of the commonwealth, 
 whose munificent provision of revenue 
 and lands for the support of its schools, 
 $100,000,000 in the aggregate, justifies 
 
 all the encomium this wisest of state 
 measures evokes. 
 
 Galveston forms, in the educational 
 scheme of the State, an independent 
 school district, entitled, however, to a 
 per capita share of the State's appropria- 
 tion for schools, which for the 8,780 
 children of school age enumerated last 
 year — of whom 4,780 were enrolled — 
 amounted, to $44,000. The city con- 
 tributed from her own levy of taxes 
 $40,000 more, and during the year almost 
 $100,000 altogether, was expended upon 
 the public schools of Galveston. 
 
 A board of trustees, an elective body, 
 governs these schools, with the assistance 
 of an executive officer or superintendent. 
 This position is now held by Jacob Bick- 
 ler, an experienced man. There are five 
 schools for the white children of the city 
 and three for the colored, who number a 
 fourth of the enrollment. Black or white, 
 equal facilities ai^e afforded to all. The 
 teachers number 103. Their salaries 
 range from $50 to $200 a month. The 
 studies and methods of instruction differ 
 little from those in vogue in other 
 American cities. Drawing and vocal 
 music are features of all the courses. 
 Latin is taught the high school classes, 
 English, only, in the others. There are no 
 grades preparatory for college. The 
 State provides normal and university 
 instruction, and the Galveston system is 
 the common school, pure and simple. 
 
 Two things are worthy of remark in 
 this connection : Galveston was one of 
 seven American cities awarded the gold 
 medal of the last Paris Exposition for the 
 daily work of its schools ; and Galveston — 
 as much because it is already something 
 of an educational center, as for its 
 cl-emencies of climate — is the meeting 
 place of the Texas Summer Normal, an 
 organization of the teachers of the State 
 for mutual improvement. 
 
 The Texas Medical College, a 
 State institution located at Galveston, has 
 
24 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 professional direction of the new John 
 »Sealy hospital, a benefaction vested in the 
 city, and has other special advantages to 
 
 of the faculty. His associates in the work 
 of instruction are Drs. B. E. Hadra, 
 Hamilton A. West, H. P. Cooke, Ed. 
 
 URSLLI.NE CONVENl 
 
 offer those who desue to perfect them- 
 selves in the healing art. Its plan of 
 instruction comprises lectures, quizzes, 
 clinics, practical demonstrations and lab- 
 oratory work. It has a graded curriculum, 
 requiring attendance at three courses of 
 lectures, and daily clinics, medical and 
 surgical, are held in the hospital. Its lab- 
 oratories of chemistry, physiology, anat- 
 omy and pathology are especially well 
 equipped. 
 
 Among the members of the faculty of 
 this college are specialists thoroughly 
 competent to elucidate the theory and 
 practice of those branches of the study of 
 medicine known as pathology and bacte- 
 riology ; diseases also of the eye, car and 
 throat, of the skin and genito-urinary 
 organs : and these are taught in the regu- 
 lar coarse. Dr. J. F. Y. Paine is Dean 
 
 Randall, jr., J. H. Wysong, George Dock, 
 C. W. Trueheart, Geo. H. Lee, Geo. P. 
 Hall, and Chas. C. Banell. 
 
 The most notable of the private schools 
 of Galveston- are those that follow: 
 
 The Ursulixe Convext at Galveston, 
 is an institution, which in its field, the 
 education of voung ladies, is unexcelled. 
 It has a healthful and pleasant situation 
 on the blocks bounded by Avenues N 
 and O, Twenty-lifth and Twenty-Seventh 
 streets, about midway between the busi- 
 ness district of the city and the beach. 
 The illustration accompanying this mat- 
 ter is an accurate representation of its 
 ample frontage and substantial architec- 
 ture, — indications of the commodious and 
 comfortable appointments within, — but it 
 gives no hint of the spacious and attract- 
 ive back-ground of the j^icture — the exten- 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 25 
 
 sive enclosures for recreation behind the 
 buildings, the adjacent mansions and the 
 gardens of the wealthy residents of the 
 city, the broad driveway of the beach, the 
 long lines of white-capped breakers thun- 
 dering upon the shore and the glorious 
 prospect of open sea beyond. It is a site 
 that has special charms. And if, as has 
 often been said, there are moral influences 
 in a cheerful environment, then these sur- 
 roundings of this institution, are not the 
 least of its many advantages. 
 
 But it was not entirely for its pictur- 
 esque features, that a site was chosen by 
 the founders of the academy, beside the 
 Gulf. 'It is the benign office of this balm- 
 iest of Summer seas, to mellow the cli- 
 mate of all Eastern Texas; and Galves- 
 ton, nearest its warm and heaving bosom, 
 is its most favored beneficiary. It is true 
 that the island is low ; but it would be 
 
 of the Gulf blow daily over the Ursuline 
 school, and that its record for healthful- 
 ness is exceptionally high. 
 
 This may be ascribed as much to the 
 sanitary appointments of the academy 
 and to the solicitude of the ladies in 
 charge, as to the genial and even climate 
 of the Oleander city. Particular atten- 
 tion is paid to the food of boarding pupils, 
 to the ventilation of their apartments, 
 their exercises and relaxations. The 
 methods of instruction and discipline 
 employed by the Sisters, are substantially 
 those of other first-class schools, but the 
 system is elastic and discriminating, and it 
 is not the purpose to cast all the pupils in 
 the self-same mold. The aim is to shape 
 the character as well as mind ; to cultivate 
 orderlv habits and lady-like manners, as 
 well as learning. And the hundreds of 
 graduates of the school, who are the pride 
 
 difHcult to recall, at any elevation, a more of the home circle and the ornaments of so- 
 wholesome mean of atmospheric condi- ciety throughout the State, are some meas- 
 tions. than the Gem of the Gulf enjoys. ure certainly of the success attained in these 
 Certain it is, in any event, that the zephyrs particulars, by this order at Galveston. 
 
26 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 The courses of study embrace all the 
 branches of a solid and refined educa- 
 tion. The languages, drawing, painting, 
 music, needlework, etc., are taught by 
 nineteen ladies of the community and 
 eleven household assistants, who are mem- 
 bers also. Mother St. Agnes is Superior- 
 ess. Tuition, including all the privileges 
 of instruction and board, is $icx) for the 
 session. A discount is made for less than 
 the full course, or for two or more children 
 of the same parents. Instruction is given 
 to fifty yom^g ladies of the city who live 
 at home. 
 
 The institution is chartered and is 
 empowered to confer degrees. It was 
 founded in 1847 by a company of Sisters 
 from New Orleans. And to those who 
 were residents of the city, when it was 
 alternately beleaguered by rival forces of 
 the North and South, the old convent 
 building, will be reminiscent, as long as 
 it stands, of that historic and heroic past. 
 It was in this convent, that, during the 
 successive sieges of the city, the defence- 
 less and dependent were sheltered. In it 
 these daughters of St. Angela eased the 
 last hours of those who fought, with equal 
 valor, to maintain conflicting traditions. 
 In it, reposed, as in a sanctuary, the dead 
 of both invader and defender. And in it, 
 only, of all this war-bound island, during 
 those years of havoc, had white-robed 
 Peace a lodgement. 
 
 The Conyngton Business College 
 is established in Houston as well as here, 
 to provide the residents of both places, 
 as well as of the State at large, educational 
 facilities specially adapted for those who 
 intend to engage in business pursuits. 
 The system and methods of this institution 
 have been perfected during the five years 
 since its foundation, by the management 
 of the Messrs. Conyngton, whose reputa- 
 tion in educational matters is more than 
 merely local. Both gentlemen are con- 
 nected with the Texas Summer Normal, 
 a permanent association of the teachers of 
 
 the State for purposes of education, and 
 both are likewise identified with the man- 
 agement of the editorial corps of the Texas 
 jfoiirnal of Education., the leading edu- 
 cational magazine of the State. 
 
 The faculty at Galveston comprises six 
 experienced instructors and at Houston 
 the same number. 
 
 These teachers have been with them 
 almost since the foundation of the school, 
 and are experts in their several specialties. 
 The studies of book-keeping, commercial 
 law and business practice, including pen- 
 manship, constitutes what is called the Busi- 
 ness Course. Then there is a con^espond- 
 ing course of instruction in short-hand and 
 typewriting, including composition and 
 such knowledge of English grammar as is 
 necessary for practical business use. For 
 those who desire to take these courses, 
 and are not adequately prepared, they 
 maintain a preparatory department where 
 instruction is given in the ordinary English 
 branches, having as its aim the preparation 
 of its pupils to write and compose a first- 
 class business letter and to be quick, sharp 
 and accurate in all arithmetical calcula- 
 tions. 
 
 For the benefit of young men who are 
 busy during the day, they run night schools 
 also nearly the whole year round. These 
 are well patronized in both cities. Their 
 terms are reasonable considering the ad- 
 vantages afforded. 
 
 Another feature of the management of 
 this institution is, that nearly every student 
 competent to hold one, is provided with a 
 situation, shortly after graduating. The 
 fact is, business men complain that they can 
 not get students enough to fill the posi- 
 tions that are open to these graduates. 
 The College will shortly move into new, 
 enlarged and specially prepared quarters 
 here. 
 
 The indications are many that Galves- 
 ton is destined to be a great capital of 
 commerce. Numerous and weighty con- 
 cerns combine to foster its growth. With 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 27 
 
 its foreign shipping houses, its general in- 
 surance agencies, its cable station for 
 South American and ISIexican dispatches, 
 and other special advantages, it leads 
 all the Southwestern cities now. As 
 such, it is headquarters for the Texas 
 Phonograph Co., who have exclusive 
 rights for all Texas to the patents of Edi- 
 son, Painter and Bell, covering the differ- 
 ent applications of "that marvel of mar- 
 vels, the speaking inachine." 
 
 Considered as a device merely, the pho- 
 nograph is an extraordinary thing. Bvit 
 it promises to have vastly greater import- 
 ance in the civilization of the future, as 
 an instrument furthering all the business 
 of life, and is likely to hold a place cor- 
 responding with that of the telegraph and 
 telephone, and like conveniences. Inani- 
 mate as it is, it is already the monitor and 
 familiar of editors and authors ; for them 
 the goddess Mnemosyne, mother of the 
 muses, materialized. An entire novel has 
 been committed to it, by word of mouth, 
 for a recital later to a copyist, and the 
 voice of England's Grand Old Man, and 
 of the cantratice Patti, have been em- 
 balmed in it to delectate unborn ages. 
 
 The Texas Phonograph Company 
 is a Galveston institution. The greater 
 part of its stock is held by residents of the 
 city, among them some of the foremost, 
 financially here. It is capitalized to the 
 amount of $500,000. H. Lee Sellers is 
 its president; Hugh R. Conyngton, secre- 
 tary, Thos. Conyngton, general manager. 
 Associated with these gentlemen as di- 
 rectors are John H. Atkinson, R. S. Wil- 
 lis, and Edward Lasker of Galveston and 
 Robt. Gibson of Dallas. The company 
 has commodious and elegant quarters at the 
 coiner of Tremont and Mechanic streets. 
 
 press, drama and song. 
 
 A HANDSOME presscd brick building, 
 finished in terra cotta, and situated next 
 to the Cotton Exchange, as one of the 
 
 engravings in this chapter shows, is 
 occupied by the Galveston A^ezvs, the 
 leading daily of the city. This building 
 cost $100,000 and the stock of the cor- 
 poration proprietary, $300,000 worth of 
 which has been issued, is quoted on 
 'Change above par. The JVezvs was 
 founded in 1S43, and was conducted, 
 during the eventful period of the war, by 
 the late Willard Richardson, a man of 
 mark in Southwestern journalism. It has 
 been eminently successful also under the 
 management of Col. A. H. Belo and 
 associates, who are the owners besides of 
 the Dallas JVervs^an organ second only in 
 Texas to it, in merit and influence. As 
 an enterprise therefore, it is more than 
 merely a reflection of forty-eight years of 
 the life of the city. It is a gauge as well 
 of its progress and prosperity during that 
 time. 
 
 The Trilniiic, published by J. W. 
 Burson, is the only evening issue. The 
 Texas Post., a weekly, has for its constit- 
 uency the German residents of the city 
 and its vicinity. The sects and the trades, 
 educational and other interests, also have 
 representatives in the press of the city. 
 The yournal of Cojunierce., devoted to 
 the industrial and commercial concerns 
 of Texas, is the official paper of the Stafe 
 Association of Architects. It has 5,000 
 circulation. A stock company, of which 
 E. F. Redfield of the Redfield Company, 
 dealers in building material at 171 
 Mechanic street, is president, and J. E. 
 Gallaher, manager, publishes it. 
 
 A very general interest in current lit- 
 erature is evinced by the patronage 
 accorded the bookstores of the city. The 
 municipality contributes $1,500 a year to 
 sustain the free circulating library of the 
 Galveston Lyceum, and the public has 
 access also, through members, to the col- 
 lections of books of the secret orders. 
 
 The drama is supported at Galveston 
 in a discriminating as well as liberal 
 spirit that draws the best talent of the 
 
28 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTOX. 
 
 stage to the city. Galveston enjoys dis- 
 tinction among Texas cities as the only 
 one in which the incomparable Patti has 
 sung. Music has votaries in every house- 
 hold, and choral societies of both German 
 and American membership flourish. It 
 is somewhat an indication of the attention 
 given to the refinements of life, that one 
 of the largest music houses of the South 
 has been established and upbuilt here, 
 that of Thomas Goggan & Bro., described 
 in another part of this work. 
 
 Galveston is by no means an art center. 
 But there are meliorating influences in 
 the accumulations of wealth in the city, 
 wherein taste and elegance oi-iginate, and 
 whereby only, native production is likely 
 to be fostered A single example of 
 commemorative sculpture there is in one 
 of the cemeteries of the city. The 
 memorial of a merchant, Moritz Kopferl. 
 first president of the Gulf, Colorado <!v: 
 Santa Fe Railroad. A life size group of 
 matron and children, expressing mutely, 
 but eloquently, in the marble of Carrara, 
 and the fine Roman bronze relievo be- 
 neath them, the bereavement of his relict. 
 Beside which costly tribute to a simple 
 citizen of Galveston, the dust of Menard, 
 its founder, of Magruder, its defender, 
 and of Wigfall, its senator, lie all unhon- 
 ored. A contrast which, however, it must 
 be admitted, might be drawn as well for 
 many a larger and richer place. 
 
 That greatest of all artists, the sun, 
 beaming steadilv, throughout the seasons, 
 in an almost unclouded sky, lends his aid 
 to further and perfect the work of the 
 Galveston photographer. The profession 
 is favored likewise by the liberal patron- 
 age bestowed by wealthy and fashionable 
 residents. .Superior work, especial! v in 
 portraiture, is, accordingly, done in the 
 city — the best, perhaps, by Jusrrs Zahn, 
 whose gallery and studio is at 418 Tremont 
 street. Mr. Zahn's acquirements, gained 
 in his early life in Germanv, have been 
 rounded out bv experiences in several of 
 
 the large cities of this country, and he has 
 made himself proficient in all the branches 
 of his business. Many of the engravings 
 in this work were made from views taken 
 by him, the artistic spirit of which it has 
 been scarcely possible to reproduce in the 
 hard metallic medium of electro plates. 
 Mr. Zahn is successor to P. H. Rose, who 
 had reputation before him as a skillful 
 photographer. 
 
 SOCIETY AND PEOPLE. 
 
 Gal\'estox is a minor type of the 
 cosmopolitan city, and is as liberal in its 
 pursuit of diversions as the Athens of the 
 Apostolic era with respect to stranger 
 Gods. The celebration of a Mai f est or 
 a Fall of the Bastile, has participants of 
 every nationality. Its resorts are en- 
 livened by the presence of the large 
 floating population attracted by its pros- 
 perity, measurably so by the non-resi- 
 dent attaches of the foreign houses busily 
 engaged, for more than half the vear, in 
 the cotton trade. 
 
 As a seaport and summer resort it is 
 tolerant of gambling and social vices. 
 These proceed retiringly behind closed 
 doors. Sunday law is not strictly en- 
 forced. The proprieties of life are, 
 nevertheless, very generally observed. 
 
 Galveston has several associations de- 
 voted to physical culture and athletic 
 sport, among these the Turn I'erriu. and 
 a base ball club. For the national game 
 finds favor with the populace just as else- 
 where in the land. It has no driving club, 
 but it has many reinsmen and horse fan- 
 ciers, by whom the beach and the Fair 
 grounds are used as a speeding track. It 
 has several militia commands also, cul- 
 tivating zealouslv. as everywhere in the 
 South, a knightly spirit, as well as a thirst 
 for distinction in arms. But the pride 
 of the residents is the Island City Boating 
 and Athletic Club, which has achieved 
 first honors at manv of the regattas in 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 29 
 
 Southern waters, and of which, many of 
 the merchants of the city are honorary 
 members. It has a fine club house on one 
 of the wharves, and a full complement of 
 racing and pleasure craft. 
 
 The Union Club is an association of the 
 business men for social relaxation. Gal-' 
 veston has a liberal sprinkling of German 
 citizens and of whites from the adjacent 
 Creole State. But the predominating 
 element of the population is American ; 
 if not to the manor born, thoroughly 
 Americanized ; and from it the best 
 society of the city takes its tone. It is a 
 conservative society, this of Galveston, 
 holding fast to many of the social tra- 
 ditions and conventionalities of the ancien 
 regime. And but little infected with 
 fashionable follies. A society of intelli- 
 gence, refinement and true gentility, 
 basing its distinctions less upon wealth 
 than on moral worth. 
 
 A society rfecognizing its duty to its 
 dependents of the enfranchised race. 
 Not unmindful of its obligations with 
 respect to religion and the humanities. 
 Having along with many high-minded 
 and honorable, its share of generous and 
 public-spirited men. To one of whom, 
 the late John Sealy, of Ball, Hutchings & 
 Co., bankers, the State is indebted for .a 
 noble foundation, the hospital building 
 which bears his name. This institution 
 is leased to the city, by which it is main- 
 tained as a public charge. 
 
 St. Mary's Infirmary, one of the 
 largest and finest institutions for the res- 
 toration of invalids in the Southwest, is 
 located at Eighth and Market streets, a 
 delightful situation, away from the noise 
 and bustle of the business precincts of the 
 city. It is a spacious structure, manifest- 
 ing externally the comfort that reigns 
 within It, has ample grounds, and the 
 most attractive environment of the resi- 
 dence quarter ; and it is visited daily by 
 the refreshing and wholesome Gulf breeze, 
 itself a tonic for bodily ailments, and a 
 
 healing balm for the dispirited and dis- 
 tressed. 
 
 St. Mary's is conducted by the vSisters 
 of Charity of the Incarnate Word, who 
 conduct also St. Joseph's Infirmary at 
 Houston, and whose reputation has been 
 established by the perfect system and order 
 of their management, as well as by their 
 tender ministrations and heroic devotion 
 to duty, here and everywhere, in seasons 
 of pestilence and calamity. Mother Au- 
 gustine, one of the most experienced ladies 
 of the order, is its Superioress. The medi- 
 cal staff is directed by Dr. C. H. Wilkin- 
 son, who is also surgeon in chief, and Dr. 
 M. Singer is house surgeon. 
 
 Over 17,000 patients have been treated 
 at St. Mary's since its establishment in 
 1866. It has special facilities for those 
 who desire personal attention and private 
 conveniences, and for patients of both 
 sexes from the interior, to many of whom, 
 it is commended by the country physi- 
 cians. It has the character of a quiet and 
 retired home rather than of a public insti- 
 tution ; of a home providing the careful 
 nui'sing, the appetizing fare and the indi- 
 vidual consideration, that many, indeed 
 most of the sick, require. 
 
 LIVING AND HOTELS. 
 
 Galveston rivals New Orleans in the 
 profusion, variety and cheapness of its 
 market products. It has its restaurateurs 
 too, like that Epicurean city, specially de- 
 voted to the gratification of the palates of 
 the local bon vivants. The Gulf is the 
 natural home of the pompano, the red-fish, 
 the Spanish mackerel and the oyster, and 
 the packing of these denizens of the warm 
 salt waters for shipment to inland cities, is 
 an expanding industry of the city. The 
 prolific gaixiens and orchards of the con- 
 tiguous mainland, produce abundantly, 
 besides the fruits of the temperate zone, 
 the fig, the banana, and the orange ; and 
 along with these are disjDlayed in the stalls, 
 
30 
 
 THE cm 
 
 unknown in 
 
 OF GALVESTON. 
 
 many comestibles entirel} 
 colder climates. 
 
 Favored with such facilities for a supe- 
 rior cuisine, the hotels of the city can be 
 charged with neither a doubtful nor a fru- 
 gal hospitality. Of those open the yeai 
 
 round, the Girardix and Tremoxt are 
 the best. The Beach, situated directly 
 upon the Gulf shore, is the favorite resort 
 of the summer visitors. These three 
 houses have accommodations, between 
 them, for over a thousand guests. 
 
 
 NEW FEDERAL BUILDING, GALVESTON. 
 TO BE USED FOR CUSTOM HOUSE, UNITED STATES COURTS AND POST OFFICE. 
 
GALVESTON AS A RAILROAD CENTER. 
 
 ALVESTON is the Gulf 
 terminal for all three of 
 the powerful and com- 
 prehensive railroad sys- 
 tems of the Southwest, 
 Gould's Missouri Pacific 
 lines, the Santa Fe lines and those of 
 the Southern Pacific system. It is the 
 seaboard station for most of the Texas 
 traffic of these lines, New Orleans only 
 competing in this particular with it ; and 
 it is the tidewater outlet besides, for very 
 much of their business originating outside 
 the State. The Union Pacific and Rock 
 Island systems, steadily advancing their 
 outposts southeastward, the former by its 
 lately acquired " Panhandle " line from 
 Denver to Fort Worth and the latter 
 south-bound from Kingfisher, Kan., to 
 Fort Worth and San Antonio, are likely 
 also to make it their sea-side destination, 
 and other roads are projected toward it. 
 
 The three systems that already afford it 
 transportation advantages, have an aggre- 
 gate length of 25,000 miles of track. 
 They interchain Southwestern communi- 
 ties having 12,000,000 of population m 
 the aggregate, for whom, one and all, 
 Galveston is the gateway to the sea. 
 They are the arterial system of the com- 
 merce of all that vast region, west of the 
 Mississippi and lying between the twenty- 
 ninth parallel of latitude, approximately^ 
 that of Galveston and Guaymas, Mexico, 
 and the thirty-ninth, very nearly that of 
 Kansas City, Denver and San Francisco, 
 a region almost if not quite equal in area 
 to a third of the Union, and, prospect- 
 ively, its richest parts. 
 
 This is the territory inland, tributary in 
 the commercial sense to Galveston. The 
 State of Texas has, according to the 
 
 comptroller's report for 1890, 8.468 miles 
 of track herself, all which is available for 
 the trade of Galveston, either directly, 
 by the three roads described in this chap- 
 ter, or indirectly, by their branches and 
 auxiliaries. 
 
 The International and Great 
 Northern Railroad, familiarly known 
 as the International Route, because it is a 
 trunk line, through Texas, to the Repub- 
 lic of Mexico, is, with its branches, 825 
 miles long, and is a component of the 
 great Gould Southwestern system. It 
 extends from Longview in Northeastern 
 Texas, 496 miles southwesterly to La- 
 redo on the Rio Grande, through Overton, 
 Troupe, Jacksonville, Palestine, Hearne, 
 Milano Junction, Rockdale, Taylor, 
 Round Rock, Austin, the State Capital ; 
 San Marcos, New Braunfels and San An- 
 tonio ; and from Palestine, in mid-Eastern 
 Texas to Galveston 200 miles south, 
 through Crockett, Trinity, Willis and 
 Houston. It has branches from Overton 
 to Henderson, Mineola, through Tyler to 
 Troupe, Round Rock to Galveston, 
 Phelps to Huntsville and Houston to 
 Columbia. By its connection with the 
 Texas & Pacific Railway, from Longview 
 to Texarkana, and thus with the St. Louis, 
 Iron Mountain & Southern Railway, or 
 Iron Mountain Route, the International 
 forms the shortest line between Galveston, 
 Houston and St. Louis. Pullman Buffet 
 Sleeping Cars, making the trijD eleven 
 houi-s fifteen minutes quicker than any 
 other route, ply between these points. A 
 line of Pullman Buffet Sleepers is also 
 in daily operation between Laredo, San 
 Antonio, Austin and vSt. Louis, Mo., 
 proceeding north without change, via 
 Texarkana and the "Iron Mountain 
 
32 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTOX. 
 
 Route," and vice versa, making the trip 
 eleven hours quicker than by any other 
 route. Pullman Buffet Sleeping Cars are 
 also run daily between San Antonio and 
 Kansas City, without change. 
 
 At Laredo, direct connection is made 
 with the Mexican Xiitional Railroad, 
 which has Pullman Buffet Sleeping Cars 
 to and from the City of Mexico. Thus 
 practically, an unbroken sleeping car line 
 is provided between St. Louis and the 
 City of Mexico. Accommodations through 
 can be secured at either point, and the 
 change at Laredo occurs in a Union Depot 
 and at seasonable hours. 
 
 Between St. Louis and the City of 
 Mexico, this route is 363 miles the short- 
 est and 17 hours 15 minutes the quickest, 
 both ways. Between Galveston and the 
 City of Mexico, this route (via Austin 
 and Laredo) is seven hours quicker than 
 anv other route. The grand old Sierra 
 Madre Range of mountains is in full view 
 from the car windows the greater part of 
 the route ; the scenery indeed along the 
 line of the Mexican National, is conceded 
 the most picturesque in Mexico. 
 
 With these advantages, the Interna- 
 tional & Great Northern Railroad is 
 unquestionably, the Trunk Line to and 
 from Mexico ; also between the cities in 
 South and Southwest Texas and St. 
 Louis, Chicago, New York and the East. 
 That fact is attested by its business, which 
 is continuously increasing and requiring 
 large additions to its already extensive 
 equipment. Although it is as thoroughly 
 appointed, in all of its departments as 
 any road in the land, and is providing 
 excellent service to both traveling and 
 shipping patrons, its policy is progressive 
 and it is steadily anticipating its require- 
 ments, by placing orders for new locomo- 
 tives, cars and passenger coaches. 
 
 It will be observed by reference to the 
 sketch of the route of the International in 
 the preceding paragraphs, that Austin, 
 San Antonio, Laredo, Houston, Gal- 
 
 veston, and other of the largest and most 
 flourishing towns in Texas, are directly 
 upon it. LoN-GViEw, its northern termi- 
 nus, is a place of 3,000 population, with 
 quite a large trade. It is the county seat 
 of Gregg county, which has a soil speci- 
 ally adapted to the growth of fruits, and 
 it is 3S2 miles from Galveston. Busy and 
 thriving places, too, are Overton and 
 Henderson in Rusk county, which had 
 standing, according to the last census 
 reports, 2,816,000 feet, board measure, of 
 merchantable pine, and which has exhib- 
 ited the superior products of its orchards 
 at fairs in other States. Mixeola, 
 northern terminus of the Mineola branch 
 of the I. & G. N., is 290 miles from Gal- 
 veston. It has 2,500 people and is the 
 largest town in Wood county, a country 
 of many streams and water powers 
 Mineola ships 25.000 bales of cotton a 
 year. 
 
 Tyler, in Smith county, 265 miles 
 from Galveston, is a bustling com- 
 munity of 10,500 people. It has 
 noteworthy manufactures, among them 
 four fruit packeries — significant of the 
 attention given to fruit culture in the 
 country adjacent— it ships strawberries to 
 both Denver and Kansas City, and it 
 sends to the greater markets of the land 
 some 21,000 bales of cotton a year. It 
 has the electric light and an opera house, 
 and is the county seat ; and is further 
 distinguished as the place where three 
 superior tribunals hold regular sessions, 
 the State Court of Appeals, the Supreme 
 Court of Texas and the United States 
 District Court. Palestine, Anderson 
 county, 200 miles from Galveston, is a 
 place of S,ooo population, and of im- 
 portant and diversified industries. It has 
 a large and powerful cotton compress, a 
 mammoth cotton seed oil mill, a big 
 foundry and machine shops and the 
 general oflices and shops of the I. & G. 
 N. road. It has its ice factorv, electric 
 light plant and a supply of most excellent 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 33 
 
 water adequate for the demands of future 
 growth. The prolific soil of the adjacent 
 country, producing besides fruits, early 
 vegetables and cotton, a great variety of 
 the staples of Texas, contributes, with its 
 manufacturing enterprise, to give prestige 
 and prosperity to Palestine. Its ship- 
 ments of cotton during the season 
 aggregate nine or ten thousand bales. 
 
 Taylor is in Williamson county, 
 where the I. & G. N. crosses the M,, K. 
 & T., has a cotton trade of 15,000 bales, 
 branch railroad shops and a population of 
 4,000, which it confidently expects will 
 be doubled within the next two years. 
 Georgetown, also in Williamson county, 
 355 miles from Galveston, has 3,500 
 people, 15,000 bales shipments and five 
 or six hundred thousand dollars of busi- 
 ness a year. It is notable also for its 
 Methodist University, its Chautauqua 
 Assembly grounds and its mineral springs. 
 Williamson county, it may be remarked 
 parenthetically, exhibited at the Atlanta 
 International Cotton Exposition of iSSr, 
 a fleece that weighed 40 pounds. The 
 animal from which it was taken yielded 
 25 pounds a year for five years. The 
 county, in fact, is famous for its flocks 
 throughout the State. 
 
 Austin, the capital of Texas, is situ- 
 ated upon an eminence rising from the 
 Colorado River, in Travis county, and 
 commanding, from Capitol Hill and 
 other positions within the city, an ex- 
 tended and pleasing prospect. The 
 general elevation, about 650 feet above 
 sea level, unfolds a panorama of rugged 
 mountains and undulating prairie and 
 broad and fertile valleys, of winding 
 river, primeval woodland, verdant fields 
 and fallowed lands, hardly surpassed in 
 the land ; and the city itself has elements 
 of the picturesque in keeping with its 
 environment. It is considered one of the 
 most attractive cities of the State, and is 
 of note also for its salubrious climate, 
 substantial business architecture, tasteful 
 
 homes and social refinement. The new 
 State capitol, the most imposing pile 
 west of the Mississippi, and but little if 
 any inferior to the New York capitol at 
 Albany, is located at Austin. It is 
 modelled after the capitol at Washington, 
 and is a structure becoming the rank and 
 pride of the State. Austin is a jobbing 
 center of considerable importance. Its 
 yearly cotton shipments are 25,000 bales. 
 The current and course of the Colorado 
 at Austin is particularly favorable for 
 the development of manufacturing pow- 
 ers, a work which has lately been under- 
 taken in the public interest by the 
 municipality itself. 
 
 San Marcos, Hays county, and New 
 Braunfels, Comal county, are places 
 of about 3,000 population each, shipping 
 about 15,000 bales apiece and both lying 
 upon streams affording water powers, 
 which are utilized to run saw and grist 
 mills and other industrial establishments. 
 San Marcos is famous for its scenic sur- 
 roundings. The San Marcos river takes 
 its rise here, in a spring bursting from the 
 base of the mountains near the town. 
 New Braunfels was settled years ago by a 
 thrifty class of Germans. The Comal 
 river at this place, would, it is believed, 
 furnish moi'e power by far than is now 
 utilized. 
 
 San Antonio, the Alamo city, is situ- 
 ated, by the course of the I. & G. N, road, 
 but 154 miles from the Mexican border. 
 Its geographical position and railway con- 
 nections, establish it as the gate city and 
 entrepot of Mexican trade. It has 60,000 
 population, and with the rapid settlement 
 of its tributary territory in Southern and 
 Southwestern Texas, is growing fast. It 
 has a military post disbursing $1,500,000 
 of government money, the Mexican con- 
 sulate for the entire frontier, has a wool 
 trade of 7,100,000 pounds, which is about 
 a third of the product of Texas, and im- 
 portant banking and jobbing concerns. 
 Its charming environment and its memo- 
 
34 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 rials of an eventful and historic past, and 
 more than all else perhaps, in its later 
 stages of growth, the balm of its climate, 
 which is particularly efficacious in restora- 
 tion of the consumptive and debilitated, 
 are attracting many from the older .States. 
 San Antonio's advantages are exhaust- 
 ively treated in a special edition of the 
 Engelhardt Series, now in press. 
 
 Laredo, southwestern terminus of the 
 I. & G. N. R. R., is situated on the Rio 
 Grande river, the border line between 
 Texas and Mexico, about 600 feet above 
 sea level and in an exceedingly healthy 
 locality. It has 15,000 people and is the 
 county seat of Webb. Its position makes 
 it the portal for commerce between the 
 United States and the Republic of Mexico, 
 and it is fast becoming the commercial 
 and manufacturing center for Southwest 
 Texas and Northern Mexico. The im- 
 ports and exports for 1890, estimated by 
 the monthly increase over last year, will 
 amount to $20,000,000. It has the largest 
 car and machine shops west of the Missis- 
 sippi river, a large cotton gin and milling 
 works and a number of flourishing manu- 
 factories. The attention of manufacturers 
 throughout the United States is being at- 
 tracted to Laredo by the unlimited quan- 
 tity of cheap coal mined there, the 
 abundant raw matei-ial, ample water sup- 
 ply, splendid climate and the extensive 
 and growing markets in Southwest Texas 
 and Mexico. Besides its water works 
 Laredo has an electric light plant and also 
 an electric motor street railway. During 
 the past year fifteen modern stores and 250 
 residences have been constructed. What 
 has been built on the heights, a beautiful 
 chain of hills east of the city, which are 
 connected with the business portion bv the 
 electric motor street railway, makes quite 
 a city of itself. That Laredo is destined 
 to become one of the leading trade centers 
 of the great Southwest, is admitted by all 
 who have given her advantages even a 
 cursory examination. The soil of the 
 
 country adjacent produces from three- 
 quarters to a bale an acre, and the tenderer 
 sub-tropical fruits may be grown without 
 protection. 
 
 Elkhart, Anderson countv, has re- 
 cently attained a measure of prominence 
 by the discovery there of copious mineral 
 springs. A hotel has been built there to 
 make it a resort. Crockett, Houston 
 county, 164 miles from Galveston, ships 
 10,000 bales of cotton a year. This 
 county had 3,216,000,000 feet of loblolly 
 pine in it at last reports. Trinity, 136 
 miles from Galveston, is the principal 
 railway station of the county of the same 
 name, which is also heavily timbered. 
 HiXTSViLLE, Walker county, has the 
 Sam Houston Normal school, a State 
 institution, and the principal penitentiary 
 of the State (with its cotton mill, shoe 
 factory, saddlery and other manufacturing 
 departments) to enliven its business. 
 Willis, Montgomery county, is 97 miles 
 from Galveston and is the end of two 
 freight divisions of the I. & G. X. 
 
 Houston, on Buffalo Bayou, a naviga- 
 ble stream that empties into Galveston 
 Bay, is 50 miles from Galveston. Its 
 population is 40 000. It is the county 
 seat of Harris, and besides being one of the 
 great railway centers of the State, presents 
 the peculiar conditions of an inland city, 
 having also the advantages of a seaport. 
 Houston's commercial, manufacturing, 
 educational and social advantages entitle 
 the city to rank with the most progressive 
 and attractive places of the Southwest. 
 The manufacturing interests of the city 
 are large and are increasing both in 
 variety and importance. Its industrial 
 enterprise has representation in cotton 
 seed oil mills, flouring and grist mills, 
 plow factories, four large brass and iron 
 foundries, three cooperage establishments, 
 car wheel works, extensive brick manufac- 
 tories and other lesser ventures. Around 
 and near the city of Houston, market 
 gardening is an important and profitable 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 35 
 
 industry. Much attention has been given 
 to the cultivation of strawberries, grapes 
 and fruits of all kinds. 
 
 The International, by the State 
 Comptroller's report, represents an invest- 
 ment of $37,945,714. Its total business 
 last year aggregated, $3,228,840. The 
 passengers carried numbered 463,161 ; the 
 freight hauled 795,033 tons, as follows: 
 lumber, 190,000 tons ; manufactures and 
 merchandise, 155,957; coal, 96.S33 ; mis- 
 cellaneous, 73,854; live stock, 62,607: 
 cotton 57,820; grain and flour, 53,476 ; 
 other agricultural products, 43,115 ; lead 
 ore, 15,128. Ithas 1,345 cars, coaches and 
 locomotives and 2,532 employes. 
 
 The Houston & Texas Central 
 Railroad, originated before the war and 
 was to have made this city its southern 
 terminus and starting point then, but, 
 owing to the indifference of the commu- 
 nity toward it at that time, construction 
 was begun instead, at Houston. In Texas, 
 as elsewhere in the South, the conflict of 
 arms, stayed all railroad projects, but in 
 1867, when business was generally 
 renewed, a new era of railroad building 
 opened, and work was resumed on this 
 line, and in a few years it had proceeded 
 rapidly northward until Denison at the 
 State line was attained, a distance of 338 
 miles. In its progress northward, Hemp- 
 stead, Navasota, Hearne, Bremond, 
 Groesbeck, Corsicana, Dallas, McKinney 
 and Sherman, the most prosperous and 
 populous place in Eastern Texas, were 
 successively reached. 
 
 An entrance to Galveston was after- 
 ward effected over the old Galveston, 
 Houston & Henderson's right of way, 
 and branches have been built out from the 
 main stem of the road as follows : Hemp- 
 stead, west to Austin, one hundred and 
 fifteen miles; Bremond, northwest to Al- 
 bany (intended to be continued through 
 the "Panhandle" of Texas to New 
 Mexico and Colorado), two hundred and 
 thirty-two miles ; Garrett, northeast to 
 
 Roberts, fifty-two miles ; and Garrett via 
 Waxahatchie, northwest to Fort Worth, 
 fifty-three miles. 
 
 By its termination at Denison, the 
 Houston & Texas Central has connection 
 with the Missouri, Kansas & Texas road 
 of the Gould System, north-bound 
 through Indian Territory, Kansas and 
 Missouri to Kansas City and St. Louis. 
 Its other connections are numerous, chief 
 of them these: At Galveston, with 
 the Morgan line of steamers for New 
 York ; at Houston with the East & 
 West Texas narrow gauge and the South- 
 ern Pacific, (with which latter as a road 
 of its own system, it has close alli- 
 ance) ; Fort Worth and Dallas, with the 
 Texas & Pacific west-bound for El Paso 
 and east-bound for New Orleans ; at Fort 
 Worth also with the new Denver & Fort 
 Worth road recently absorbed by the 
 Union Pacific, and having Denver at its 
 other extremity, and with the Fort Worth 
 & Rio Grande road for Grandbury and 
 Stephensville ; at Corsicana and Waco 
 with the St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas, 
 which effects a junction with the Iron 
 Mountain road at Texarkana, and itself 
 proceeds on to Cairo, 111. At Heai'ne 
 and Austin the Houston & Texas Central 
 is crossed by the International & Great 
 Northern of the Gould System, and at 
 Navasota, Brenham and Morgan by the 
 Gulf. Colorado & "Santa Fe " South- 
 western and transcontinental system. 
 
 The many small but growing feedei's 
 of the trade of Galveston that are on this 
 route, make it of great advantage to the 
 city. It traverses twenty-seven counties 
 of Eastern Texas, the most populous and 
 afiiuent of the State. While it is closely 
 related to the Southern Pacific road, it is 
 particularly, as to its management, policy 
 and situation, a Texas road, and although, 
 owing to financial complications, not par- 
 ticularly pertinent to this description, it is 
 in the hands of a receiver, it is notable 
 among Southwestern roads for its fine 
 
36 
 
 THE riTY OF GALVESTOX. 
 
 equipinent and thorough condition. It is 
 furthering immigration to the State by 
 special arrangements with all the foreign 
 steamship lines, and by sale of sixty day 
 excursion tickets throughout the North 
 and West ; and it is spreading, by liberal 
 expenditure, for printed matter, all the 
 information that might be serviceable, 
 concerning lands along its route, busi- 
 ness opportunities, and the characteristics 
 of the State that now affords the most 
 inviting of all American fields for colo- 
 nization and enterprise. 
 
 The report of the State Comptroller of 
 Texas recently issued, gives the total 
 length of this road as 579 miles. Its cost 
 by the same authority was $27 679,90:5, 
 its earnings in 1SS9, $3,264,362, its oper- 
 ating expenses, $2,409,923. It owns 
 2,009 cars, and employs 1,937 persons. 
 The principal items of its freight traffic 
 during the year were, lumber 121,660 
 tons, cotton 80,877 tons, cotton seed 
 35,744 tons, grain, flour and mill products 
 24.606 tons live stock 23.754 tons, agri- 
 cultural products 16,390 tons, coal 35,- 
 710 tons, manufactured goods and general 
 merchandise 376,935 tons. Its total 
 freight traffic was 565,207 tons. 
 
 A. C. Hutchinson, general manager of 
 the Southern Pacific system at New 
 Orleans, is president of the Houston & 
 Texas Central road ; Chas. Dillingham, 
 Houston, vice-president and receiver; A. 
 Faulkner. Houston, general passenger 
 and ticket agent. 
 
 The Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe 
 Railroad is a Galveston enterprise ; an 
 instance of quiet but intensive spirit on 
 the part of representative men of the city, 
 and a complete rejoinder to all criticisms 
 upon the progressiveness of the com- 
 munity. It originated with capitalists 
 here, was prosecuted to completion as a 
 trunk line extending entirely through the 
 vState by them, and although it has been 
 attached to the great Southwestern system 
 of .Santa Fe lines, several of these parties 
 
 still retain their interests in it. and one of 
 them is its vice-president ; so that title js 
 regularly established to it as a Galveston 
 creation and a Galveston project. 
 
 The first fifty miles of the road were 
 built with the assistance of a $200,000 
 subsidy, voted by the county of Galveston. 
 Financial complications stopped further 
 procedure then and for three years after. 
 In 1S7S the road was sold under fore- 
 closure. It was bought by the real 
 promoters of the venture — those who had 
 funds to make a start in earnest — John 
 and George Sealy, .T. H. Hutchings, Geo. 
 Ball, Leon Blum, Henry Rosenberg and 
 about fifteen other capitalists of the city, 
 by whom from $200,000 to $500,000 
 apiece was contributed to continue con- 
 struction. Henrv Rosenberg was its 
 first president. 
 
 Under this management it was rapidly 
 pushed northw'ard and in 1882 reached 
 Dallas and Fort Worth, and at the time 
 of its absorption by the Santa Fe system 
 in 1887. it had a main line of 517 miles 
 from Galveston to Purcell, Indian Terri- 
 tory, besides its branches in this State. 
 These branches have been extended 
 somewhat since, and it now has a total 
 mileage of 1,162 miles, 1,058 in Texas, or 
 nearly a seventh of the length of its 
 system, which has 7,707 miles. The State 
 Comptroller's report of Jan. i, 1890, shows 
 that it cost to build $23,766,000, that it 
 takes about $3,250,000 a year to operate 
 it and that its earnings for 1889 w-ere 
 $3,761,500. It has 3.231 employes. 
 
 A junction is effected by it with the 
 main line of the Atchison, Topeka & 
 Santa Fe road at Purcell, and it is thus 
 made the Southeasterly grand division of 
 the Santa Fe system. Its branches are 
 all within the State of Texas, viz. : Alvin 
 to Houston, 24 miles; Somerville to 
 Conroes, 72 miles; Temple to San 
 Angelo, 226 miles: Cleburne to Weather- 
 ford, 40 miles, and Cleburne to Paris. 
 1^2 miles: and Ladonia to Ilonev Grove. 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 37 
 
 13 miles. Besides Galveston, Houston, 
 Brenham, Temple, Lampasas, San 
 Angelo, Fort Worth, Dallas, Gainesville 
 and Paris thriving cities of the State, are 
 on this line or its branches. 
 
 It makes connection with all the rail- 
 roads of the State at one or other of 
 these points, with the Houston & Texas 
 Central; the Southern Pacific ; Houston, 
 East & West Texas ; San Antonio & 
 Aransas Pass ; International & Great 
 Northern ; Missouri, Kansas & Texas ; 
 Texas & Pacific; St. Louis, Arkansas & 
 Texas; Fort Worth & Denver City; Fort 
 Worth & Rijo Grande, and the St. Louis 
 & San Francisco ; also at Galveston with 
 all the foreign and coastwise steamship 
 lines. 
 
 It is a direct route to Kansas City over 
 connections with roads of its own system, 
 and from there to Chicago ; and is the 
 best route from Galveston to all parts of 
 the central States of the far West. It 
 runs through a better cotton district than 
 any of its competitors of Eastern Texas, 
 and Galveston has a distinct advantage 
 from the vast traffic in that staple it 
 facilitates, and from distribution of goods 
 in return for that product, over it. It 
 hauls to Galveston wool and corn, cattle 
 grain and Mexican and Colorado ores, as 
 well as cotton and cotton seed, and 
 carries out of the city chiefly, general 
 merchandise, flour, fruits, vegetables, 
 coffee and sugar in large quantities, 
 cotton bagging and ties, planting imple- 
 ments, coal and coke and block tin. Its 
 relative position as a road and its value to 
 Galveston are both indicated by the fact 
 that in the month of September last 
 (1889) it handled 56 per cent of the total 
 receipts of cotton at Galveston, and in 
 October 47 per cent. 
 
 The traffic report of this road for 188S 
 is an interesting exhibit of Galveston's 
 strength as a trade center, and of the 
 origin of the staples of her commerce, 
 and since it also discloses the character- 
 
 istic business of the road, a summary of it 
 can hardly be considered a digression 
 from the purpose of this chapter. 
 
 The total tonnage carried by the road in 
 that year was 696,617, of which 364,997 
 tons were carried north and 331,617 tons 
 south. Of the north-bound shipments^ 
 107,171 tons originated at Galveston; and 
 of the south-bound 161,645 tons were 
 destined for the city, a total of 268,816 
 tons. The tonnage originating on the 
 road and carried north was divided as fol- 
 lows : cattle, 68,950 tons ; other live 
 stock, 9,670 tons; flour and grain, 12,984 
 tons; wool, 468 tons; lumber, 108,466 
 tons ; the south-bound tonnage had for its 
 largest items: cattle, 7,715 and other live 
 stock, 3,583 tons; wool, 5,091 tons; lum- 
 ber, 18,461 tons ; cotton seed, 23,287 tons ; 
 hay, 3,732 tons ; stone for jetties and 
 other building material, 35,142 tons. 
 
 Of cottoncarried by it during the year, 
 Galveston received more than any mar- 
 ket on its line. Of general merchandise, 
 a third of that carried by the road nearly, 
 originated at Galveston ; of Jumber 30 per 
 cent originates in Southeastern Texas on 
 its line or on lines connecting with it, and 
 it is destined largely for Northern Texas, 
 Kansas and Indian Territory, which have 
 no timber lands ; of grain and flour, 80 
 per cent originated in Kansas and about 20 
 per cent was carried north from Galves- 
 ton and other places on the line ; of cattle 
 and live stock hauled by this road, 87 per 
 cent was taken to Kansas City, Chicago 
 and St. Louis, the remainder to Galveston ; 
 while of wool, which comes over this road 
 from Western Texas, over 90 per cent, 
 destined for Eastern markets, passed 
 through the hands of Galveston shippers. 
 
 The shipments from Galveston by this 
 road in 1888 were general merchandise, 
 42,125 tons; railroad material for other 
 roads in Texas and Mexico, 42,077 tons ; 
 coal, 9,807 tons ; flour, 3,826 tons ; salt, 
 2,268 tons; bagging and ties, 1,665 tons; 
 lumber, 1,452 tons; vegetables and fruit. 
 
38 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 1,421 tons; cotton seed products, 1,193 
 tons; machinery, 764 tons; grain, 573 
 tons: total, 107,171 tons. These are the 
 commodities, that with cotton, make the 
 bulk of the city's business. 
 
 The traffic of the road was greater in 
 '89, than in the year preceding it. The 
 report of the State Comptroller of Texas 
 credits it with a freight traffic of 735,325 
 tons, the principal items of which were 
 lumber and saw mill products, i7369^ 
 tons, live stock 117,859 tons, building 
 material 66,066 tons, cotton 89,998 tons, 
 cotton seed 44,437 tons, grain 32,495 tons, 
 wool 10,238 tons. During the year 440,- 
 385 passengers were carried by it. About 
 30 freight trains are now run by it daily 
 each way, four of them in and four out of 
 Galveston, and 26 passenger trains, four 
 in and four out of the city. As a member 
 of the Santa Fe system, it has ample roll- 
 ing stock, including Pullman and chair 
 cars for its passenger service. The road 
 bed is in course of continuous improve- 
 ment, by ballasting with stone, by widen- 
 ing cuts and embankments, and by sub- 
 stituting steel for iron rail. The bridges 
 over the principal streams crossed by the 
 road are of iron, and as a whole, its condi- 
 tion is as good as that of any road in the 
 country. 
 
 As its seaboard terminal, Galveston is 
 favored as much as possible by it. The 
 road has shops here employing about 150 
 hands, and as many more men are on its 
 local pay roll. It has freight yards of 
 about 700,000 square feet area at the west 
 end of the city, and owns 160 acres fronting 
 the channel, on the eastern end of the 
 island, between Fourth and Tenth streets. 
 This was purchased with the view of 
 building wharves and elevators, to provide 
 facilities for the transhipment of grain 
 and other Southwestern products, and the 
 management has plans under considera- 
 tion for its improvement. 
 
 The company has also along its line, in 
 this State, acreage and town lots, for sale 
 
 with some excellent chances for invest- 
 ment in the growing towns upon it, in and 
 adjacent to which, it offers tracts at from 
 $2 to $100 an acre, and lots at corres- 
 ponding prices. 
 
 The managing officers of the Santa Fe 
 are A. Manvel, president; Geo. Sealv, 
 1st vice-president; J. F. Goddard, 3d 
 vice-j^resident ; J. W. Rinehart, 4th vice- 
 president ; J. H. Scott, general superin- 
 tendent ; W. H. Masters, general freight 
 agent ; H. G. Thompson, general passen- 
 ger and ticket agent; T. W. Jackson, 
 general land agent. Mr. Manvel 's head- 
 quarters are in Chicago. The others are 
 all stationed in the company's general of- 
 fice building, corner of Strand and Bath 
 avenue, Galveston. 
 
 OTHER RAILROAD MATTERS. 
 
 These three trunk lines have all been 
 forehanded in the acquisition of ter- 
 minal and warehouse gi'ounds here. The 
 International has obtained a portion of the 
 water front, upon which to build coal and 
 grain elevators, wharves and other facili- 
 ties to promote the increased traffic antici- 
 pated from improvement of the bar. The 
 Southern Pacific, parent corporation of the 
 Houston & Texas Central road and Mor- 
 gan's Steamship line, has a grant of 
 tide lands situated on the harbor opposite 
 the city, from the county, for the same 
 purpose, and the Gulf, Colorado & 
 Santa Fe has established shops and made 
 other improvements of a permanent char- 
 acter. 
 
 By MEANS OF the Tru.vk Lines run- 
 ning to Houston, Galveston has the serv- 
 ice of the San Antonio & Aransas Pass 
 Railroad, ramifying, with a main line 
 and branches 595 miles long, all of South- 
 eastern Texas, below the line of the 
 Southern Pacific road, and between San 
 Antonio and Corpus Christi on the Gulf 
 Coast. The lines to Houston also afford 
 it the facilities of the Houston, East (Jv: 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 39 
 
 West Texas, a narrow gauge road 192 
 miles long, penetrating the pine forests of 
 Eastern Texas. 
 
 The Galveston & Western, a nar- 
 row gauge line, chiefly used for hauling 
 sand, and for local excursions, extends 
 for fifteen miles down the Island of Gal- 
 veston. It was originally planned to 
 make the city the northern terminal of 
 a projected line to the City of Mexico, 
 but the scheme fell through It is still 
 mooted, however, from time to time, as 
 likewise, is the project of an air line from 
 Galveston to the northern boundary of 
 the State, and a grand North and South 
 line from some point in the Dakotas to 
 Galveston, and also lines from Central 
 
 Kansas, Kansas City and other places 
 north. 
 
 A matter of closer concern to the peo- 
 ple of Galveston, is the question of a 
 bridge to the mainland, periodically raised, 
 and lately given rather more attention in 
 the press than usual, without, however, 
 decisive action. The two railroad bridges 
 are temporary structures, without a foot- 
 way. The daily market supplies are 
 largely brought into the city by small 
 craft, and a Union bridge that could be 
 used as a public thoroughfare, would be 
 a special convenience to the body of the 
 people, as well as for trade. It is esti- 
 mated that such a bridge could be built 
 for $1,000,000. 
 
BANKING, LOANS, INSURANCE AND REAL ESTATE 
 
 HE fact that a very large 
 part of the banking busi- 
 ness of Galveston is 
 done by private bankers, 
 makes it difHcult to 
 arrive at the exact 
 amount of capital em- 
 barked in the regular banking channels of 
 the city. It is certain, however, that it is 
 at least $io,cxx),ooo in the aggregate, and 
 probably more. Of this amount, $1,876,- 
 938 is contributed by three established 
 national banks, the First National, Gal- 
 veston National and National Bank of 
 Texas, by a new national bank, the 
 American National, now just completing 
 its organization, and by one bank with a 
 State charter, the Island City Savings 
 Bank, which does a commercial business 
 also. 
 
 The surplus and undivided profits of 
 these five banks, at the time of their 
 spring statement, 1890, was nearly $400,- 
 000, an amount indicating conservative 
 management a general characteristic of 
 these institutions. The deposits with the 
 five aggregated at the same time $2,640,- 
 000, $360,897 of this savings deposits, 
 their loans and discounts, $2,500,000 and 
 their total resources, $4,300,000. 
 
 There are, at Galveston, four staunch 
 private banks. Ball, Hutchings & Co., a 
 firm accredited by common report with 
 fully $6,000,000 resources, Adoue & 
 Lobit, a partnership of the most substan- 
 tial individual investments, H. Rosenberg 
 and W. L. Moody & Co. A large 
 amount of capital is employed here by 
 capitalists and agencies, in banking, note 
 broking and mortgage loans, and it is 
 next to impossible to compute its total. 
 A moderate estimate makes the capital 
 represented by the private banks at least 
 
 $6,000,000, and by the land and loans 
 agencies of the city, $3,275,000. 
 
 It is certainly to be within bounds to con- 
 sider the banking capital of a city having 
 $25,000,000 of jobbing trade, and with 
 cotton, $77,500,000 of annual business, 
 as $10,000,000 at least. But other facts 
 bear out the statement. The bank clear- 
 ings of the year ending Sept. 30, 1889, one 
 of the private banks not included, were 
 $71,865,673, an average during the cotton 
 season of three to four millions a week 
 and three to four hundred thousand dol- 
 lars in the dull term between the season 
 of 1888 and 1889. The increase over the 
 year preceding was $15,155,837. or 28 
 per cent. The clearings during the season 
 just closed, were four to four and a half 
 millions a week, indicating for the year 
 ending Sept. 30, 1890. $100,000,000 of 
 total clearings, as much as the inland cities 
 which have twice Galveston's population 
 and clearings largely augmented by spec- 
 idation and boom. Here to the contrary, 
 where business is chieflv legitimate mer- 
 chandising the increasing clearings signify 
 solidly compacting wealth. 
 
 Eight per cent is the rate of interest 
 usually exacted by the banks, but money 
 can be obtained as low^ as six. The ruling 
 rate of commercial discounts for gilt edged 
 paper is 8 and 10 per cent. Exchange, ow- 
 ing to the exporting and importing traffic 
 of the city, makes a particularly large 
 fraction of the business of the banks. 
 During the cotton season New York ex- 
 change is at a buying rate of a quarter to 
 three-eighths discount, and the selling 
 rate is par. For the remainder of the 
 year the buying rate is par to three- 
 eighths discount, according to the cir- 
 cumstances of trade, chiefly those of 
 cotton transactions, and simihirly, selling 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 41 
 
 an eighth to a quarter premium. For- 
 eign exchange is governed by the New 
 York rate. 
 
 Mortgage loans are made for the most 
 part by the regular loans agencies ; but 
 little is done by the private banks. The 
 ruling rate on city real estate loans is lo 
 and 13 per cent, legal country loans are 
 13 per cent. Cotton, as the leading staple 
 of trade, makes the great bulk of the busi- 
 ness of the banks. After that, general 
 merchandising contributes most. 
 
 The following sketches describe the 
 banks and loan companies of the city 
 more in detail. 
 
 the national banks of galveston. 
 
 The Galveston National Bank, 
 corner of Tremont street and the Strand, 
 is successor to the Texas Banking and 
 Insurance Company, an old and very sub- 
 stantial institution, established in 1S70. 
 The -facilities of the old bank were of 
 a local character and its sphere of action 
 somewhat circumscribed, facts largely 
 due to its limited capital. These consid- 
 erations led to its nationalization in No- 
 vember, 1S89. From $300,000, its capi- 
 tal was increased to $500,000, paid in, 
 and this enlarged capital, supplemented 
 by the additional liability of half a mill- 
 ion dollars afforded by wealthy and 
 responsible stockholders to the depositors, 
 was the means of drawing immediately 
 to the Galveston National Bank a large 
 and substantial patronage, not only from 
 the city of Galveston but also from every 
 point in the State. 
 
 The management remains in the same 
 capable hands, with the addition of Mr. 
 L. R. Bergeron, formerly identified with 
 other large and influential moneyed insti- 
 tutions, as assistant cashier. Mr. R. S. 
 Willis continues as president, Mr. H. A. 
 Landes, as vice-president, and Mr. T. 
 J. Groce, as cashier. The directors are 
 Messrs. Willis, Landes and Groce, J. G. 
 
 Goldthwaite, Fen. Cannon, A. C. Baker, 
 W. K. McAlpine, J. P. Davie and J. H. 
 Burnett. To those acquainted with the 
 Galveston business community, these 
 names are a '' tower of strength." Mr. 
 Willis, as head of the great house of P. 
 J. Willis & Bro,, is one of the foremost 
 of wSouthern capitalists and merchants. 
 Mr. Landes, is of the firm of Wallis, 
 Landes & Co., wholesale grocers and 
 cotton factors in Galveston for the past 
 thirty years. Mr. Groce, a gentleman of 
 sterling business qualifications, was for- 
 merly of Jemison, Groce & Co., cotton 
 factors, and for the past five years vice- 
 president of the Texas Banking and 
 Insurance Co. The other directors are 
 men of high character and solid resources. 
 Mr. Goldthwaite is a large stockholder 
 in the house of P. J. Willis & Bro. ; Mr. 
 Cannon, a grain dealer and extensive 
 importer; Mr. Davie, a wealthy hardware 
 dealer ; Mr. Baker, a prominent figure in 
 the cotton trade of the port, and Messrs. 
 McAlpine and Burnett, well-known real 
 estate owners of Galveston. 
 
 The deposits of the Galveston National 
 Bank, as reported in its ofiicial statement 
 to the Comptroller of the Currency at 
 Washington, Feb. 38, 1890, were $1,187,- 
 670. 58. 
 
 The loans and discounts at the same 
 time were reported as, $1,049,003 01. 
 
 The total resources, $3,753,709.33. 
 
 The Galveston National Bank had then, 
 besides its capital, $30,038.64 of net 
 undivided profits, the accumulation since 
 its recent organization. 
 
 The Galveston National Bank lays 
 just claim to the largest and most 
 comprehensive system of correspondence 
 of any Texas bank. It has correspond- 
 ents at every banking point in the State 
 and substantial representatives at all 
 important money centers, principal of 
 which are : The Mercantile National 
 Bank, the Hanover National Bank and 
 the Bank of New York N. B. A., of New 
 
42 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTOy. 
 
 York City : the Hibernia National Bank, 
 New Orleans ; the National Bank of Com- 
 merce and Continental National Bank, 
 .St. Louis ; the National Bank of Com- 
 merce and American National Bank, 
 Kansas City ; the Corn Exchange Bank, 
 Chicago, and the Joint Stock Bank, Lim- 
 ited, London. These numerous connec- 
 tions enable the Galveston National Bank 
 to handle all lines of the banking busi- 
 ness in a prompt and thorough manner 
 and at the same time materially strengthen 
 its present extensive resources. 
 
 The First National Bank, corner of 
 Strand and Twenty-second street, was 
 organized in 1866 with $200,000 capital. 
 It has $300,000 now, and by its statement 
 of January 37th last had $100,000 surplus, 
 and $54,000 undivided profits besides. Its 
 total resources then were $1,198,823, its 
 deposits $659,823 and its loans and dis- 
 counts $675,777. As a leading bank in 
 the principal seaport of the Southwest, 
 and one of the primary cotton markets of 
 the world, it has a very large collection 
 and exchange business ; and for these 
 transactions maintains the relation of corre- 
 spondent with the following institutions 
 in other leading cities: New York, the 
 National Park bank ; Boston, the Mav- 
 erick National ; Chicago, the First Na- 
 tional ; St. Louis, the Third National ; 
 New Orleans, the Louisiana National and 
 N. O. Canal & Banking Co. ; San Fran- 
 cisco, the Pacific National, and London, 
 England, Kleinvort Sons & Co. 
 
 The First National of Galveston has 
 been fortunate in its management. Its 
 directory is made up of the foremost busi- 
 ness men of the city, and they have given 
 it a progressive policy. It was the first 
 bank here to reduce the rate of exchange 
 and discount after the war, and it has been 
 as liberal in its accommodations to local 
 enterprises as sound methods would per- 
 mit. Julius Runge has been its president 
 since it was organized in 1S79; E. S. 
 Flint, of Lammers & Flint, cotton and 
 
 wool factors, is vice president ; L. M. 
 Openheimer, cashier. The directors are 
 Julius Runge, M. Lasker, Leon Blum. 
 John Reymershoffer, Albert Weis, Julius 
 Weber and H. Kempner. 
 
 Mr. Runge is German consul here and 
 city treasurer. As administrator of the 
 city's finances (in his capacity of chair- 
 man of the Finance Committee of the 
 Board of Aldermen of Galveston) be- 
 tween 1877 and 1880, he was chiefly 
 instrumental in refunding the city's 
 indebtedness and restoring her credit, 
 which after the war, was for some time at 
 a very low ebb. He is a leading spirit in 
 many other enterprises here besides the 
 bank, in fact was a pi-ime mover in many 
 of the most notable corporate concerns of 
 the city, among others, the Galveston 
 Cotton and Woolen mills, the new P acking 
 Company, cotton compresses, street rail- 
 ways, land and loan companies, etc. He 
 is a member of the firm of Kauffman &; 
 Runge, cotton factors, and is president, 
 also, of the Cotton Exchange of the city. 
 Mr. Lasker is a capitalist and land 
 owner. Mr. Reymershoffer is one of the 
 proprietors of the Texas Star Flour Mills 
 here. Mr. Weis is a wholesale dry goods 
 dealer. Mr. Weber is the representative 
 here of the great German cotton house of 
 Knoop Frericks & Co. Leon Blum is 
 the senior member of Leon & H. Blum, 
 wholesale dry goods dealei"s, and president 
 of the Leon & H. Blum Land Company, 
 both ranking among the largest enterprises 
 of their kind in the West or Southwest. 
 II. Kempner is one of the largest capi- 
 talists in Texas, and is a cotton factor, in 
 which trade he has long received on con- 
 signment, more cotton than any other firm 
 in the Southwest. 
 
 The National Bank of Texas, 
 corner of Twenty-second and Strand, had, 
 at the time of its statement of Sept. 30th 
 last, total resources of $433,633. Of 
 this $267,608 was loans and discounts. 
 The capital stock of this bank, $100,000, 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 is all paid in, and it appears also that it 
 has a $20,000 surplus and $33,000 of 
 undivided profits. The deposits with it 
 daily are about $175,000. Its loans and 
 discounts run from $350,000 to $335,000. 
 It has especial facilities for prompt 
 collections and returns throughout Texas. 
 Its New York correspondents are the 
 American Exchange National and the 
 Importers and Traders' National. 
 
 The National Bank of Texas has had 
 good management from its foundation in 
 1866, and it is in hands now that continue 
 to give character and standing. Col. W. 
 L. Moody is its president, W. L. Moody, 
 Jr., son of Col. Moody, banker and cotton 
 factor of New York and Galveston, is 
 vice-president, G. D. Morgan is 
 cashier. The directors are Mr. Wallis, 
 W. L. Moody and W. L. Moody. Jr., T. 
 C. Thompson, of the Thompson Drug 
 Co ; J. F. Smith, of J. F. Smith & Bro., 
 sash, doors and blinds; Geo. M. Courts, 
 of Clark & Courts, printers and station- 
 ers, and Col. Walter Gresham, attorney 
 and legislator. 
 
 Cashier Morgan has been connected 
 with this bank for the past seven years, 
 He was formerly its teller and was elected 
 cashier at the January meeting of the 
 directors. 
 
 A New National Bank, the Ameri- 
 can, was organized lately by the election 
 of directors as follows: N. Weekes, F. 
 Lammers, G. B. Miller, J. D. Skinner, 
 John Focke, Gust Heye, W. F. Ladd, J. 
 E. Wallis and J. E. Rogers. Mr. 
 Weekes was chosen president, Mr. 
 Lammers vice-president and Mr. Ed. 
 McCarthy, formerly cashier of the Island 
 City Savings Bank, cashier. The capital 
 stock of this bank is $500,000. It will 
 be ready for business about the first of 
 June. 
 
 state and private baxks. 
 
 The Island City Savings Bank of 
 Galveston, which has enjoyed a very 
 
 large measure of prosperity and success 
 of late years, has recently, by a transfer of 
 interests, passed under control of the 
 Citizens' Loan Company, which, as the 
 account of it on another page of this 
 work discloses, counts its stock in the 
 bank amongst its most substantial 
 assets. In consequence of this transfer, 
 there has been a change, lately, in the 
 executive personnel of the bank, but it 
 proceeds along the same lines which have 
 widened its sphere as a savings institu- 
 tion and broadened its scope for commer- 
 cial business at one and the same time. 
 
 Mr. Albert VVeis, whose manufacturing 
 and commercial interests are referred to 
 in another part of this book, has been 
 elected president of the bank. His 
 administrative abilities are of so high an 
 order that they have been accorded like 
 recognition in other important local enter- 
 prises with which he is identified. Mr. 
 Jos. F. Campbell, cashier, is a gentleman 
 of large and varied business experience, 
 and of an energy and application that 
 particulary fit him for the position to 
 which he has been chosen. Mr. F. Wool- 
 verton, assistant cashier, has been con- 
 nected, for many years, with the National 
 Bank of Texas, and assumes this new 
 position with a ripened experience that 
 makes him a valuable accession to the 
 staff of the institution. 
 
 The directors chosen for the ensuing 
 year are the following prominent and 
 successful business men of Galveston : 
 M. L^llmann, of Ullmann, Lewis & Co., 
 wholesale grocers, who is also vice-presi- 
 dent of the bank, a merchant so widely and 
 favorably known that his name is a source 
 of strength to the institution ; Julius 
 Runge, of the firm of Kauffman & Runge, 
 and president of the First National Bank 
 of Galveston ; Gus Lewy, of Gus Lewy 
 & Co., wholesale grocers; M. Lasker, 
 capitalist and president of the Lasker 
 Real Estate Co. ; Robert Bornefeld, cot- 
 ton buyer ; R. B. Hawley, of Hawley & 
 
44 
 
 THE rirr OF GALVESTON. 
 
 Ileideiiheimer. commission merchants and 
 importers of coffee ; J. Weinberger, of 
 Ratto, Lang & Weinberger, candy manu- 
 facturers, importers and wholesale deal- 
 ers in fruits ; J. S. Rogers, manager of 
 the Texas Co-operative Association. The 
 character and standing of these gentlemen 
 is a guarantee that the reputation estab- 
 lished by the bank will be maintained 
 unimpaired, and that its business will de- 
 velop in the future as it has in the past. 
 
 On April ist. 1S90. when a statement 
 was rendered by it. the Island City Sav- 
 ings Bank had a capital paid in of $100,- 
 000 and a surplus of $100,000 and had 
 undivided profits besides of $^0,900.37. 
 The deposits with it at the same time 
 aggregated $627,360.80. and of total 
 resources aggregating $896,274.49. there 
 was credited to loans and discounts, 
 $528,746.19, to sight ex'change on New 
 York and other points. $219,222.19 and 
 to cash on hand $110,834.60. 
 
 vSavings deposits of $360,897.67. were a 
 showing of its utility to the thrifty work- 
 ing classes of the city. Four per cent 
 interest is paid on such deposits, which 
 are taken in amounts as small as fifty 
 cents. It thus affords a safe and remuner- 
 ative depository to persons who are en- 
 couraged, by its assistance, to economize 
 sums that might otherwise, perhaps, be 
 frittered awav. 
 
 While the savings department of the 
 bank is of special importance to it. and 
 will be conducted and guarded with jeal- 
 ous care, its commercial business is by no 
 means of small proportions. Exchange 
 and collections are notable features of 
 this branch of its business. It has facili- 
 ties for collections on all Texas points 
 that are unsurpassed, and has on its list 
 of correspondents the following banks in 
 cities doing a considerable business with 
 Galveston : In New York City, the Bank 
 of New York (N. B A.), and the Chemi- 
 cal National ; in New Orleans, the State 
 National ; in St. Louis, the Fourth 
 
 National ; in Kansas Citv. the Midland 
 National; in Chicago, the Northwestern 
 National, and in Cincinnati, the Equitable 
 National. Bills are also drawn bv it on 
 all principal cities of this countrv and 
 Europe. 
 
 Correspondence and inquirv is invited 
 by the management of the bank. It 
 will have careful, prompt and business- 
 like consideration. The methods em- 
 ployed bv the bank are similar to those in 
 vogue in like institutions elsewhere Its 
 cashier and subordinates are all under 
 bond, and are forbidden pursuits conflict- 
 ing with their duties. Its books are regu- 
 larly inspected by its directory. It is the 
 only bank in the State authorized by law 
 to receive trust funds for heirs and minors. 
 It has been established for twentv years. 
 
 Ball, Hutchixgs & Co.. corner of 
 vStrand and Twenty-fourth street, have 
 long been the most notable private bank- 
 ers of the South. Thev are ranked un- 
 commonly high among bankers generally 
 as to their resources ; they have larger 
 transactions than many of the incorporated 
 banks of the country, and they carry the 
 name of Galveston to manv remote places 
 where little else than their high standing 
 is known of its general business affairs. 
 Their name is made familiar by exchange 
 drawn and transactions with the National 
 City n^\d Fourth National banks, New 
 York ; the National Bank of North 
 America, Boston ; the Mechanics' bank, 
 and St. Louis National, St. Louis ; the 
 Louisiana National and Whitney National, 
 New Orleans, and Baring Bros.. London. 
 
 The surviving partners of the original 
 firm of Ball. Hutchings & Co., Messrs. 
 J. H. Hutchings and George Sealy. are 
 men of large and valuable property pos- 
 sessions. Mr. Hutchings is identified by 
 interests in them, with most of the promi- 
 nent enterprises of the city. He is presi- 
 dent of the City Company, which laid the 
 foundations for the municipality of Gal- 
 veston 30 vears ago. and from which all 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 45 
 
 the land titles of the city originate ; has 
 been president of the Gah^eston Wharf 
 Co., which controls the water front of the 
 port and is engaged in cotton compresses 
 and other ventures of every sort. 
 
 Mr. Scaly has been president of the 
 Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe R. R., and 
 was one of the most active in its reorgani- 
 zation and building after the reverses at 
 one time met with. He is a director and 
 prominent member of the Cotton Ex- 
 change, and he has interests also in very 
 many of the corporate enterprises of the 
 island. He is now building on Bath ave- 
 nue, what gives promise of being the 
 finest private residence in all Texas. The 
 firm owns also extensive sugar plantations 
 on the Brazos in Texas. 
 
 Nor has their interest in Galveston been 
 manifested only in the material advance- 
 ment of their environment. Mr. Sealy 
 has contributed both time and money for 
 religious, charitable and educational pur- 
 poses. In all popular measures, as the 
 movement for deep water, he, acting for 
 his firm as well as for himself, has exerted 
 him to the utmost to forward the matter 
 in hand. Upon occasions of public mo- 
 ment, the advice, as well as influence of the 
 firm, is early solicited and is as promptly 
 enlisted, and the words of the junior part- 
 ner have weight in the counsels of the 
 Cotton Exchange, which is the commer- 
 cial chamber of the city. 
 
 Mr. Hutchings came to Galveston in 
 1S45. He engaged in merchandising busi- 
 ness, and was for a number of years in 
 partnership with John Sealy (deceased) at 
 Sabine, as cotton factors and general 
 tradesmen. The firm of Ball, Hutchings 
 & Co., comprising the interests of Geo. 
 Ball — the founder of the Ball School here 
 — of Mr Hutchings and Mr. John Sealy 
 (the founder of the Sealy Hospital), was 
 established in 1S54 to do a general busi- 
 ness in cottoiT and the staples, with bank- 
 ing in connection. Gradually the banking 
 business overshadowed all other interests 
 
 of the firm and afl^r the war trading was 
 discontinued. Mr. Geo. Sealy accj^uired his 
 interest in 1S65. The surviving widows 
 of Messrs. Ball and John Sealy also have 
 an interest each in the bank. 
 
 The transactions of this bank during 
 the past year, it is said, reached the enor- 
 mous aggregate of $90,000,000. 
 
 Adoue & LoBiT, bankers, at Strand 
 and Twentieth street, are rated as having 
 resources quite as substantial as any 
 banking house in Texas. Their invest- 
 ments in the most profitable enterprises 
 of the city are evidence of that. Mr. 
 Adoue is president of the Galveston 
 Cotton Seed Oil Mill, one of the largest 
 in the Southwest, is one of the principals 
 in the Galveston Steamship and Lighter 
 Co., vice-president of the Texas Ice and 
 Cold Storage Co., president of the 
 Electric Light Co., president of the 
 Galveston Bagging and Cordage Co. ; and 
 the firm is interested in many other 
 concerns here and in other parts of the 
 State. He and Mr. Lobit are partners 
 also in the banking firm of Flippen, 
 Adoue & Lobit of Dallas. In any and 
 every undertaking with which they may 
 be connected, they exhibit a most ener- 
 getic and enterprising spirit. 
 
 Messrs. Adoue & Lobit began business 
 as merchandisers and bankers in the 
 country in 1865 ; but, foreseeing the rise of 
 Galveston, established themselves here in 
 1S73, and have devoted themselves to 
 banking business. They have the patron- 
 age of the largest business houses and 
 many of the corporations here, and they 
 do more foreign exchange business than 
 any bank of the city. Mr. Adoue is the 
 consul here for Sweden and Norway. 
 
 W. L. Moody & Co., bankers and 
 cotton factors, corner of Twenty-second 
 and Strand, have a capital embarked in 
 their business (according to its exigen- 
 cies) of from $500,000 to $750,000. Col. 
 Moody, senior member of the firm, has 
 been a cotton factor here since 1S66, and 
 
'UESEN r.\ I 1\1-. Ml.N OK GAIAKSTl)."' 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 47 
 
 having been prominent also in public 
 affairs in which the city has been espec- 
 ially concerned, like the movement to 
 secure deep water for the port, has con- 
 siderably more than a local reputation. 
 He was a gallant soldier of the war, and 
 concluded his service \n behalf of the 
 South, possessed of both scars and laurels. 
 He was president of the Cotton Exchange 
 for twelve years, was one of the most 
 active promoters of the project for the 
 Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railroad, has 
 been a State legislator, and his name has 
 frequently been mentioned for higher 
 offices of a similar character. He dis- 
 played his financial abilities while a mem- 
 ber of the State Legislature, by negotiat- 
 ing sale of nearly $2,000,000 of State 
 bonds ; he has been a director of many 
 enterprises, such as railroads, banks, etc.. 
 and until quite recently, besides being a 
 director of the Texas Banking & Insur- 
 ance Co., was president of the National 
 Bank of Texas, which has its banking 
 house in his building. 
 
 His qualifications for financial business 
 are thus clearly indicated. He has asso- 
 ciated with him, his son W. L. Jr., who 
 is the manager of the New York branch 
 of W. L. Moody & Co.'s bank. F. B. 
 Moody, also his son, and L. F. Moody, his 
 brother. The banking house of Moody 
 & Co. was only established in 1887. but 
 already its business is such as to call for a 
 separation of it from the cotton business 
 of the firm. These interests however, 
 the growth of years, are too large hastily 
 to abandon. Last season W. L. Moody 
 & Co. handled 25,000 bales of cotton and 
 300,000 pounds of wool. 
 
 As bankers, the firm purchase and sell 
 stocks on commission and handle bonds 
 and investment securities. The New 
 York concern is at 44 Wall street. 
 
 H. Rosenberg's private bank ranks 
 high among the financial agencies of Gal- 
 veston. Mr. Rosenberg began business 
 
 here in 1S43 as a dry goods merchant, and 
 has been a banker exclusively since 1874. 
 In that year he organized the Galveston 
 Banking and Trust Company, which he 
 has since succeeded. He maintains the 
 only safe deposit vaults of the city. 
 
 Mr. Rosenberg owns a great deal of 
 rental property in Galveston and has 
 large landed possessions besides, in differ- 
 ent parts of the State. He is a stock- 
 holder in most of the corporate enterprises 
 of the city, and is vice-president of the 
 Galveston Wharf Company. The Rosen- 
 berg School, shown in an illustration of 
 this work, was built by him, and presented, 
 completely appointed, with its site, to the 
 city. The building alone cost $70,000. 
 
 loan agencies of the city. 
 
 There are twelve organizations en- 
 gaged in loans and building operations at 
 Galveston, and lately the prospectus of a 
 new Co-operative Savings Association 
 has been issued. Three of these are loan 
 companies exclusively, long established, 
 very successful, of large capitalization 
 and resident stockholders only. These 
 three, the Texas Land and Loan Com- 
 pany, the Citizens' Loan Company and 
 the Lasker Real Estate Association, have 
 $1,368,500 of capital paid in, and accu- 
 mulated profits ; the Texas Land and Loan 
 Co $530,000 of cash capital and earn- 
 ings, the Citizens' $536,000 of capital 
 and undivided profits and the Lasker 
 Association $302,000 of capital and sur- 
 plus. 
 
 The Citizens' Loan Company, which 
 has offices on Strand between Twentieth 
 and Twenty-first streets, was chartered in 
 April, 1879, with $300,000 capital stock, 
 to be paid in installments by the subscrib- 
 ers, for the purpose, primarily, of accu- 
 mulating funds to aid its members to 
 acquire and improve Galveston real 
 estate ; but also to acquire both real and 
 
48 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 personal property as a corporation, and 
 to loan on unencumbered real estate, 
 stocks, bonds and other securities. This 
 
 of net earnings, three dividends of two 
 per cent each had been declared during 
 the year, leaving the $36,000 of undi- 
 
 
 n\ I I S '^ '^' :-^ '"-B^fflE!! 
 
 
 RESIDENCE EAST END OK GALVESTON. 
 
 latter, in the course of business, has 
 become its specialty. 
 
 From the report of its auditors, dated 
 April 9, 1S90, its eleventh annual state- 
 ment, it appears that it has total assets of 
 $746,134 as compared with $708,320 a 
 year before, and that the principal items 
 of assets were $348,798 of loans on real 
 estate, stocks, etc., 1501 shares of the First 
 National Bank of Galveston, valued at 
 $241,615 and 9^3 shares (a controlling 
 interest, lately acquired by it) of the 
 Island City Savings Bank, valued at 
 $238,726. Accounted liabilities were its 
 capital stock of $550,000, five per cent 
 bonds outstanding to the amount of $41.- 
 000. bills payable $119,000 and $36,000 
 of undivided profits. 
 
 The total income for the vear was 
 $72,263, the disbursements on account of 
 management $9,648. From the $62,614 
 
 vided profits spoken of, still remaining. 
 The gross profits compared to capital 
 stock were 13 per cent, to assets 9^, 
 and the net profits were 11.^ per 
 cent of the capital stock and 8i of assets. 
 
 It appears from this statement that the 
 Citizens' Loan Company is not only one 
 of the most prosperous and substantial of 
 the financial agencies of Galveston, but 
 that it does a conservative and sure busi- 
 ness and in its aggregated transactions 
 suffers nothing bv comparison with some 
 of the local banks. 
 
 Of the original management of the 
 company, one official only is still direct- 
 ing its affairs, Mr. Albert VVeis of Weis 
 Bros., wholesale dry goods of the city. 
 Mr. AV'eis is also largely interested in 
 manufacturing and other business projects 
 here. He is president of the Citizens', 
 and has associated witli him in its direc- 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 49 
 
 tory, Julius Weber, Gus. Lewy, C. Fow- 
 ler, Jr., H. J. Runge, M. Lasker and J. 
 Rosenfield, all prominent business men of 
 Galveston, notable as traders in cotton, 
 merchandise, real estate, etc. Mr. Rosen- 
 field is vice-president of the company, 
 Mr W. F. Beers of Beers, Kennison & 
 Co., insurance agents, seci^etary, and Mr. 
 R. V. Davidson attorney. 
 
 The company, as has been said, has 
 lately bought the majority of the stock of 
 the Island City Savings Bank, a local insti- 
 tution of substantial resources and high 
 credit. 
 
 The Lasker Real Estate Associa- 
 tion, is a loan and investment company, 
 chartered by the State, engaged in busi- 
 ness here and in other parts of Texas for 
 the last four years, and having $252,500 
 paid in capital and a surplus of $50,000. 
 Its operations are confined to improved 
 property, located in Texas. 
 
 The loans of this association are made 
 upon as liberal terms as those of any 
 company engaged in the business in the 
 
 State. Principal and interest may be 
 paid in monthly installments. The 
 amount-loaned depends on the value and 
 prospects of the security. Interest is 8 
 to 13 per cent. The association buys 
 property and holds it for rental chiefly. 
 
 Those interested are men as substantial 
 as any in Texas. Mr. Morris Lasker, 
 president of the company, is one of the 
 largest real estate owners of the State. 
 He was formerly a merchant here in the 
 wholesale grocery business, but is inter- 
 ested now in enterprises of a miscella- 
 neous character, such as the Galveston 
 Cotton and Woolen Mills, the Lone Star 
 Cracker Factory, the Citizens' Loan Co. 
 and the First National Bank, etc., of this 
 city, in all which he is a director. Mr. 
 Adoue, the vice-president, is of the firm 
 of Adoue & Lobit, bankers of this city, 
 and Flippen, Adoue & Lobit, bankers of 
 Dallas, is an ex-president of the Electric 
 Light Co. of Galveston, and now presi- 
 dent of several other local corporations. 
 
 The secretary and treasurer of the 
 
 SUBURBAN RESIDENCE, GALVESTON. 
 
50 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 association is Mr, D. Sachs, a resident 
 here for several years, a graduate of 
 Heidelberg, where he matriculated as 
 Doctor of Laws. He has an ample ex- 
 perience of the business he is entrusted 
 with. The offices of the association are 
 on Mechanic street, between Twenty- 
 first and Twenty-second. 
 
 REAL ESTATE AND LANDS. 
 
 Prospective enlargement of the Island 
 City, disclosed by the favorable congres- 
 sional action on the Galveston harbor bill, 
 has enlivened the real estate business 
 already. In the transfers of the fii'st nine 
 weeks of the current year values aggre- 
 gating $3,000,000 were involved ; in the 
 first three months of the year, $7,000,000 
 worth of property changed hands ; and 
 the sales since show a steady weekly in- 
 crease. Outside capital gave the first 
 impetus, but the residents of the city 
 display their faith in its future by liberal 
 investment themselves. Some of the 
 most experienced and enterprising of 
 Western operators, anticipating a rise in 
 prices, and desirous to participate in it at 
 the outset, have been drawn here, and 
 there is every reason to believe that a 
 genuine revival in realty has begun. 
 
 But the influences forwarding Galveston 
 are in esse as well as in posse. The sub- 
 structure of a solid city has been concreted 
 here by fifty years — the war excepted — of 
 steady growth. Once only in the history 
 of the place has the spirit of inflation 
 resulted in boom, in 1S71, when many 
 who had purchased on a rising market 
 were forced to a sacrifice to meet the pay- 
 ments they were pledged to make ; and 
 this experience was so impressive a 
 lesson, that it accounts, in part, for the 
 very moderate prices of Galveston prop- 
 erty to-day. 
 
 An enhancement of property valua- 
 tions at Galveston may be predicated upon 
 material conditions. Upon a growth in 
 
 population during the last decade from 
 22,250 to 51,500, or 133 per cent. Upon 
 a growth in manufactures during the same 
 period from $2,375,000 to $5,000,000, or 
 115 per cent. Upon a growth in trade 
 at the same time, not counting the 
 extraordinary Western transit business of 
 the port, developed in the last ten 
 years, from $30,000,000 for the year, 
 to $87,500,000, or 293 per cent, 
 and of exports, foreign, from $16,750,000 
 to $52,000,000, or 212 per cent. And 
 incidentally, upon the metropolitanization 
 of the city meanwhile, metropolitaniza- 
 tion through permanent improvements of 
 architecture, of water supply and public 
 works ; through multiplying social and 
 educational advantages, and its growing 
 favor as a summer resort. 
 
 Whatever her aspirations as the sea- 
 port of the West, the growth of the city 
 is furthered most by the aggrandizement 
 of Texas. Since 18S0 the population of 
 the State has increased from 1,500,000 to 
 2,500,000, at the least 75 per cent; the 
 crop product from $85,000,000 to $170,- 
 000,000 market values, 100 per cent ; the 
 the railroad mileage from 4,000 to 8,400, 
 1 10 per cent, and the assessed valuations 
 from $304,000,000 to $729,000,000, 140 
 percent. And still, settlement of the un- 
 occupied areas of the State proceeds at a 
 rate that has evoked the prediction of a 
 banker of Galveston, that the growth of the 
 State in the last ten years, will be re- 
 peated in the next three. 
 
 The animation of the Galveston real 
 estate market is exhibited rather in a 
 greater demand for property than in 
 rapidly advancing prices, except, perhaps, 
 in the West End, where factories are con- 
 centring. Property here is still very 
 much lower than in Dallas, for instance, 
 or in other prosperous cities of the 
 country ; and beginning at its circumfer- 
 ence, this demand for realty has gradually 
 extended inward to the very center of the 
 city. The transfers at first were mainly 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 51 
 
 of acreage and outside tracts. The effect 
 of an active market has been to list im- 
 proved property in the business precincts , 
 which has not been on sale for years. 
 
 The prices prevailing at the beginning 
 of the year, are given as follows by a firm 
 long established here in the land and real 
 estate business, and doing perhaps the 
 largest business of any in that line. 
 
 Property in Galveston is sold by the lot, 
 single or double, usually. Blocks from 
 the bay front on avenue A, to avenue M 
 inclusive, are 300 feet by 360, and com- 
 prise ten lots 26x120 feet each. Beyond 
 that there are fourteen lots to the block, 
 and in the outskirts four. The Strand is 
 the principal wholesale street. It is well 
 built up and but little of it is for sale. 
 Tremont is the main avenue north and 
 south from the bay to the beach. Five 
 years ago $30,006 was offered and re- 
 fused for the improved corner of Tremont 
 and Strand. About the same time $20,000 
 was considered a good price for property 
 on Strand. Improved property there is 
 worth $15,000 to $40,000 according to the 
 area, single or double, of the lot, and the 
 value set on the improvements. 
 
 Not counting improvements, lots on 
 Market or Tremont street, in the retail 
 quarter, are worth $20,000. There is little 
 if any here for sale. Six lots 42x120 each 
 at Eighteenth and Market streets, just on 
 the edge of the business quarter, could be 
 got for $15,000 last winter. They have 
 certainly advanced since. The fashion- 
 able residence quarter lies along and ad- 
 jacent to Tremont street and Broadway. 
 First-class inside residence sites are worth 
 $1,500 to $2,000 a lot; less choice loca- 
 tions $1,000; on Broadway or Tremont 
 street, $2,500. These prices are for lots 
 from ten to twenty blocks from the busi- 
 ness center. Outskirts lots, are worth $300 
 to $500, and residence lots near factories 
 or in other depreciating situations $500 to 
 $800. Manufacturing sites, with ship- 
 ping facilities adjacent, are worth $9,000 
 
 or $ 10,000 a block of fourteen lots. There 
 has been an advance of 30 to 40 per cent 
 in a year, in West End sites, due to the 
 building of factories there. Acreage out- 
 side the corporate limits, at Fifty-sixth 
 street, suitable for platting, has been sell- 
 ing at $150 to $250 an acre. 
 
 Topographical conditions make the 
 probability of growth greatest westward. 
 The eastern end of the city is already 
 densely settled. The gradients of the island 
 are such as to make both streets and lots im- 
 mediately available. There is ample room 
 adown the length of the island for exten- 
 sion, and for choice of sites for any pur- 
 pose, business, residence or manufactur- 
 ing. The titles are all derived from the 
 Spanish grant of Seguin, through Me- 
 nai-d, founder of the city, and the 
 City Company, his assigns. Abundant 
 water is provided for all by the 
 city's new artesian works. There is 
 a gas and an electric lighting company 
 having public franchises, besides the mu- 
 nicipal plant. Street cars afford transit 
 facilities everywhere in the city. No 
 onerous burdens of taxes for householders 
 or licenses for manufacturers are levied. 
 Taxes are $2.57!^ per hundred for all pur- 
 poses, city, county and State. Business 
 generally is brisk, but living is as cheap 
 as anywhere in the land. And the cli- 
 mate, take it for all in all, is very near the 
 golden mean. The estates of J. C. 
 League and J. L. Darragh, have city 
 lands for sale, and the City Company also 
 has tracts to dispose of. 
 
 The income from rental property is 
 likely to increase as prices enhance. 
 Rents are now quite low. Especially 
 so for business property, for which leases 
 are usually given running from 3 to 5 
 years. A three or four story place, suit- 
 able for a warehouse or factory, rents for 
 from $250 to $325 a month. A large 
 store, suitable for retail dry goods or 
 business of that character, in a very good 
 location, would bring $250 to $300 a 
 
52 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 month. Offices rent for $12.50 to $25 a 
 month. Residences of eight to thirteen 
 rooms $50 to $65, of six rooms $35 and 
 of four $8 to $12.50, 
 
 lands: The L. and H. Blum Land Co., 
 P. J. Willis & Bro., the Lasker Real 
 Estate Association, Col. Walter Giesham 
 and H. M. Trueheart & Co. 
 
 TRUEHEART &• COMPANY'S BLOCK. 
 
 Farm lands on Galveston Island, from 
 the nature of the soil chiefly desirable for 
 truck, are worth, near the city, $50 to 
 
 $7: 
 
 acre ; twelve or fifteen miles out, 
 
 $15 to $30. Unimproved lands in South- 
 eastern Texas, in the district contiguous 
 to the city, are worth $1.50 to $4.00 an 
 acre; improved lands, $5 to $10, ac- 
 cording to situation and improvements. 
 They are excellent, as a rule, for cotton, 
 corn, vegetables and both the temperate 
 and semi-tropical fruits, and they afford, 
 in many parts, the finest of pasture. Such 
 lands can be purchased in tracts of from 5 
 to 10,000 acres. The Galveston, Houston 
 & Henderson R'y has a 9,000 and a 10.000 
 acre tract on its line within 25 miles from 
 Galveston, which can be bought for $2.50 
 to $3 for the 9,000 and $5 to $10 for the 
 10,000 acre tract. The tide lands near Gal- 
 veston are reclaimable only by dyking. On 
 the mainland they can be bought for $2.50 
 to $3 an acre. The following Galveston 
 parties are very large owners of Texas 
 
 PROMIXEXT AGENTS OF GALVESTON. 
 
 H. M. Trueheart & Co., land agents. 
 Twenty-second street, between Mechanic 
 and Strand, are leading dealers in Galves- 
 ton property and in lands all over Texas, 
 established in 1S57, and transacting most 
 of the local business of that character for 
 many years past. Incidentally they do 
 quite a rental business, and have been 
 entrusted with the management of a num- 
 ber of estates and properties here as well 
 as throughout Texas ; and they own and 
 represent owners, of tracts on the Island 
 of Galveston outside the city, which have 
 been divided into 10, 15 and 30 acre lots, 
 for truck and dairy farms. One of the 
 most notable sales recently made here was 
 that effected by them, by which 1,300 
 acres of the mainland, across Galveston 
 Bay from the city, was purchased by a 
 syndicate to found a suburban city. These 
 parties afterward disposed of this tract at a 
 considerable advance, and the purchasers 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 53 
 
 from them are maturing the project for 
 the new town. 
 
 Messrs. Trueheart & Co. are also the 
 representatives of owners, resident and 
 non-resident, having between three and 
 four million acres of Texas lands, much 
 of it in the market. In this aggregate is 
 comprised farming, ranch and grazing 
 lands in all parts of the State, and lands 
 also in that vast timbered region of the 
 State which the government statistics 
 show is twice as great as the timbered 
 area of Alabama and Mississippi com- 
 bined, though these are in no wise in- 
 significantly clothed with forest them- 
 selves. Besides headquarters here, at the 
 metropolis and chief seaport of Texas, 
 they have associate local agents in every 
 county, and traveling agents ; connections 
 giving them unsurpassed facilities for 
 sales of lands to immigrants and investors, 
 and for examining, surveying, protecting, 
 rendering for and paying taxes, and in 
 fact all matters pertaining to lands all 
 over Texas. Transactions 
 can thus be effected as 
 well or better than can be 
 done by a local agent di- 
 rect, and at no greater ex- 
 pense to the owner. The 
 long experience of the firm 
 in the business, qualifies it 
 thoroughly to give infor- 
 mation with respect to these 
 lands ; and is a guarantee 
 to those having relations 
 with them of fair treat- 
 ment. 
 
 Mr. Trueheart began 
 business here in company 
 with his father, J. O. True- 
 heart. In 1 87 1, Mr. John 
 Adriance became a part- 
 ner. In 1878, Mr. Lucian 
 Minor acquired an interest, 
 and these gentlemen are the firm still. 
 They have been .very successful in the 
 business and have considerable property 
 
 of their own, together with investments 
 in other local enterprises. 
 
 In the compilation of this work, this 
 firm has been accepted as competent 
 authority with respect to property values, 
 and the figures quoted in this chapter of 
 the book are largely based upon their 
 opinions and statements. 
 
 Mr. Trueheart's residence is the subject 
 of an illustration in another part of this 
 work. A building owned by him is also 
 shown herein. 
 
 Hardy Solomon & Co., real estate 
 agents of long experience in the business 
 at Kansas City, Wichita, Kansas, and 
 other rapidly growing cities of the West, 
 have recently established themselves here, 
 and have opened an office in the Mensing 
 building, corner of Twenty-second and 
 Strand. They have been impressed with 
 the advantages Galveston affords for in- 
 vestment, in the comparatively low price 
 of real estate here, the prospects presented 
 by the growth of the city in population, 
 
 MOODY BUILDING, STRAND AND TWENTY-SECOND STREET. 
 
 the manufacturing progress, and the cer- 
 tainty of the improvement of the harbor, 
 and they will bring to bear, besides their 
 
54 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 knowledge of the business, the facilities 
 derived by relations established with cor- 
 respondents of means and entei-prise 
 throughout the North, East and West. 
 
 Mr, Hardy Solomon, senior member of 
 this new firm, is a Virginian by birth, but 
 has been engaged the greater part of his 
 life in promoting the growth of Western 
 communities as a real estate operator. His 
 son, Mr. Albert C. Solomon, and Mr. F. 
 S. Burt, are associated with him. When 
 these gentlemen left Wichita to establish 
 themselves here, the press of that city 
 spoke of their removal to another field 
 with regret, and commended them to the 
 people of Galveston in terms of unquali- 
 fied praise. 
 
 They propose to buy, sell and trade 
 property of all kinds on commission, es- 
 pecially city property, to negotiate loans 
 and handle investment funds ; and they 
 have already given an earnest of their in- 
 tentions by advertising liberally, not only 
 their own business, but the superior at- 
 tractions of Galveston also both for busi- 
 ness and as a place of residence. 
 
 Seabrook W. Sydnor, real estate 
 agent. Twenty-third street, Galveston 
 National Bank building, has been estab- 
 lished in that line here since 1870, and 
 many important property transactions have 
 been effected by his instrumentality, dur- 
 ing that period. Negotiations of an un- 
 common character are entrusted him at 
 this very moment. The most momentous 
 land and investment enterprises perhaps, 
 now in progress in Texas. He is agent 
 here for the Kansas & Texas Investment 
 Co., and the New Birmingham Iron & 
 Land Co., who are owners of the Tosse 
 Belle Furnace, giving employment to 450 
 men, organizations especially formed to 
 present the natural advantages of New 
 Birmingham, consisting of vast deposits 
 of the finest iron. 
 
 Mr. Sydnor is also the representative at 
 Galveston and Houston of the National 
 Building, Loan & Protective Union, of 
 
 Minneapolis-, ^linn.. which has an author- 
 ized capital of $50,000,000, and branches 
 in many of the large cities of the country. 
 Shares of this company mature in five 
 years and return 20 per cent per annum to 
 the investors in them, instead of 3 to 6 per 
 cent, the ordinary savings bank rate. He 
 represents also (with A. J, Owens), the 
 Kansas Investment Co., of Topeka, Kan., 
 which has $600,000 capital, and money to 
 loan on city property and improved farms 
 and ranches. 
 
 Mr. Sydnor has lately closed a number 
 of large deals in Texas lands, involving 
 several hundred thousand acres. Opera- 
 tions of that character are a specialty with 
 him, but he has city of Galveston property 
 also listed with him, houses to rent here, 
 and is doing in fact a general real estate and 
 loan business 
 
 Blagge, Bertrand & Co., real estate 
 and insurance agents, of 2212 Mechanic 
 street, is the old insurance firm of Blagge 
 & Bertrand. with an additional member. 
 Mr. D. R. Beatty, formerly of Kansas City, 
 and an additional vocation, viz., real 
 estate. As real estate agents they will 
 handle city and suburban propert}- of all 
 kinds and State lands. They recently 
 made a $40,000 deal of acreage in Sec. i, 
 Galveston county, and have others on the 
 tapis. 
 
 As an insurance firm they will con- 
 tinue to act as district agents for the 
 Oakland Home Insurance Co. of Cali- 
 fornia, and as local agents for the Lion 
 Fire of England, which has $10,000,000 
 capital, the Fireman's Fund of San 
 Francisco, $2,314,776 of assets, and the 
 Standard Accident of Detroit, $300,000 
 of assets. They have followed the insur- 
 ance business for years here, are well 
 known, responsible and popular. 
 
 Mr. Blagge, of this firm, is a native of 
 Galveston, and is said to have been the 
 first child born on the Island. He is the 
 secretarv of the Board of Underwriters of 
 Galveston, hereinafter mentioned. | 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 55 
 
 BUILDING IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 The progress of Galveston is plainly 
 perceptible in the permanent and expens- 
 ive building improvements of the last 
 few years. In the residence districts 
 especially, this advancement is manifest, 
 but it is scarcely less strikingly exhibited 
 in the new public edifices, and the struct- 
 ures intended for business or factory 
 purposes that have been raised, or are in 
 process of construction. 
 
 The great fire of 1885, of which, as has 
 been said in the chapter of this work 
 describing the city, scarcely a trace re- 
 mains, was not altogether an unmixed 
 evil. The loss by it, $1,389,000, was 
 covered by insurance to the amount of 
 $1,138,000, and restoration of the burnt 
 district awakened a spirit of emulation 
 amongst the home-builders of the city, 
 which has beautified all the residence 
 quarter. There has been a visible im- 
 provement in the architecture of .the city 
 since, and lately very many costly 
 mansions have been erected. Among 
 those now building, the Gresham, Sealy, 
 Lasker, Cannon, Seeligson and Lufkin 
 mansions, are most notable. On the two 
 first $100,000 each is to be expended 
 and about $20,000 each on the others. 
 
 The list of public buildings completed 
 within a twelvemonth or under way, 
 includes the new City Hall, which cost 
 $50,000, the John Sealy Hospital, $50,- 
 000. or jointly with the medical depart- 
 ment of the State University alongside, 
 $135,000; the new Custom House, $350,- 
 000; the Rosenberg school, $70,000; the 
 Fourth district school, $40,000; the 
 Sacred Heart church, $75,000; the cotton 
 and woolen mills, $335,000 ; the bagging 
 and twine factory, $300,000. In addition 
 to these there is projected, new shops for 
 the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe railroad, 
 for which the citizens have contributed a 
 bonus of $50,000, a new rope and twme 
 factory and other industrial structures, 
 
 several for wholesale business, and some 
 important reconstruction and remodelling 
 jobs. A modernized taste is apparent in 
 the architecture of all these also. 
 
 It may be safely averred that $3,500,- 
 000 has been expended for new buildings, 
 public and private, in the last year, and 
 that as large a sum total is involved in the 
 work now in progress. The disburse- 
 ments for building work of the past year 
 or two, with which the $450,000 spent for 
 water works may be classed, has made 
 the building trades and the pursuits and 
 industries allied to them flourish cor- 
 respondingly, and with an enlivened 
 real estate market to stimulate it further 
 the future has as encouraging a face. 
 
 The work o£ Architect N. J. Clay- 
 ton of Ti-emont and Strand, the first to 
 begin practice of this profession in the 
 city, is conspicuous among the examples 
 of superior architecture that grace the 
 streets of Galveston. He planned and 
 executed construction of the Tremont and 
 Beach hotels, the Masonic Temple, the 
 building of the Galveston News., which 
 has a decidedly ornate facade, the National 
 Bank of Texas or Moody building, the 
 Union club, Santa Fe Railroad offices and 
 residence of George Sealy. 
 
 He was, until lately, supervising archi- 
 tect of the Federal building, which, de- 
 signed for a Custom House and Post 
 Office, is nearing completion on Bath 
 avenue, and he is at present engaged 
 on the $23,000 residence of Morris 
 Lasker, the new Sacred Heart Church 
 of Romanesque type, and the medi- 
 cal department of the State Uni- 
 versity, a structure complemental to the 
 John Sealy hospital. The expenditure 
 estimated for these two last named build- 
 ings is $75,000 each, and the commissions 
 for work entrusted Mr. Clayton now 
 aggregate over $250,000. 
 
 Most of the notable buildings of the 
 city are illustrated in this work, by engrav- 
 ings made from photographs taken for the 
 
56 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 purpose. Of these the Moody building. 
 Sealy residence, Sealy hospital and Cus- 
 tom House exhibit Mr. Clayton's experi- 
 ence, skill and variety. 
 
 Galveston is favorably situated for 
 building operations. It is in a climate 
 that permits work to proceed the year 
 round ; a climate and a region inviting to 
 the laborer, who finds it a place with a 
 moderate scale of living expenses, and a 
 liberal rate of wages prevailing. It is less 
 than a hundred miles from the greatest 
 lumber district of the Union, that known 
 in Louisiana as the Calcasieu, and in 
 Texas as the Sabine region. Brick of 
 superior quality is made near it, at Cedar 
 Bayou, and other places on the main- 
 land. The shipping frequenting the port 
 brings cargoes of cement and lime, and 
 other materials for house construction, in 
 quantities that make a center of distribu- 
 tion here, for these commodities. Build- 
 ing sites are low priced and the lay of the 
 land propitious. There are, as we have 
 seen already, in the course of this account 
 of the city, several solid local loan and 
 homestead associations established, ready 
 to provide the property owner of energy 
 and enterprise, or the home-builder, with 
 funds. 
 
 THE GALVESTON UNDERWRITERS, 
 
 An insurance business particularly large 
 for the size of the place, is done at Gal- 
 veston, Extraordinary receipts of cotton, 
 the most valuable of all the agricultural 
 staples, make an aggregate of premiums 
 business which is very extensive indeed. 
 There are twelve fire insurance agencies at 
 Galveston, The most important of these 
 are described hereinafter, and with them, 
 those also of the life companies doing 
 business in the city. 
 
 The premium-receipts of the twelve 
 fire agencies, not including cotton policies, 
 are between $250,000 and $300,000 a 
 year. The rates have been reduced 25 
 per cent since the city has provided a 
 
 proper water supply, and this reduction, 
 of course, reduces, proportionately, the 
 aggregate of premiums. Two business 
 firms here carry $1,250,000 insurance on 
 their stocks between them, the houses of 
 Blum and Willis. Cotton is insured 
 mostly, 75 per cent of all received here at 
 least, with the marine companies, who 
 accept it in transit from the interior by rail 
 or barge, in compress or storage yard, on 
 the dock and on shipboard, and through 
 every stage of its transportation until it 
 reaches its final foreign destination. The 
 business appears from the records kept, 
 exceedingly safe, if not entirely profita- 
 ble. During thirty years, says Chief 
 Oldenburg of the fire department, the 
 losses paid on cotton premium receipts of 
 over $3,000,000, have been less than 
 $40,000. 
 
 This fact speaks well, too, for the 
 efficiency of the city's fire service, the 
 status of which, at present, is disclosed in 
 the account given of it on page 19 of this 
 work. The underwriters have no voice 
 in its management except as citizens. 
 Neither do they maintain a fire patrol. 
 But all the places for storage of cotton 
 are protected by special appliances and 
 private w\'itchmen. The fire department 
 has the assistance of the lighter tugs, 
 which are equipped with pumps for the 
 purpose, in case of fire in the shipping. 
 The new city water supply is considered 
 an ample defense against a conflagration, 
 such as visited the city in 1SS5, entailing 
 a loss to the insurance companies of 
 $1,183,000. The city then, however, was 
 insufiiciently supplied with water, and 
 the flames, impelled by a gale from the 
 north, licked up the residences on forty- 
 three blocks of ground. 
 
 Since that event, known locally as •' the 
 big fire," there have been no extraordi- 
 nary losses, although 1SS6, with $114,000 
 of total, was a serious period for the com- 
 panies. The loss to the insurance com- 
 panies in 1887, was $34,000, and in 188S, 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 57 
 
 upon property endangered which was 
 vahied at $400,000, and insured for 
 $345,928, it was but $5,611. 
 
 Aside from cotton, no merchandise of 
 a very inflammable character enters into 
 the commerce of the port. There are no 
 circumstances now to make the extin- 
 guishment of fires especially difficult. 
 Storm winds blow over the Island at 
 times, but not often. Galveston is largely 
 a wooden city, but its streets are wide, 
 its grades easy, and its business structures 
 are, almost entirely, brick. The fire 
 agents are organized as a Board of 
 Underwriters for Galveston. There is 
 no local insurance company. 
 
 Beers, Kennison & Co., fire and 
 marine insurance agents, on Strand be- 
 tween Twentieth and Twenty-first streets, 
 are the leading underwriters of the city. 
 They represent, as general agents, the Sun 
 Fire of London, the City of London, the 
 Norwich Union, the London & Lancashire 
 of Liverpool, the Southern of New Or- 
 leans, and the New Orleans Insurance 
 Association of New Orleans, and as local 
 agents the Lancashire Insurance Co. of 
 Manchester, the Queen of Liverpool, the 
 Sun of San Francisco, the St. Paul Fire & 
 Marine of St. Paul, Minn., and the British 
 and Foreign Marine Insurance Co. These 
 companies have assets that aggregate for 
 the whole, between forty and fifty million 
 dollars. 
 
 This agency of Beers, Kennison & Co. 
 is an old, as well as solidly established one. 
 Mr. Beers has been in the business here 
 for twenty years, Mr. Kennison since 1870. 
 They divide the details of management, so 
 that Mr. Kennison has the general agency 
 work to supervise, and Mr. Beers the gen- 
 eral management of local and marine 
 business. 
 
 It would be difficult to find, in any city, 
 a general agency better equipped for its 
 business than this ; whether the character 
 of the companies represented, the experi- 
 ence of the firm, or its reputation in the 
 
 community be taken into consideration, 
 or any two of these characteristics, or all 
 combined — in any event it is one that will 
 easily bear comparison with any in Texas. 
 
 C. E. Angell & Co. (C. E. Angell, 
 the "• Co." being nominal merely). Twen- 
 ty-first and Mechanic, is the local agent of 
 the Liverpool & London & Globe In- 
 surance Co., which does a larger business 
 and takes heavier risks, when compensated 
 for it, than any company doing business in 
 the South. He is also the State agent and 
 manager for the Greenwich Insurance Co> 
 of New York, which has $1,401,000 of 
 assets ; for the Hibernia of New Orleans ; 
 the Western Home of Sioux City, Iowa ; 
 the National Fire Insurance Co. of New 
 York ; the Providence Washington Insur- 
 ance Co. of Providence, R. I. ; the Mann- 
 heim of Germany, and the Sea Insurance 
 Co. of England, the last two marine com- 
 panies, having respectively $3,064,268 of 
 assets and $2,334,716. 
 
 Mr. Angell is a native of the city, and 
 one of the most active and energetic of the 
 younger generation of business men. He 
 bought the agency of M. Quin, Esq. (for 
 the London & Liverpool & Globe only), 
 from his estate in 1883, and has added the 
 other companies since. He does a very 
 excellent business, and stands high as an 
 underwriter throughout the State. 
 
 J. M. O. Menard, doing busmess as 
 J. M. O. Menard & Co., imderwriters. 
 Strand, between Twenty-second and 
 Twenty-third streets, has been \n the 
 insurance business here for 20 years, and 
 has been in it on his own account since 
 187 1. He is one of the oldest, best 
 known and most successful insurance men 
 here. He is the general agent for Texas 
 of the Trans-Atlantic Fire and New 
 York Bowery Companies, is district 
 agent in Southwestern Texas for the East 
 Texas of Tyler, Tex., and Alamo of San 
 Antonio, and is local agent for the German- 
 American of New York, the Phenix of 
 Brooklyn, the Anglo Nevada of San 
 
58 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 Francisco and the Alamo Fire of San 
 Antonio. These companies have assets, 
 aggregating for them all, something like 
 $15,000,000. 
 
 Mr. Menard is a native of the city, and 
 a relative of Michael B. Menard, the 
 founder of Galveston ; is in fact the only 
 male representative of the family now 
 living here. He has been an Alderman 
 of the city. City Assessor and City Treas- 
 urer, is a property owner, and a gentleman 
 much esteemed for social as well as busi- 
 ness qualities. 
 
 James Sorley, Stubbs & Co., gen- 
 eral insurance agents, Mechanic street, 
 between Twenty-first and Twenty-second, 
 over Heidenheimer & Co.'s, are the 
 representatives of companies here whose 
 aggregated assets are $34,000,000. One of 
 them, the Scottish Union and National, 
 has $17,^00,000, and another, the Home 
 of N. Y., $9,000,000. Besides these 
 they act for the Trans-Atlantic of Ham- 
 burg, the Connecticut of Hartford, the 
 Sun Mutual of New Orleans, the State 
 Investment of San Francisco, the Bur- 
 lington of Iowa, Greenwich of N. Y. 
 and the Fidelity & Casualty Co., security, 
 accident and steam boiler insurance, of 
 New York. 
 
 Mr. Sorley of the firm, is also the 
 agent of the Lloyd's of London, the Liver- 
 pool Underwriters' Association and the 
 American & Continental Underwriters. 
 
 Mr. Sorley has been a resident here 
 since 1851. He has been Collector of 
 the Port and an Alderman of the city 
 and also a cotton and shipping merchant. 
 He has been in the insurance business 
 since 1866. He is a gentleman of the 
 highest reputation in the community, and 
 he has considerable distinction ns a local 
 statistician. Mr. Stubbs, the junior part- 
 ner in the agency, has been in the busi- 
 ness twelve years, and is one of the best 
 qualified of the local underwriters. He 
 is a native of the city, and has been a 
 partner with Mr. Sorley for about a year. 
 
 C. M. GuiNARD & Co.. insurance 
 agents, Reymershoffer building. 2203 
 Mechanic street (C. M. Guinard. the Co. 
 being nominal), is the representative here 
 of the following companies : The Con- 
 tinental of New York, which has $5,- 
 177,000 of assets ; the Fire Association of 
 Philadelphia, $4,250,000; the Norwich 
 Union, $4,000,000 ; the Western of 
 Toronto, $1,975,000; the British America 
 of Canada, $1,800,000; the Marine of St. 
 Louis and Commercial Insurance Co. of 
 California. He is special Texas agent 
 for the Continental and also agent for the 
 Travelers Life & Accident Co. of Hart- 
 ford, having $8,000,000 assets, and the 
 American Surety Co., $1,950,000. 
 
 The character of the fire companies for 
 whom he acts is best illustrated by the fact 
 that they paid $145,000 in cash, without 
 discount, for the losses they sustained by 
 the great fire here on Nov. 13th. 1885. 
 Mr. Guinard is one of the oldest of the 
 local underwriters, and he has been one 
 of the most successful of them. He has 
 large lines of insurance entrusted him by 
 the business men of the city. He was 
 secretary of the Merchants' Insurance Co. 
 of Galveston while it was in business. 
 He is a director of the Peoples' Loan & 
 Homestead Association and president of 
 the Neptune Ice Company, and is inter- 
 ested also in the Galveston Cotton & 
 Woolen Mills. He has been an officer of 
 the local board of Fire Underwriters for 
 the last eight years, and has been in the 
 insurance business here for twenty-four 
 years. 
 
 The Equitable Life Assuranxe So- 
 ciETV of the United States, which is rep- 
 resented here by Ladd M. Waters & Bro., 
 its Texas and Arkansas agents, exceeds 
 every other life company of the world in 
 the following particulars : For four years 
 it has had the largest outstanding assur- 
 ance ; for ten years the largest 4 per cent 
 surplus, and for ten years also, has exhib- 
 ited the largest annual new business. 
 
60 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 Its ratio of assets to liabilities is i2Sper 
 cent. Its record, during the thirty 
 years it has been established, discloses a 
 business in excess of that of nearly thirty 
 companies established meanwhile in the 
 United States combined ; in excess of the 
 thirty leading British companies in recent 
 years, and nearly twice as much as the 
 current business of the eighteen leading 
 French companies ; and the like compari- 
 son made with respect to the most promi- 
 nent German companies, is also a revela- 
 tion of the superiority of the Equitable. 
 
 The Equitable has been foremost also 
 in biinging about reforms in the methods 
 of life insurance. It was the first to intro- 
 duce Tontine assurance, the most popular 
 plan of the day in this country. It origi- 
 nated indisputable insurance in the United 
 States and voluntarily adopted the incon- 
 testable policy clause, evincing in the 
 celebrated Dwight case, contested by 
 nineteen other companies, but promptly 
 settled by it. its adherence to a principle 
 of its own establishment. Credit is due 
 also to the Equitable for the free Tontine 
 policy which gives absolute liberty to its 
 policy holder to pursue any course in life 
 best pleases him in one year, and an un- 
 conditional claim in two years. 
 
 The Equitable's newest form of policy 
 is a simple promise to pay, like a bank draft, 
 with no conditions whatever on the back 
 of it. It is unrestricted as to travel and 
 occupation after one year, incontestable 
 after two years, non-forfeitable after three 
 years, is payable immediately it matures, 
 draws tontine profits, and gives the pos- 
 sessor of it a choice of six methods of set- 
 tlement at the end of the tontine period. 
 
 The Equitable is distinguished also 
 among the life companies by the substan- 
 tial character of its assets, and by the 
 enterprise it has exhibited in giving them 
 a permanent value. Its building in New 
 York city is considered the finest exam- 
 ple of a structure devoted to business 
 purposes in the great metropolis ; and it 
 
 has raised in Vienna. Berlin and Madrid, 
 massive architectural piles that are notable 
 even in those great Old World capitals. 
 
 The agents here readily obtain business 
 for a company of such resources. Several 
 policies for $50,000 and upwards have 
 been written by them here for leading 
 citizens. Mr. Ladd M. Waters has been 
 in the li:^ insurance business for several 
 years here. He is a native of the city and 
 well known among the business commu- 
 nities, not of Galveston and its vicinity 
 alone, but of all the territoi-y allotted his 
 firm by the company. His brother and 
 partner, Mr. W. M. Waters, is stationed 
 at Dallas, and is in charge of their agency 
 affairs there The Galveston office of 
 this firm is on Strand near Twenty-second 
 street. 
 
 The Mutual Reserve Fund Life 
 Association of New York is doing a 
 beneficent work in Texas. Having es- 
 tablished agencies throughout the State, 
 with representative men in charge, it 
 deserves mention here. 
 
 This association has achieved the 
 grandest success ever known in life in- 
 surance business. Although only organ- 
 ized in 18S1, it had, at the close of the 
 year 1889, the amount of over $181,000,- 
 000 of Insurance in force, had paid 
 death claims amounting to over $7,600,- 
 000 (of which over $1, 800,000 was paid 
 in 1SS9) and had accumulated a Reserve 
 Fund of over $3,300,000 for the protec- 
 tion of all its policies. 
 
 In these first nine years of its existence 
 the Association has done the largest 
 business ever done by any Life Insurance 
 Company in the same time ; and compar- 
 ing its business with the three largest 
 companies in the world, it is three times 
 as much as the Equitable, more than 
 seventeen times as much as the Mutual and 
 more than twenty times as much as the 
 New York Life Insurance Co. 
 
 It has, in fact, effected a revolution in 
 Life Insurance and has proved that it can 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 61 
 
 be furnished, when relieved from the heavy 
 investment features of the old system, at 
 a cost which is within the reach of all, thus 
 allowing a workingman to pi'ovide for his 
 family where formerlv he could not do so 
 on account of the high cost. 
 
 The Natural Premium system, under 
 which the Mutual Reserve is operated, 
 furnishes Life Insurance at the lowest 
 possible cost, with perfect security, and is 
 the result of practical experience, which 
 has been utilized in perfecting the system. 
 This system of Life Insurance is espec- 
 ially a benefit to the citizens of Texas as 
 it calls on them to pay only the net cost, 
 and leaves their capital in their own 
 hands for use in their own business, thus 
 benefiting the entire community, directly 
 and indirectly, instead of drawing large 
 amounts from the State annually, to be 
 invested in other States, as is the case 
 under the old system. 
 
 The Mutual Reserve is now the peer of 
 any company in the world and as its 
 management has been investigated over 
 a score of times, by the legal authorities 
 of as many States, without once meeting 
 with aught but commendation, it is one of 
 the recognized institutions of the country, 
 and its motto, "not for a day, but for all 
 time," is a most appropriate one. 
 
 The Mutual Reserve is the only Com- 
 pany which has protected its accumula- 
 tions by placing them in trust and 
 removing them from the absolute control 
 of its officers. This it has done by placing 
 its Reserve Fund under a Deed of Trust, 
 which is the best known protection, and 
 furnishes the best security a policy- 
 holder can have, with the great Central 
 Trust Co. of New York, which has assets 
 of over $25,000,000. 
 
 The cost of Insurance in the Mutual 
 Reserve, for each $1,000 annually, is at 
 the age of 35, $13.76; age 30, $14.34; age 
 40, $16.17 ; ^g^ 5°' $21-37, and at the age 
 of 60, $43.70, or about one-half the rates 
 of the old system, and this cost is divided 
 
 into bi-monthly payments, ranging from 
 $i.So at age 35 to $6.78 at age 60 every 
 two months, thus making the payment so 
 small that every one may participate in its 
 benefits. 
 
 As Life Insurance is acknowledged to 
 be the best protection a man can give his 
 family, and as the Mutual Reserve fur- 
 nishes it at the lowest possible cost, with 
 security, those desiring to protect their 
 families should consult some representa- 
 tive of the Association and learn the full 
 particulars of its system ; and this step 
 can hardly be taken too soon. 
 
 The operations of this Association 
 have been rapidly extended, and it is now 
 doing business throughout the United 
 States, Canada, Great Britain, France and 
 Continental Europe. 
 
 The Association is doing a large busi- 
 ness in Texas, and Mr. E. B, Harper, its 
 energetic president, is to be congratulated 
 on having secured the co-operation of 
 an efficient corps of representatives in the 
 State. Mr. A. C. Bloss, Manager of the 
 Central Department, which includes 
 Texas, has been identified with the Asso- 
 ciation since its first year, and has placed 
 many millions of business on its books ; 
 he is a most indefatigable worker, and 
 keeps his department in the front rank of 
 State agencies. Mr. R. T. Byrne of 
 Galveston is the General Agent of the 
 Association for Galveston, Houston and 
 Southeastern Texas, and has already made 
 a reputation for the Association in his 
 section, wherein he is doing a very large 
 business 
 
 Messrs. P. S. & J. P. Pfouts (Pfouts & 
 Pfouts) of Dallas, General Agents for 
 Northeastern Texas, are live business men 
 and are meeting with deserved success 
 and securing their full share of business. 
 Messrs. Warner & Raymond, of Austin, 
 are General Agents for Austin and vicin- 
 ity, and their well-known reputation as 
 business men guaranteed their success 
 from the start. Mr. L. B. Morrison, of 
 
62 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 Gatesville. General Agent for several 
 counties in his vicinity, is crowding other 
 companies, and lets no one get ahead of 
 him. Mr. F. B. Bailey of Palestine, has 
 several counties under his charge as Gen- 
 eral Agent, has incited great interest 
 in Life Insurance, and gets plenty of 
 business in his territory. Mr. W. F. 
 Beard of Cleburne, is also an active 
 worker and has secured also a large 
 business. Mr. J. J. McDaniel of Mine- 
 ola, another General Agent, has already 
 made a record and will doubtless keep 
 
 it up. General John M. Claiborn, now 
 located at Rusk, is one of the latest 
 appointees, and those who know him 
 say, that he will do his full share in 
 introducing the Association in his vi- 
 cinity. 
 
 These General Agents have many able 
 assistants, and as Texans always show 
 their appreciation of a good thing when 
 they see it. and as the iSIutual Reserve is 
 undoubtedly "'a vei-y good thing indeed," 
 its great success is readily accounted 
 for. 
 
 
MARITIME BUSINESS AND FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 j^^gsINCE iSSo, Galveston has 
 isen to the rank of 
 seventh seaport of the 
 country, and has sustained 
 her title to maritime pres- 
 tige over all the cities of 
 the Union except New 
 York, San Francisco, Boston, New Or- 
 leans, Baltimore and Philadelphia, by 
 the number of her home fleet and coast- 
 wise and transient arrivals, and by her 
 customs and wharf collections. 
 
 The vessels owned and documented 
 in the Galveston customs district number 
 nearly 2<X). Their gross tonnage is over 
 8,000. The entries of coastwise vessels are 
 now between 300 and 400 a year ; the ton- 
 nage of them, about 350,000. Clearances 
 are approximately the same. The entries, 
 foreign, are 375 steamships and 130 sail, 
 and the tonnage about the same as that of 
 the coasting aggregate. Clearances for- 
 eign, likewise approach the coasting fig- 
 ures. Sea freights aggregate, therefore, 
 700,000 tons in, and about as much out of 
 the port of Galveston. This statement 
 does not include the small craft carrying 
 produce, lumber, etc., and plying in and 
 out of the port, and into adjacent coast 
 waters. 
 
 As cotton is the staple chiefly freighted, 
 the customs statistics vary from year 
 to year, according as the demand for it 
 is greater at home or abroad. The state- 
 
 ment of the exports and imports of the 
 city that follows, furnished by N. W. 
 CuNEY, collector of the port, is a measure, 
 however, of its foreign trade. 
 
 The total value of the imports of Gal- 
 veston in 18S6 was $1,059,835. In 1887, 
 it was $1,694,676. In i888, it was $1,- 
 740,606. To July I, 1889, $970,000. 
 The total exports of 1886 were valued at 
 $16,955,801 ; of 1887, $18,819,493, and of 
 1888, $14,462,947. The noticeable dif- 
 ference in these two years was due, not to 
 any decreased business of the port, but 
 simply to the fact that the railroads built 
 into Mexico, diverted a considerable traffic 
 that formerly went south from Galveston 
 by sea. The statement of exports too, 
 does not include the whole movement of 
 cotton to European ports ; for within the 
 last few years the shipments from Gal- 
 veston abroad by way of New York have 
 largely increased. 
 
 A comparison of the imports of 1888 
 with those of the first half of '89, the 
 latest figures obtainable, shows an in- 
 creasing business of the port in nearly 
 every leading item. The total importa- 
 tions of cement in '88, were valued at 
 $19,548. In the first half of last year 
 they were $12,531. The imports of coal 
 and coke in '88 were $56,809, as com- 
 pared with $31,728 in the first half of '89, 
 and similar comparisons in the case of 
 coffee show figures of $401,768 and 
 
 ,^ 
 
64 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 $300,943 respectively; cotton ties, $95,- 
 382 and $64,934; dry goods, $244,713 
 and $114,720; hardware, $472,294 and 
 $264,068; salt, $37,457 and $17,000; 
 wines and liquors, $56,760 and $33,694; 
 sundries, $355,465 and $128,501. This 
 same relative rate of increase would in- 
 dicate imports of $1,945,230 in 1889, the 
 principal items being, coffee, $601,886; 
 drv goods, $238,440 ; hardware, $528,126. 
 
 The exports are little else than cotton 
 and cotton oil cake. Three to four 
 hundred thousand bales of cotton are ex- 
 ported foreign direct ; the remainder via 
 New York, and about 30,000 tons of oil 
 cake is also loaded at the Galveston 
 wharves. The item of sundry exports 
 has varied in thi-ee years from $50,000 in 
 value to $150,000. 
 
 The customs figures show a growing 
 trade in the dye wood known as fustic, a 
 product of the Central American States ; 
 also in alligator skins from the tropics. 
 But the greatest increase of imports is in 
 Mexican coffees. A year or two ago, an 
 effort was made by houses interested in 
 the trade, to increase the importation of 
 English tin-plate for St. Louis, Kansas 
 City and other Western markets, but 
 damage resulting from lighterage forced 
 the parties concerned to abandon the 
 undertaking. All this new business, like 
 the proposed shipment of Texas beef in 
 special refrigerator steamers, and the de- 
 velopment of a foreign grain trade, which 
 was inaugurated by F. Cannon and 
 others, assisted by the Santa Fe road, 
 with the shipment of 32,000 bushels of 
 Kansas corn in May last, depends largely 
 upon the government's impi'ovement of 
 the bar to the harbor, although local 
 enterprise is actively enlisted to prosecute 
 these projects with only the present facil- 
 ities of the port. 
 
 BAY, CHANNEL AND BAR. 
 
 Its natural conformation divides the 
 Bay of Galveston into two parts, the 
 
 Upper Bay, enclosed entirely within the 
 mainland, and serviceable chiefly as a 
 means of internal transportation, and the 
 Lower or West Bay — Galveston Bay 
 proper — between the island and the main- 
 land opposite it, which affords a safe and 
 commodious harbor for the shipping of 
 the port. The Upper Bay extends a 
 distance of thirty miles from the entrance, 
 and is about thirty-five miles across in its 
 widest parts. It is ten or eleven feet 
 deep over about a fourth of it, and has a 
 ship channel excavated for eighteen miles 
 through it to Buffalo bayou, on the banks 
 of which Houston is situated, about fifty 
 miles by rail from Galveston. The 
 Trinity, one of the principal rivei's of 
 Eastern Texas, debouches into this Upper 
 Bay at one of its furthest Northern ex- 
 tremities. 
 
 The Lower Bay is one and a half to 
 two miles wide. It covei's an area of 135 
 miles. No point in it is more than twelve 
 miles from the main entrance, for there 
 are two, one to the West at San Luis 
 pass, which has not been in use, even by 
 small craft, for years, and the other, an 
 opening from the Gulf into both Lower 
 and Upper Bays, between the eastern end 
 of the island and Bolivar Peninsula. 
 Just inside this entrance there are two 
 channels, divided by a shoal. One leads 
 to the Upper Bay, and the other sweeps 
 past the city into the Lower Bay and 
 forms the harbor of Galveston. It is 
 about 200 hundred yards wide, and has 
 an average depth in front of the city of 
 thirty feet. The gorge of this entrance 
 to the harbor is about 8,200 feet wide. 
 The harbor has 460 acres of 30 foot 
 anchorage inside this gorge, and 1,300 
 acres of 24 foot depth, 500 acres of 
 which, however, lie outside the gorge. 
 
 Two bars, an inner and an outer bar, 
 obstruct this entrance to the harbor. The 
 inner bar has twenty-one feet of water 
 upon it at mean low tide, the outer 
 thirteen and a quarter. This is an in- 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 65 
 
 crease of twelve feet in the former since 
 1S67, three feet of which was added by 
 the forces of Nature and nine by the ex- 
 penditure of municipal moneys, and this 
 depth can be indefinitely increased should 
 removal of the outer bar require it. That 
 had twelve and a quarter feet when the 
 government improvements, now in prog- 
 ress, were commenced, so that already a 
 
 The outer bar lies four miles seaward 
 beyond the gorge. The project of the 
 government engineers is siinply the con- 
 struction of jetties rising five feet above 
 high tide, parallel or nearly so at a dis- 
 tance of a mile and a half apart, for the 
 length of 54,000 feet. One has been 
 constructed already to the length of i6,- 
 000 feet. The conditions being dissimi- 
 
 COAL AND ICE WHARF 
 
 foot of depth has been secured upon it, 
 which, little as it seems, is a matter of 
 vast importance to the commerce of the 
 port, not only as an extra accommodation 
 for its shipping, but as a showing also, of 
 what can be done, by continuing the work. 
 A vessel of 1,767 tons register crossed 
 this outer bar last fall without lightering 
 at all, and on January 6, last, the steam- 
 ship Marchioness, drawing fifteen feet six 
 inches of water, passed over. 
 
 lar, these jetties are somewhat unlike 
 those at the mouth of the Mississippi, 
 with which they have sometimes been 
 compared, but the principle of construc- 
 tion is much the same. The amount 
 already expended on them is $800,000 ; 
 the amount necessary to give a 30 foot 
 depth of water on the bar is $2,200,000, 
 and 30 feet, $6,300,000 ; and this is the 
 sum appropriated for the work in the bill 
 which has passed the U. S. Senate and 
 
66 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 is now pending in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, with excellent prospects of 
 passage. The bill provides for the ex- 
 penditure of $1,000,000 a year on the 
 work, so that in two or three years, if the 
 
 bill passes, Galveston would be a port of 
 the second class — one with 20 feet depth 
 at its entrance — and in six years a port of 
 the first class, or one with 30 feet or 
 more of depth at the bar. 
 
 WHARF AND LIGHTER FACILITIES. 
 
 There are eight pilots licensed for 
 Galveston. They have two boats in 
 service, a steamer and a sailing craft. 
 The lighterage and towing facilities of 
 the port are also ample. There are two 
 companies embarked in this business and 
 operated in conjunction. 
 
 The depth of water over the bar not 
 permitting large vessels, heavily laden, to 
 enter the harbor. The Galveston 
 Steamship & Lighter Co. was organ- 
 ized in 1880, by its present principals, for 
 the purpose of providing adequate light- 
 erage and towing facilities for the shipping 
 frequenting this port. Messrs. Adoue & 
 Lobit, the bankers, T. Wm. English, 
 engaged in the coal and iron trade and 
 also a principal in the new bagging fac- 
 tory here, and Capt. J. Moller of J. Mol- 
 
 ler & Co., ship brokers, organized the 
 company. Mr. English is president of it 
 now, Mr, W. L. Moody, cotton factor 
 and banker, vice-president and ^Ir. Adoue 
 general manager. The office of the com- 
 pany is at No. I Kuhn's Wharf. 
 
 The company now has a capital stock 
 of $80,000. It has in service four steam 
 lighters and one steam tug. Any of these 
 craft can be used as towboats, and in 
 fact, they are in frequent use to fetch sail- 
 ing vessels from the outside anchorage 
 ground to the wharves. Their most com- 
 mon and greatest utility as a port facility 
 is however, to give extra dispatch to the 
 loading of vessels drawing more water 
 than is on the bar. They enable the com- 
 pany, with a sufiicient force of hands 
 (which sometimes numbers 125 to 150), 
 to handle 7,000 bales in 24 hours, that is, 
 to transport that much cotton from the 
 wharf to the vessel in anchorage, and load 
 it aboard of her. 
 
 The gentlemen who have put their cap- 
 ital into this maritime convenience are 
 interested in other enterprises which have 
 full exposition under appropriate classifi- 
 cations of this work and which need not 
 therefore be minutely referred to here. 
 
 Fourteen to fifteen feet draft, 
 we have seen, is about the limit for 
 vessels crossing the bar, and thirty 
 feet, as has been said, is the depth in 
 the stream. A depth of about fifteen 
 feet is maintained at the w-harves by 
 dredging. The wharf frontage now, 
 is about two and a half miles. There 
 is a sufficient area of tidal basin avail- 
 able for its extension to meet the de- 
 mands of the future. The wharves are 
 owned by a corporation in which the city 
 has a third interest. The earnings of this^ 
 corporation, about four per cent per 
 annum on its capitalization of $2,636,000, 
 indicate a moderate scale of wharfage 
 rates. 
 
 Port charges of all kinds, it is claimed 
 for the city, are reasonable in comparison 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 67 
 
 vvith those prevailing at other places. 
 The facilities of the port for loading and 
 discharging and general stevedoring, and 
 for refitting and victualling ships, are of 
 the most comprehensive character. The 
 wharf company maintains a wharf-rail- 
 way, for the transfer of freights from the 
 railroads to shipping, and vice versa, and 
 also marine ways. 
 
 Sweeney & Co., stevedores, Twenty- 
 first street between Strand and Mechanic, 
 apply themselves exclusively to the load- 
 ing of cotton and cotton seed products and 
 do half of the work of that kind done at 
 this port. They employ during- the cot- 
 ton season, an average of twenty-five 
 gangs of screwmen, of five men to a gang, 
 besides other laborers to the number of 
 350, all told, a force indicating the very 
 large business they do here. 
 
 The partners in this firm are C. C. 
 Sweeney, Thos. W. Kirk and Geo. W. 
 Sweeney, a son of the senior member. 
 Mr. C. C. Sweeney established the busi- 
 ness before the war, and was of course 
 obliged to discontinue it during that 
 eventful era for Galveston, but he re-es- 
 
 Sweeney could devote his attention to the 
 duties of office. His term having ex- 
 pired he resumed his place as general 
 manager. 
 
 Mr. C. C. Sweeney has also been Com- 
 missioner of Immigration for Texas and a 
 Pilot Commissioner for Galveston. Mr. 
 Kirk has been a resident of Galveston 
 since 1S66, and has followed the steve- 
 doring business ever since he came here. 
 Mr. Geo. W. Sweeney is a native of the 
 city and is the office man of the firm. 
 
 Charles Clarke & Co., stevedores 
 and contractors, corner of Center street 
 and Strand, are engaged as stevedores 
 discharging and loading other freights 
 than cotton, and have the bulk of the 
 miscellaneous business of that character 
 here. They buy and sell ballast, furnish 
 steam engiaes and hoisting horses for a 
 reasonable compensation, to do any class 
 of work, on or off the docks, and make a 
 specialty of submarine diving. 
 
 As contractors, they are chiefly engaged 
 on government work. They had a 
 $100,000 contract last year for removing 
 the bar at Aransas Pass, and have recently 
 
 BOAT LANDING. 
 
 tablished it in 1S65, and continued it until finished supplying rock for the jetty work 
 
 m 18S4, he was appointed Collector of the at the mouth of the Brazos, a $.7 .00 
 
 Port by Resident Cleveland. Mr. Kirk contract with private parties engaged in 
 
 and Geo. W. Sweeney, his son, then took that engineering enterprise. They have 
 
 charge of the business, so that Mr. also recently contracted with the Brazos 
 
68 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 &• COM 1 'ANY 
 
 AGKMS. LOADING STEAMER WITH COTTON. 
 
 Canal Co. to supply it with $78,000 or 
 more of rock and they are prepared to 
 enter into contracts for supplying rock to 
 the extent of from 500 to 1,000 tons daily. 
 They have, employed altogether, some 250 
 or 300 men, and their facilities comprise, 
 besides ample capital, a steam towboat, 
 six lighters, and fifteen steam hoisting 
 engines. 
 
 Mr. Chas. Clarke has been a stevedore 
 and contractor of Galveston since 1S65. 
 His partner is Mr. Robt. P. Clarke, who 
 came here from Massachusetts in 1SS3 and 
 became a partner with Mr. Clarke in 
 18S8. 
 
 FOREIGN STEAMSHIP LINES. 
 
 Many steamers of the class known as 
 " tramps " seek Galveston for cotton 
 freights in the fall and winter months. 
 
 They are somewhat irregular in the matter 
 of arrival and departure, but the number 
 of them increases every season, over the 
 one preceding. 
 
 J. MoLLER & Co., ship brokers, sail 
 and steamship agents, importers of coal, 
 coke, salt, etc.. Strand, between Twen- 
 tieth and Twenty-first streets, do an extra- 
 ordinary business. As ship agents they 
 are exporters of 250,000 to 300,000 bales 
 of cotton a year and 15,000 tons of oil 
 cake ; and as coal dealers they import 
 20,000 tons in the same time. They ship- 
 ped, August 30th last, the first cotton 
 cargo of the past season, 3,390 bales, 
 to Liverpool, by the steamer '' Ame- 
 thyst." 
 
 They are the agents here for the "Texas- 
 European" Steamship Line, plying be- 
 tween Galveston, and Liverpool, Havre 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 69 
 
 and Bremen, and for the " Black Star" 
 steamship line, running from Galveston to 
 Liverpool, and they are the consignees of 
 numerous sailing vessels that frequent 
 this port. They have business enough to 
 employ one hundred men on the wharves 
 and are largely interested besides in the 
 Galveston Steamship & Lighterage Com- 
 pany, of which one of the firm is secre- 
 tary. 
 
 Capt. Moller is the vice-consul also of 
 Denmark and of Russia here, with juris- 
 diction over the territory comprised by 
 Texas, Indian Territory, New Mexico 
 and Arizona. He was formerly a ship- 
 master, but has been engaged In these 
 lines here since 1S79. His partner, Mr. 
 Thos. H. Sweeney, has been a resident 
 of Galveston since 1S68. He was for- 
 merly engaged as a stevedore here in com- 
 
 pany with his brother, Chas. Sweeney, 
 lately Collector of the Port. Mr. Sweeney 
 himself has been an Alderman of the 
 city, and is considered a remarkably ener- 
 getic man in mercantile and maritime 
 affairs. Both he and Capt. Moller have 
 important investments in enterprises of 
 that character, among the rest are in the 
 coal business as L. C. Leith & Co., Dar- 
 ragh's Wharf. 
 
 L. C. Leith & Co., importers of for- 
 eign and wholesale dealers in domestic 
 coals, cements, coke, etc., have been three 
 years established and have trade through- 
 out Texas. The business of this house 
 is an outgrowth from that of J. Moller & 
 ' Co., ship agents of this city, sole propri- 
 etors of it, a firm whose large impor- 
 tations requiring division of manage- 
 ment and separation of interests, a new 
 
 SCENE ON A COTTON DOCK. 
 
JO 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 partnership was formed ; and this branch 
 of their business was placed under the 
 direction of Capt. Leith, formerly a ship- 
 master, but a resident here since 1881. 
 
 The firm of L. C. Leith & Co. does 
 some retail business, but is chiefly engaged 
 as a wholesale dealer in steam, house and 
 blacksmiths' coal, English patent coke, 
 English and German Portland cement 
 and salt. Some 20,000 tons of coal were 
 handled by it last year and two cargoes 
 of salt. Vessels consigned to J. ISIoller & 
 Co. discharge at Leitla & Co.'s place on 
 
 touching en ro2ite at Key West, Florida, 
 and the same number returning. It has 
 three steamers engaged also in a New 
 York and Florida line, and ten boats in 
 service altogether, iron steamships, espec- 
 ially constructed for the GuTf trade, and 
 commanded by the following experienced 
 masters: The " Leona, " a new boat of 
 3,^00 tons measurement, Capt. Bolger ; the 
 "Nueces, " Capt. S. Risk, 3,367 tons ; the 
 "Comal,'- Capt. J. Risk, 2,950;" the 
 "Lampasas," Crowell, master, 2,942; 
 the " Alamo, " Lewis, 2,942; the " vSan 
 
 l.lNh MK.vMSlIIP AT SEA. 
 
 Darragh's Wharf, immediately on the 
 water front, where rail and ship meet. 
 The shipping facilities of the house ax'e 
 therefore unsurpassed here, and rates can 
 be given to all parts of Texas as low as 
 it is possible to get them. 
 
 NEW YORK STEAMSHIP LINES. 
 
 The ISLvllorv Line, or New York and 
 Texas Steamship Co., runs three steamers 
 a week out of Galveston for New York, 
 
 Marcos," Burrows, 2,840; the "Colo- 
 rado, " Evans, 2,764 ; the " Rio Grande, " 
 Conners, 2,656; the " State of Texas, " 
 Williams, 1,696, and the "City of 
 San Antonio, " Wilder, 1,652. 
 
 These vessels carry both freight and 
 passengers, and are thoroughly appointed 
 for passenger business. They are speed- 
 ier than the special freight carriers. They 
 make the trip of nearly 2,000 miles along 
 the Southern coast in six or seven days, 
 have large and airy state rooms, accom- 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 71 
 
 tnodating two, bath and smoking rooms, 
 and meals served as well as in the best 
 hotels. The steerage accommodations 
 are also superior. Through tickets can 
 be secured in New York via this line to 
 all points in Mexico, Texas, the South- 
 western territories and California, and 
 vice versa^ at rates which are a consider- 
 able reduction on all rail fares ; and 
 excursion i-ates are made every season. 
 The travel during the summer months is 
 large between Galveston and New York 
 and in the fall lively the other way. 
 
 The steamers of this line get over Gal- 
 veston bar loaded with 4,500 to 5,000 
 bales of cotton at 13^ feet draft. Freights 
 to New York from here are chiefly cotton 
 and cotton seed oil, sugar, wool, mo- 
 lasses and ixtle or Mexican hemp. 
 About 150 hands are employed on the 
 Mallory dock here. Large cargoes of 
 general merchandise are carried usually 
 between New York and Galveston. 
 Business, stimulated by the general pros- 
 perity of Texas and the growth of rail- 
 road traffic, in which this line participates, 
 is rapidly increasing. The line is 
 independent of railroad influences, but 
 connects with all that focus here, and also 
 at New York with the steamers for for- 
 eign ports. 
 
 The Mallory line has been established 
 about 20 years. C. H. Mallory & Co. 
 are New York agents and managers of 
 the line. C. H. Mallory is president of 
 the company operating it ; E, Spicer, vice- 
 president ; H.' R. Mallory, treasurer ; 
 Wm. Mason, secretary ; Chas. and Robert 
 Mallory, directors. These officials are 
 all located at New York. The agents of 
 the company here are J. N. Sawyer & 
 Co., Strand near Twenty-fourth street. 
 Capt. Sawyer inaugurated the Mallory 
 service by bringing the first boat here, 
 and soon after he had done so settled 
 here as its agent. He has been its repre- 
 sentative here ever since, and has handled 
 the important interests involved with ex- 
 
 cellent tact and judgment. Mr. Hamp- 
 ton Young has been associated with him 
 for about 13 years. He supervises the 
 office details. 
 
 The Morgan Line, or to be more 
 exact, Morgan's Louisiana & Texas Rail- 
 road and Steamship Company, derives its 
 name from Chas. Morgan, a capitalist of 
 New York, New Orleans and Galveston, 
 who was among the first to perceive the 
 rising importance of Galveston as a sea- 
 port, and who established a line of steam- 
 ers from New York to New Orleans and 
 this city, so long ago as 1S45. The exigen- 
 cies of the service developed, finally, the 
 railroad feature of this company's business, 
 a line from Morgan City on the Louisi-- 
 ana coast, to New Orleans, affording a 
 more direct means of communication 
 than the river and sea passage from the 
 Crescent to the Oleander city. Some 
 years ago the Southern Pacific Railroad 
 Company purchased the Morgan interests 
 and has since operated the steamship line 
 as a subordinate, but independent organ- 
 ization, of which the president and gen- 
 eral manager is Mr. A. C. Hutchins, the 
 Southern Pacific agent at New Orleans. 
 
 The Morgan Company is capitalized 
 at $10,000,000, and besides the railroad, 
 owns and operates a fleet of ten steam- 
 ers, several coasters, and the auxiliary 
 Houston barge line of the Houston Direct 
 Navigation Co. The steamers of the 
 line, the " Chalmette," "Lone Star," 
 "El Monte," "Excelsior," "Algiers," 
 " Eureka," " El Paso," " New York ' 
 and •• El Dorado " are employed in the 
 trade between New York and New 
 Orleans and Galveston ; also in trips from 
 New Orleans to Key West and Havana 
 and to the ports on the Texas and Mexi- 
 can Gulf coast from both New Orleans 
 and Galveston. They are freight carriers 
 chiefly, but they have accommodations 
 also for passengers. 
 
 The New Orleans and New York line 
 has two steamers sailing from each port 
 
72 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 weekly, the Galveston line one. The 
 largest vessels of the line are on the New 
 York and New Orleans route. From 
 New York to Galveston by the Morgan 
 line, is 1,850 miles. This distance is 
 made in seven days. No passengers are 
 carried on the New York lines, but they 
 are taken for the passage between New 
 Orleans, Charlotte's Harbor, Key West 
 and Havana, a distance of 800 miles, or 
 a three days' trip. 
 
 Steamers of this latter route leave New 
 Orleans every Wednesday. Between New 
 Orleans and Brazos Santiago, they run 
 three times a month, and between New 
 Orleans and Vera Cruz twice a month, 
 touching at Galveston both ways. They 
 thus leave Galveston for Brazos Santiago 
 every ten days and for Vera Cruz the 
 ''Harlan" sails the 2d and 17th of each 
 month and arrives home the nth and 26th. 
 The Coast line runs only from November 
 I to May I, the New York and New 
 Orleans line, however, the year round. 
 
 Freights are taken at New York for 
 delivery at New Orleans, Mobile, all 
 Mississippi river points, Galveston, Hous- 
 ton, Indianola, Corpus Christi, Brazos 
 Santiago, Brownsville, all Texas interior 
 points, and also freight destined for 
 Old and New Mexico, Arizona and 
 California. General merchandise, heavy 
 freights particularly, make the bulk of the 
 cargoes brought this way ; cotton, for 
 which the New Orleans steamers have a 
 carrying capacity of 10.000 bales and the 
 Galveston steamers 4,600 bales each, is, 
 with sugar, molasses, cotton seed oil, wool 
 and hides, the principal item of traffic 
 eastward-bound. The general business 
 of the line is increasing. It is accelerated 
 considerably by the growth of the South- 
 ern Pacific Railroad system and its con- 
 nections, of which, as has been said, the 
 Morgan Line is part. 
 
 The Houston Direct Navigation 
 Co., an adjunct of the Morgan Line and 
 Southern Pacific, owns six towboats and 
 
 twenty barges plying between here and 
 Houston, on Galveston Bay and Buffalo 
 Bayou. During the season September i 
 to May I, a tug towing five barges makes 
 daily trips.. They bring from Houston 
 cotton and cotton oil, cake, seed, etc., and 
 return with general merchandise. The 
 facilities are equal to a traffic of 15,000 
 bales a day. Other tugs owned by this 
 same company are used for towage and 
 barge service in this harbor. 
 
 The two enterprises, the steamship 
 line and the Houston company, employ 
 during the cotton season, here and at 
 Houston, several hundred hands. About 
 200 laborers are engaged at the company's 
 dock here, and as many more at the 
 Bayou city. The vice-president, secre- 
 tary and treasui-er. and superintendent of 
 the barge company are located at Hous- 
 ton where connection is made with the 
 Southern Pacific. The local superintend- 
 ent is L. P. Dignan. 
 
 Both companies have their landing here 
 at Central Wharf. Capt. Chas. Fowler 
 is manager for the Morgan Line and pres- 
 ident of the Navigation Co, Capt. Fow- 
 ler has been an Alderman of the city for 
 the last five years and a Pilot Commission- 
 er of the State for twenty. He is chairman 
 of the Building Committee of the John 
 Sealy Hospital, a local benefaction, is 
 president of the Texas Ice Co., and a 
 director of the Plouston & Texas Central 
 Railway. He has been with the Morgan 
 Line for thirty-four years, for ten years 
 as master of steamships, and for twenty- 
 four as its Galveston agent. He is a man 
 of property and influence ; and his resi- 
 dence is one of the finest in the fashiona- 
 ble quarter of the city. A cut of it em- 
 bellishes page 13 of this work. 
 
 The Galveston and Brazos Na\i- 
 GATioN Company has two steamers of 
 light draft in the coast and river trade of 
 Galveston. These ply chiefly up the 
 Brazos river into "the Sugar Bowl of 
 Texas." 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 73 
 
 SHIP CHANDI.ERS AND GROCERS. 
 
 H. Marwitz & Co., ship chandlers, 
 grocers and liquor dealers, corner of 
 Mechanic and Twenty-second streets, 
 carry a $50,000 stock, and have both a 
 city and State trade. The bulk of the 
 business of the house is, however, with 
 the shipping frequenting the port, and to 
 supply that trade a very large and miscel- 
 laneous stock of rope of all kinds, and 
 hawsers, duck, oars, anchors, chains, 
 blocks, naval and engineers' stores, and 
 ship's hardware is carried by it. Among 
 other agencies the following are held by 
 it: For Walter Coleman & Son's blocks 
 and sheaves ; Leonard & Ellis' valvoline 
 oils ; Henry N. Stone's Edson's patent 
 diaphragm free pumps, and the Revere 
 Copper Company's yellow metal. Pro- 
 visions and ship stores make also a large 
 part of its stock. 
 
 The "Co." of the firm name is nominal 
 merely. Mr. Marwitz, who founded the 
 house in i860, is sole proprietor. He has 
 been a resident here since 1851, and is 
 one of the best known and most substan- 
 tial citizens of Galveston. He is a direc- 
 tor of the Island City Savings Bank and 
 the Texas Cotton Press Co., is a stock- 
 holder in numerous other enterprises here 
 and is a large property owner. He has, 
 therefore, ample resources for his busi- 
 ness. 
 
 T. L. Cross & Co., ship chandlers, 
 manufacturers' agents and commission 
 merchants, corner of Center street and 
 Strand, is the firm name adopted by Mr. 
 Cross, formerly of Schneider & Cross, 
 grocers and ship chandlers, for the busi- 
 ness he has been pursuing by himself since 
 June, 1889, Schneider & Cross dissolved 
 and divided their trade, Mr. S. taking the 
 grocery department, and Mr. Cross, be- 
 lieving Galveston sufficiently large to 
 justify it, the ship chandlery department 
 of the old firm's business. He is the only 
 person engaged exclusively in ship chand- 
 
 lery here ; the other Galveston houses of 
 that line all do a grocery business also. 
 
 He is agent for the Boston & Lockport 
 Block Company, and handles all the pro- 
 ductions of that concern sold here ; for W. 
 J. Woolsey, Jersey City, copper paints, 
 and Q. S. Backus, of Middletown, Conn., 
 braces. When the Westbrook Manufac- 
 turing Company recently withdrew its 
 agencies from the Southern ports. New 
 Orleans excepted, he bought all its stock 
 of duck, and is carrying a larger line of it 
 than anybody here. He has a $15,000 
 stock and is doing already about three 
 times that much business a year. 
 
 Mr. Cross has been a resident here since 
 1859, and a business man of Galveston 
 ever since the war. He is a notary public, 
 with considerable maritime patronage, 
 
 Capt. C. Nicolini, grocer, ship chand- 
 ler and importer of wines and liquors, 
 tobacco and cigars, corner of Strand and 
 Twentieth street, has been a resident here 
 for the last six years. Having spent a 
 long period of his life as master of an 
 Italian merchantman, he is well adapted 
 for a trade that brings him into relations 
 with persons of the maritime professions. 
 He handles groceries at wholesale and 
 retail, and does both a State and city trade 
 in them. 
 
 In the liquor business, which is run as 
 a separate department, he has his brother 
 for a partner. In this line they handle, 
 besides imported goods of all kinds, the 
 finest of Kentucky whiskies, and are in 
 regular receipt of consignments of Cali- 
 fornia wines direct from the districts of the 
 Golden State in which they are produced. 
 
 Capt. Nicolini has visited, in the course 
 of his vocation as a seaman, the greater 
 part of the known world, and has spent a 
 considerable time in India and China. He 
 is the Italian consul here. Mr. D. Nico- 
 lini, his brother and partner, was in busi- 
 ness as a trader of the Mediterranean 
 coasts, and he too has, in his time, com- 
 manded deep water craft. 
 
GALVESTON AS A COTTON MARKET. 
 
 /;5^^"^^^OTTOX is easily first of 
 ~ the staples of commerce 
 
 at Galveston. Out of a 
 total trade of $100,000,- 
 000, approximately, for the 
 year ending September 30, 
 1SS9, the cotton year of the South- 
 ern cities, the value of the cotton 
 received in this market was $52,- 
 500,000. In bales the receipts were 
 809,341, an increase over the season pre- 
 ceding of 190,630, or values of $12,- 
 390,950. 
 
 The increase in receipts since the sea- 
 son of 1884-85, has been, in round num- 
 bers, 240,000 bales, and $22,000,000 of 
 values thereby; since 1880 it is 515,267 
 bales and $43^250,000 in values. But one 
 Southern city. New Orleans, has a greater 
 cotton trade, and but two cities of the 
 country, New Orleans and New York, 
 are larger cotton markets. Savannah 
 which, for many years, has been a spirited 
 rival of Galveston for place, has fallen 
 behind in the race, chiefly because of the 
 advantage this city has in the extension of 
 the area of her back country of Texas, 
 devoted to cotton. 
 
 Tlie cotton crojD of Texas last year was 
 1,300,000 l)ales. Galveston therefore 
 handled a quantity equal to sixty-two per 
 cent of the State's product, and an eighth of 
 the product of the South. About half the 
 receipts of this market are destined ulti- 
 mately for Northern looms ; the other 
 half goes abroad, to Liverpool largely, 
 for Manchester and other English spin- 
 ners, to Havre, Bremen, Hamburg, St. 
 Petersburg and other Continental ports. 
 The statement of the Collector of the 
 Port, in the chapter preceding this, shows 
 that the shipments to European ports from 
 Galveston via New York, continue to 
 increase at a greater relative rate than the 
 shipments foreign direct. This is because 
 New York affords superior advantages as 
 
 a distributing center both domestic and 
 foreign, and because the deficiency of 
 this port in respect of its bar necessitates 
 an extra levy upon commerce for lighter- 
 ing the larger vessels. 
 
 COMPRESS AND STORAGE FACILITIES. 
 
 For such a trade as this of Galveston in 
 cotton, the most comprehensive compress 
 and storage facilities are requisite. These 
 are provided by the Gulf City Cotton 
 Press & Manufacturing Co. and the Tay- 
 lor Compress Co. which operates, besides 
 its own compress, the Factors and 
 Shippers presses, owned by the South- 
 ern Cotton Press & Manufacturing 
 Company. Over $1,500,000 is invested 
 in these various enterprises. The build- 
 ings are all substantially built of brick 
 and are connected by side track with both 
 railroads and shipping. The four com- 
 presses in them are of the latest pattern, 
 and with their machinery 4,750 bales a day 
 can be compressed. The yai"ds and sheds 
 have storage capacity equal to 114,000 
 bales a day or 680,000 for the season, and 
 this capacity could be largely increased 
 by utilizing yards now lying idle. 
 
 The Taylor Compress Company, 
 which has its offices corner of Post Office 
 and Thirtieth streets, owns the presses 
 and warehouses covering two and a half 
 blocks on Market street, between Twenty- 
 ninth and Thirty-second streets, and is 
 operating, under lease, besides its own, 
 the Shippers and the Factors presses, the 
 former situated on both sides of Mechanic 
 street, from Twenty-eighth to Thirty- 
 first, and the latter on both sides of 
 Church, between the same thoroughfares, 
 or four blocks each. The Taylor Com- 
 press Company has two compresses, one 
 of 1,200 tons power, equal to 800 to i,ooo 
 bales a day of ten hours ; the other of 
 4.000 tons and 750 bales a day. The 
 
THE CIT-Y OF GALVESTON. 
 
 75 
 
 Shippers has an Soo to i,ooo bales a day 
 press, and the Factors one of about the 
 same capacity. The storage capacity of 
 the yards and warehouses of the Taylor 
 press is about 30,000 bales a day, or 150,- 
 000 bales for the season, and of the Ship- 
 pers and Factors, 400,000 bales a season. 
 The three presses, therefore, have facili- 
 ties to compress 3,350 to 3,500 bales a day 
 and storage for 500,000 bales in a season. 
 From present indications the lessee com- 
 pany will handle at the Taylor, for the 
 cotton buyers, the spinners' buyers, ex- 
 porters and shippers located here, during 
 the present season, (1889-90,) 100,000 to 
 115,000 bales, and at the others (the 
 Shippers chiefly), 80,000 to 90,000, or 
 from 180,000 to 240,000 bales. 
 
 These presses are all located adjacent 
 to the railroads entering the city and are 
 connected with them by special tracks. 
 Thev are equipped with the Taylor pat- 
 tern of steam and hydi'aulic presses. The 
 Taylor Compress Company's new 4,000 
 ton Miller press is the most powerful com- 
 press in the South. It is furnished with 
 "cut offs," and can be adjusted in a few 
 minutes to give any pressure required on 
 a bale of cotton. Where four of the cyl- 
 inders are used it can turn out 120 bales 
 an hour by putting 2,000 tons pressure on 
 each bale. With six cylinders the bale 
 receives a pressure of 3,000 tons, and with 
 all of its eight cylinders in use it exerts a 
 pressure of 4,000 tons on the bale. With 
 this compress the company guarantees to 
 load a 40,000 pound standard box car with 
 80 bales of 520 pounds each, or more than 
 its full capacity, and to put 5,000 bales 
 into a vessel of 1,000 tons register. 
 
 The Taylor Compress Company has no 
 open yard ; the whole property is covered 
 with one and two story brick warehouses 
 completely roofed in. The other two 
 have the usual arrangement of covered 
 sheds, open at one side, and open central 
 yards. They are all well provided with 
 the facilities to extingfuish fire, and have 
 
 an ample force of employes to guard 
 against it. The Taylor press employs 
 about 100 men and the other two about 
 the same number each. There are wells 
 and cisterns, hydrants and hose provided 
 them, and Babcock extinguishers distrib- 
 uted throughout, for any incipient blazes. 
 Automatic sprinklers also are to be put 
 into the Taylor press warehouses next 
 season. 
 
 The Taylor Compress Company, oper- 
 ating these iDresses, was organized in 1876 
 by buyers and shippers and others inter- 
 ested in the trade, to build the Taylor 
 press, which derived its name from the 
 patentee of the compress ordered for its 
 use. The Taylor press originally put in 
 has been replaced by those already men- 
 tioned, and greater power, speed and effi- 
 ciency has thus been secured. The officers 
 of this company are Wm. F. Ladd, of 
 W. F. Ladd & Co., cotton buyers, 
 president ; Thomas Gonzales, of vSloan & 
 Gonzales, cotton buyers also, treasurer, 
 and Wm. Crooks, general manager. Mr. 
 Ladd is vice-president of the Cotton 
 Exchange and has long been one of the 
 most prominent figures in the cotton trade 
 here. He is secretary and ti"easurer also 
 of the Galveston Bagging & Cordage 
 Company and is interested in a number ot 
 other local enterprises. Mr. Gonzales is 
 too, a notable man in the Galveston cotton 
 market. He likewise has been vice-pres- 
 ident of the Exchange, and his firm is 
 regarded one of the most substantial in 
 the business. 
 
 The Southern Cotton Press & Manufac- 
 turing Company, owning the Shippers and 
 Factors presses, is a corporation having 
 $1,000,000 capital, and owning besides 
 these press properties, the old Merchants, 
 now given over to storage, and some 
 twenty-nine blocks of ground all told, the 
 whole worth fully as much as its capitali- 
 zation. J. H. Hutchings, of Ball, Hutch- 
 ings & Co., bankers, is president of the 
 company. 
 
76 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 LEADING HOUSES OF TIIE TRADE. 
 
 Facilities for the traffic of every sort 
 are provided, — railroad, banking, com- 
 mercial ; the latter by a number of houses 
 of exceptionally substantial resources, 
 among whom the following are notable : 
 
 W. F. Ladd & Co.,. Strand and Twenty- 
 first street, having been in the business for 
 nearly half a century, is one of the most 
 solid cotton houses of the South. Before 
 the war this house was known as Ladd tS: 
 Armory, and after the close of that event- 
 ful period as A. H. Ladd Sc Co. the senior 
 member then being the uncle of the senior 
 member of to-day, W. F, Ladd. This 
 house buys in this market and through cor- 
 respondents throughout the interior, and 
 handles during the season from 50,000 to 
 60,000 bales of the staple. For many years 
 it has had established connections with 
 Northern manufacturing centers and it is 
 a house whose standing and character 
 makes it a thoroughly representative 
 establishment. Mr. W. F. Ladd is pres- 
 ident of the Taylor Compress Co., and 
 president of the Gulf City Cotton Com- 
 press & Manufacturing Co., vice-presi- 
 dent of the Cotton Exchange and chair- 
 man of some of its most important com- 
 mittees, is secretary and treasurer of the 
 Galveston Bagging Co., director of the 
 Galveston Cotton & Woolen Mills, and 
 director of the Texas Land & Loan Co. 
 Mr. J. C. S. Spencer, the "Co." of this 
 firm, is also vice-president of the Taylor 
 Compress Co. and a director of the Gal- 
 veston Wharf Co. 
 
 Lammers & Flixt, cotton factors and 
 commission merchants, Strand between 
 Twenty-first and Twenty-second streets, 
 are large dealers in the leading staples of 
 Texas such as cotton, wool, etc. They 
 have been prominently identified with the 
 commercial interests of the State for the 
 last twenty-five years and are classed with 
 its leading business men. They get con- 
 signments of cotton from all parts of the 
 
 State, and their rooms often contain the 
 samples of 5,000 bales of cotton on hand 
 and for sale ; and they receive considera- 
 ble shipments of wool for sale in this mar- 
 ket, from the different wool-growing dis- 
 tricts of Texas as well as from neighbor- 
 ing States, and make advances upon 
 shipments at the reduced rates of six per 
 cent interest per annum. The members 
 of this firm are connected in various ways 
 with the moneyed institutions and indus- 
 trial enterprises of Galveston and they 
 have long been resident here. 
 
 Agencies are maintained here by 
 many large foreign houses, who buy in 
 this and the Houston market, and send 
 out buyers also into the country districts. 
 There are numerous brokers in the staple 
 too. Changes in the trade, resulting from 
 railroad methods, the building of com- 
 presses in the interior, and dealings of 
 shippers with the countrymen direct, have 
 diverted some business from the factors ; 
 but this loss has been more than made 
 good by the growth of the wool and hide 
 business, and of importations of coffee, 
 in which many of them also engage. 
 
 The merchants of all classes in the trade 
 and with them many of other lines, are 
 organized as a Cotton Exchange, which, 
 of late, in response to the general desire, 
 has assumed the functions also of a Board 
 of Trade for the city. It has 151 active 
 members, and its action voices popular 
 opinion with respect to the business inter- 
 ests of both port and city. Julius Runge. 
 banker and cotton factor, is its president, 
 leading merchants its directors. 
 
 Three large new manufacturing con- 
 cerns lately established in the city, wit- 
 ness the reciprocal relations developed 
 between the planter of Texas and the 
 merchant of Galveston, a jute bagging 
 mill, a cotton goods factory and a cotton 
 rope and twine mills. These are described 
 hereinafter, in the chapter of this work 
 on the manufactures of the city ; and so 
 also are the cotton oil mills of Galveston. 
 
GENERAL TRADE OF THE CITY. 
 
 HILE cotton overshad- 
 ows all the other lines 
 of trade at Galveston, 
 not merely in respect 
 of its volume, but as 
 well from the indus- 
 tries dependent upon 
 it, the commerce of the city still has con- 
 siderable variety, and numerous other 
 branches of business serve as a measure 
 of its enterprise and progress, 
 
 Galveston has about fifty large jobbing 
 houses. Some of these do business upon 
 a scale that would rank them among the 
 foremost in any city. Most of them are 
 long established. Many of them have 
 extraordinary resources. Several of them 
 employ from a dozen to thirty drum- 
 mers. Three of them do, between them, 
 $6,500,000 in sales a year. Two of them 
 carry insurance on their stocks to the 
 amount for both, of $1,300,000. There 
 has not been a failure of note in several 
 years. 
 
 Seaports, as a rule, do a third more 
 business than inland cities of equal popu- 
 lation. Galveston, in point of fact, does 
 a half more than the same sized places in 
 Texas. The estimate of the Galveston 
 News that its jobbing trade alone, irre- 
 spective of cotton, manufactures, build- 
 ing improvements, real estate transfers 
 and retail business, is $25,000,000 is very 
 modest indeed. It is likely very much 
 more. The importations of coffee, hard- 
 ware, dry goods, cotton ties, coal, liquors, 
 salt and sundries, we have seen already, 
 were $1,750,000 in iSSS alone, and are 
 fast rising above $2,000,000 a year. The 
 grain trade of the city is between $750,000 
 and $1,000,000 a year. The produce 
 business is little less. Sugar receipts 
 from the Texas plantations, although they 
 
 increase little, if any, are upwards of 
 $500,000 in the aggregate. The lumber 
 trade rises above $1,000,000. Wool and 
 hides, not counting the shipments through, 
 which, in the absence of a record, may be 
 anything from $1,000,000, or $10,000,000, 
 are certainly $1,500,000. Here are $6,- 
 000,000 alone, not counting the regular 
 commercial lines, like groceries, dry goods, 
 clothing, drugs, pamts, etc. 
 
 The jobbing capital of the city, as given 
 in the Nezvs^ is $10,000,000. The grocery 
 sales aggregates $12,500,000.; dry goods, 
 $5,000,000 ; clothing and furnishing goods, 
 $1,500,000; boots arid shoes, $i,oco,ooo; 
 hardware and agricultural implements, 
 $2,000,000 ; lumber, sash, blinds and mate- 
 rial of that character, $1,250,000; cotton 
 cake and oil, $1,500,000; live stock, 
 $500,000; drugs, paints and oils, $650,- 
 000; ties and baling stuffs, $600,000; 
 crockery, furniture and sundry classifica- 
 tions, absorb the remainder of the total. 
 These figures do not cover the manufac- 
 tures or retail trade of the city at all, 
 which two items would add ten or twelve 
 millions more to the grand aggregate. 
 
 The importations are a measure of the 
 business done. They amount to $2,000,- 
 000 as compared with $10,000,000 for 
 New Orleans, a city of five times the 
 population of Galveston, but having very 
 similar trade. The imports of coffee, 
 for 1SS9, estimated by the report of the 
 first half year were $601, SS6, an increase 
 of fifty per cent. According to F. Can- 
 non k. Co., the importations of coffee are 
 doubled over two years ago. From Rio 
 75,000 to 80,000 bags now come yearly. 
 According to Miller & Ayers, the receipts 
 of Galveston, direct and indirect, are 
 100,000 to 125,000 bags a year. 
 
 The next largest item to coffee was 
 
78 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 hardware, $538,136; then dry goods, 
 $329,440; cotton ties next, $129,868; 
 wines and liquors, $67,398; coal and 
 coke, $63,456; salt, $34,000; cement, 
 $25,062; sundries, $257,002; total, ^i,- 
 936,238. Among the exports, the most 
 notable, besides cotton, are wool, hides 
 and peltries, grain and flour, sugar, cot- 
 ton oil, cake and meal. 
 
 The estimated business of the city, 
 founded upon these items, is cotton, 
 $50,000,000; jobbing lines, $25,000,000; 
 retail trade, $1,500,000; manufactures, 
 $10,000,000; building improvements and 
 public works, like the jetties, water 
 works, etc., $3,500,000; real estate 
 and miscellaneous, $1,000,000; goods in 
 transit, west-bound, $7,500,000; total, 
 $100,000,000. This is an under, rather 
 than an over estimate. 
 
 The trade territory of Galveston is 
 described in the chapters concerning her 
 transportation and maritime interests. It 
 is continuously extending. .Galveston 
 has a larger business with New York on 
 the one hand, and San Francisco on the 
 other than any Southern city, New Orleans 
 excepted. It has a very considerable 
 Mexican trade. It is a convenient point 
 for foreign shipping returning homeward 
 from the ports of the Gulf and South 
 America, and seeking cargo. It is the 
 only port of Texas, and of all the great 
 West back of it to the West, Northwest 
 and Southwest. It has competitive freight 
 rates in its systems of transportation by 
 land and water. It has more manufac- 
 tures than any city of the State to give its 
 mercantile business variety and stability. 
 It is a wealthy city, with the resources 
 within itself to continue its advancement. 
 
 THE LEADING JOBI5IXG HOUSES. 
 
 P. J. Willis & Bro., cotton factors and 
 importers of and wholesale dealers in gro- 
 ceries, dry goods, notions, dress goods, 
 boots and shoes and hats, is the oldest and 
 
 foremost house of Galveston; and in the 
 matter of aggregate business, stock carried 
 and general resources, has few, if any, 
 rivals in its trade territory, Texas, Louis- 
 iana, Indian Territory, Arkansas and 
 Mexico. 
 
 It was established in 1S39, when Galves- 
 ton was hardly more than an outjDost of 
 the great commercial world. The re- 
 sources for its foundation here were com- 
 pacted at different points in the interior, 
 and the solid fabric of a metropolitan 
 enterprise was raised here with them in 
 1S67, by P. J. and R. S. Willis. In that, 
 the developmental stage in the history of 
 this trade center — for the city, while the 
 first in Texas was yet somewhat obscure — 
 the business of the house naturally was 
 restricted ; but it grew apace with the 
 country looking to Galveston as a market, 
 and not many years later was recognized 
 in New Orleans, then the undisputed mis- 
 tress of the Gulf, as a strong competitor 
 of many of the largest houses of that 
 important place. Gradually but surely 
 rising among these and other rivals, a 
 position was attained by it far above medi- 
 ocrity and for years it has sustained the 
 reputation of Galveston over a wider field 
 than any of the local mercantile concerns. 
 
 In 1873, it is recorded, P. J. Willis, then 
 senior in the firm, died, and his children 
 having inherited his interest, the firm was 
 reconstructed. R. S. Willis, of the orig- 
 inal firm, P. J, Willis, a son of P. J. de- 
 ceased, and J. G. Goldthwate, his son-in- 
 law, are the partners now. The estate of 
 Wm. H. Willis, who died May i6th, 1SS8, 
 also holds an interest. For the purpose 
 of perpetuating the name and business, 
 the partners sometime ago concluded to 
 incorporate, and did so last July, under 
 the name of P. J. Willis & Bro. No 
 change was made, however, in the man- 
 agement. The same capital was contin- 
 ued in the business and the direction of 
 affairs remains in the same competent 
 hands. 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 Mr. R. S. Willis is one of the most 
 
 79 
 
 1-espected and wealthiest merchants of the 
 city. He is president of the Galveston 
 National Bank, a reorganization of the 
 
 of Texas, acquired during his long and 
 successful business career. The other 
 gentlemen of the firm also have solid 
 resources of a similar character. 
 
 old Texas Banking & Insurance Company, 
 and has large interests in many of the 
 most important financial and business 
 enterprises of the city. He owns also 
 real estate here and lands in various parts 
 
 The firm owns the block occupied by it 
 for business purposes, the Willis buildings 
 on Strand, two connected brick structures 
 covering the area of half a square, one 
 three and the other four stories high, as 
 
80 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 represented in the illustration set in this 
 matter. This property is situated adja- 
 cent to the central railroad depot here. 
 and has side track communication with 
 all the lines that terminate here. It is also 
 close to the wharves and ship landings. 
 The various floors afford 100,000 square 
 feet of storage surface, but this is all nec- 
 essary, extraordinary as the figures seem, 
 for the vast and valuable stock carried, 
 comprising in the greatest fullness and 
 variety, all the staples and niauv special- 
 
 ities are supeinor in scope and in detail to 
 those afforded by anj^ house of the South- 
 west. 
 
 JNIexsing Bros. & Co., wholesale gro- 
 cers and cotton factors, are one of the 
 firms that sustain, by an annual business 
 closely approaching a round million of 
 transactions, the commercial prestige of 
 Galveston. Like the other large concerns 
 of the city, they have grown from small 
 beginnings with the development of the 
 resources of the citv and State, but the 
 
 
 
 MENSING BROTHERS & COMPANY S FLACE. 
 
 ties of the lines enumerated at the begin- 
 ning of this account. 
 
 The business of the house is of a varied 
 and miscellaneous character ; but it is 
 thoroughly systematized by a division into 
 departments, and is conducted with a per- 
 fection of method unusual except to houses 
 long established and as affluent as this. 
 The advantage of doing business with 
 such a house is evident — a house whose 
 rating is the highest accorded by the com- 
 mercial agencies ; whose lines of goods are 
 the most comprehensive, and whose facil- 
 
 position they occupy in the trade they are 
 classed with, is largely, as it always is, 
 the result of their own diligence, enter- 
 prise and good management. 
 
 The partnership of Mensing Bros. & 
 Co. as it is to-day, is the succession to a 
 consolidation of the interests of two old 
 houses here, G. H. Mensing & Bro. and 
 Moore, Stratton & Co. made in 1SS2. 
 G. H. Mensing & Bro. were cotton fac- 
 tors only, up to that time, while Moore, 
 Stratton & Co. were in the wholesale 
 grocery business. The consolidated 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 81 
 
 house was known fox* two years as Mens- 
 ing, Stratton & Co., but when Mr. Strat- 
 ton withdrew hi 1885, leaving his old 
 associate, Mr. James Moore, in company 
 with Mensing Brothers, the name Mensing 
 Bros. & Co. was permanently adopted. 
 
 Fully $300,000 of capital is embarked 
 in the stock, facilities and working re- 
 sources of this house. It has five men on 
 the road in Texas. It handles from 
 8,000 to 13,000 bales of cotton a year. It 
 is therefore not surprising that its business 
 rises to a figure between three quarters of a 
 million and a million dollars in the grocery 
 business alone. The staples of the grocery 
 trade are all handled — provisions, coffee, 
 
 State. Mr, G. H. Mensing was in the 
 cotton trade at Brenham before he came, 
 here ; has been in it, in fact, since 1868. 
 Mr. Wm. Mensing has been in his brother's 
 company, in all his enterprises since 1869. 
 Their place of business is corner of Strand 
 and Twenty-second. An illustration 
 accompanying this matter shows its ex- 
 ternal appearance, and on page 7 of this 
 work is a picture of the residence of the 
 senior member of the firm. 
 
 Leon & H. Blum, importers of and 
 wholesale dealers in dry goods, notions, 
 hats, boots and shoes, etc., corner of 
 Mechanic and Twenty-fourth streets, is a 
 house sustaining the prestige of Galveston 
 
 LEON & H. BLUM'S ESTABLISHMENT. 
 
 sugar, molasses and general plantation and 
 farm supplies especially. Some wool and 
 hides also figure in the firm's transac- 
 tions. 
 
 The burdens of management are divided 
 between the partners as follows : Mr. G. 
 H. Mensing attends to the grocery busi- 
 ness, cotton sales and to affairs on 
 'Change, Mr. Wm. E. Mensing to the 
 credits and office details. Mr. G. H. Mens- 
 ing IS president of one of the local com- 
 press companies, and has stock in a num- 
 ber of profitable enterprises ; and so also 
 has his brother. Mensing Bros, are of 
 German derivation and were raised in this 
 
 as a trade center, in the full extent of the 
 city's tributary territory. It is a house 
 carrying a stock invoiced at $750,000 to 
 $1,000,000 in the aggregate, and doing a 
 business upwards of $5,000,000 in volume 
 a year, throughout all the States of the 
 Southwest, and also in Mexico. It has an 
 organization perfected during over thirty 
 years of successful business, and employs 
 some ninety persons in the house as sales- 
 men, clerks, porters, etc., and about thirty 
 more as traveling men. Its system of 
 management is one of many departments, 
 any one of which does the business of an 
 ordinary house, each having its buyer and 
 
82 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 each conducted separately, but the whole 
 under the direction of an experienced 
 general manager and assistant to the 
 principals, Messrs. Leon and Hyman 
 Blum, gentlemen known, by the import- 
 ant character of their entei-prises, invest- 
 ments and resources, not only thi-oughout 
 the length and breadth of Texas but in all 
 the great markets of the country in which 
 the lines they handle originate. They 
 have intimate relations with the manufac- 
 turers of these lines and can sell on the 
 closest margins, and the big stocks they 
 carry make them largely independent of 
 ordinary fluctuations. 
 
 A. Blum, an elder brother of the part- 
 ners, now some years deceased, and Leon 
 Blum, senior member of the firm, laid the 
 foundations of this extraordinary business 
 before the war. In 1865 the firm name, 
 Leon & H. Blum, was adopted. The part- 
 ners then were Leon, Hyman and Sylvain 
 Blum, to whom Leon and Hyman Blum 
 succeeded later. Messrs. Leon and H. 
 Blum are bank directors, stockholders in 
 the most important concerns of Galveston, 
 large tax payers on realty in the city and 
 the controlling spirits in the Leon & H. 
 Blum Land Co., which is capitalized to 
 the extent of $1,000,000 and has nearly 
 1,000,000 acres of lands in Texas and 
 other parts of the Southwest for sale. 
 
 The premises occupied by this house 
 are a sufficient indication, without further 
 illustration, of the business they do. They 
 own and use the whole of a three-story 
 block, 150 feet by 250, situated on 
 Mechanic street and fronting at the corner 
 of Twenty-fourth. The various floors of 
 this main building afford 112,500 square 
 feet of surface, and a warehouse addi- 
 tional increases this area to 125,000 square 
 feet. Goods and merchandise occupy all 
 this available area, and they frequently 
 have enough purchased and in transit to 
 fill another establishment like it. As these 
 structures were built to the order of the 
 firm, they are especially adapted to the 
 
 business and aie admirably lighted and 
 ventilated. To an experienced eye the 
 place presents the appearance of a vast 
 emporium or jnagasin., a model of its 
 kind. From it a legion of country trades- 
 men are furnished with complete stocks 
 of the goods dealt in, and many of the 
 jobbers of the State look to it for their 
 entire supply. Offices are maintained for 
 purchasing and financial purposes at 123 
 Duane street, New York (in which city 
 Mr. Hyman Blum resides), and at no 
 Summer sti-eet, Boston. It has been 
 called the representative house of its kind 
 in Texas, and the phrase, hackneyed as it 
 is by frequent application, is, in this 
 instance, no misnomer. 
 
 Leon Blum, the head of the house, is 
 largely engaged in prosecution of outside 
 affairs, in which he has investments, and 
 much of his time is therefore busily occu- 
 pied. He has, however, found leisure for 
 a labor of pride with him, namely, the 
 advancement of the commercial interests 
 of the port, as they are bound up in the 
 agitation for deep water. He has con- 
 tributed both time and money to this work 
 and has been the representative of the city 
 at Washington when bills were under dis- 
 cussion ; and at the two Inter-State Con- 
 ventions which have been pressing the 
 matter upon Congress with greater assur- 
 ance of immediate action than at any 
 period of the movement. His vveight and 
 influence have been actively exerted 
 indeed in every public matter that could 
 possibly benefit Galveston. Mr. A. Fer- 
 rier, long with the house in a confidential 
 capacity, assists him in its management. 
 
 The Leon & H, Blum Land Co., 
 which has holdings in half the counties of 
 Texas, was incorporated in 18S2, with 
 $1,000,000 capital. Leon Blum, of Leon 
 & H. Blum, the largest dry goods mer- 
 chants of the Southwest, is its president ; 
 S. Blum, vice-president, and A. Ferrier, 
 secretary and treasurer. It has its offices 
 at the Galveston establishment of the firm 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 83 
 
 of Leon & H. Blum, corner of Mechanic 
 and Twenty-fourth streets. 
 
 The lands of this company to the extent 
 of a million acres nearly, all told, are 
 held for sale in tracts of one acre to 150,- 
 000. They ai"e improved, some of them, 
 and others unimproved. The company 
 deals in stock ranches lai'gely, vv^ith and 
 without cattle. It is the largest in capital- 
 ization, resources and transactions, of the 
 land and cattle companies of Texas. 
 
 Wai.i.is, Landes & Co., wholesale 
 grocers, importers of liquors, cigars, 
 tobacco, woodenware, etc., and cotton 
 factors, Strand, between Twenty-fourth 
 and Twenty-fifth, are remarkable, not 
 merely for the business the house does 
 (variously estimated at from $1,500,000 to 
 $3,000,000 a year), but as much for their 
 long establishment, high standing and 
 rating, and solid resources. Scarcely an 
 eiiterprise of the city but they have stock in 
 and in many of them they have very large 
 interests indeed. The house was estab- 
 lished at the close of the war, in which 
 all the founders of it had actively partici- 
 pated. The original firm had for its prin- 
 cipals J. C. and J. E. Wallis and H. A. 
 Landes. The last and second named are 
 survivors of that original partnership. 
 J. C. Wallis died in 1S72, and in 1882 
 Charles L. Wallis, son of J. E., was 
 admitted to an interest. 
 
 Five traveling men sell for this house 
 and solicit consignments of cotton in very 
 nearly all of Texas, and in Western Lou- 
 isiana. The house handles all the staples 
 of the grocery trade, and receives from 
 eight to twelve thousand bales of cotton 
 a year. It is said to be the oldest house 
 of its line, that is to say, longest estab- 
 lished and in continuous business, here. 
 It has large dealings in Texas lands as 
 well as cotton. 
 
 The senior partner, Mr. J. E. Wallis 
 has been a resident of Texas nearly all 
 his life. It is now some forty-two years 
 since he first came here. He was a store- 
 
 keeper before the war, in the country. He 
 is the president of the National Bank of 
 Texas, is vice-president and one of the 
 largest stockholders in the Galveston and 
 Western Railway, the narrow gauge road 
 on the Island, is a large stockholder in 
 the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Rail- 
 road, director of the City Company 
 (already referred to in this work), direc- 
 tor also of the Gulf Cotton Press Co. 
 and of the Texas Banking and Insurance 
 Co., and with his partner, is a large holder 
 of stock in the new cotton mills and can- 
 ning factory and the Galveston Twine & 
 Cordage Co. 
 
 Mr. Landes is a director of the Texas 
 Land & Loan Co., the Galveston Real 
 Estate & Loan Co., the Galveston Can- 
 ning & Packing Co., the Galveston Cord- 
 age and Twine Co., and is interested in 
 numerous other concerns of a like char- 
 acter. 
 
 The Texas Co-operative Associa- 
 tion, an organization auxiliary in purpose, 
 and allied to the Patrons of Husbandry of 
 the State by mutual membership relations, 
 but operated as a business enterprise inde- 
 pendent of the " grange," has very large 
 stores here at the corner of Strand and 
 Twentieth street, and having been nearly 
 twelve years established is widely known 
 by its trade in nearly all the Lone Star 
 State. This Association has been incor- 
 porated and $75,000 of its authorized 
 capital stock of $100,000, has been paid 
 in. The officers of the Association are 
 R. E. Steele of Cotton Gin, president ; 
 A. J. Rose, of Salado, master of the 
 State Grange of Texas (president also 
 of the Texas State Grange Fair, and of the 
 Texas Alutual Fire Insurance Co, P. of 
 H.), secretary; J. W. Waltmann, farmer 
 and store-keeper of Jewett, treasurer, and 
 J. S. Rogers (treasurer of the Grange 
 Fair Association and secretary and treas- 
 urer of the Grange Insurance Co.), man- 
 ager. Mr. Rogers has been manager of 
 the stores here for about ten years, and 
 
84 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 much of the success which has been met 
 with, is unquestionably due to his dili- 
 gence and capacity. 
 
 The Association does a wholesale busi- 
 ness in groceries, dry goods, notions, boots 
 and shoes and hats, a cotton factorage and 
 commission business, — general merchan- 
 dising in fact, — and has transactions 
 aggi-egating for the year, between $300,- 
 000 and $350,000. Its plan and system 
 of purchase and sales, the co-operative 
 feature — have been found entirely practi- 
 cal ; the success of the institution is suf- 
 ficient proof of that. It began with the 
 exceedingly modest capital of $265, and 
 for a long time the business done by it 
 was quite moderate, but it has now a 
 working capital of $100,000, a stock on 
 hand of groceries and dry goods and com- 
 modities of these two classes, valued at 
 $92,319, and, as has been said, an annual 
 business that compares favorably with 
 that of the largest houses here located. 
 The profits of $310,000 business in 1889 
 were such that the directors have ordered 
 a sum set apart for a building fund. The 
 Association has now nearly 700 members. 
 Patrons of Husbandry in the State, and 
 although its customers are almost entirely 
 of that order, sales are frequently made 
 to others. 
 
 Mr. Rogers has been connected with the 
 Grange movement from its inception. 
 He was one of the first Southwestern 
 organizei-s of that potential body which 
 now has its ramifications in every State, 
 and he had charge of the first gi-ange 
 store opened in Texas. He came here 
 from Red River county about ten years 
 ago. The Texas Mutual Fire Insurance 
 Co., of which he is also manager, has re- 
 duced its limit of risks and is issuing its 
 certificates of membership every day. All 
 premiums paid this company not con- 
 sumed by losses, revert to the insurer 
 under certain conditions, and assist him in 
 continuing his insurance. 
 
 The advantage of the co-operative 
 
 method of business, no longer needs de- 
 monstration. It has been illustrated in 
 numerous callings, in some instances as 
 the voluntary proposal of employers. 
 It has lately been attracting more than 
 ordinary attention as a remedy for many 
 defects of prevailing industrial conditions. 
 The trusts even have grasped and applied 
 some of its most strengthening and effec- 
 tive features ; and since it has exemplifi- 
 cation in this very venture of the Patrons 
 of Husbandry, the farmer of Texas has the 
 point, the "nub," and the gist of the whole 
 argument for it, clearly presented to him. 
 The Texas Co-operative Association is 
 not engaged in any propaganda of princi- 
 ples or aims ; it is a business concern, 
 organized by business men, for business 
 purposes ; and is run as only such estab- 
 lishments can be, on strictly business prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 Weis Bros., leading wholesale dealers 
 in and importers of staple and fancy dry 
 goods, boots, shoes, notions, hats, trunks, 
 etc., in the substantial brick structure at 
 63 to 70 Strand (old numbers), do a busi- 
 ness of metropolitan character and pro- 
 portions. They carry a stock of goods 
 valued at $500,000 to $600,000, have ten 
 traveling men selling for them, besides 
 twenty-five salesmen and clerks here, and 
 dispose of $800,000 to $1,000,000 worth 
 of goods a year, chiefly in Texas, but con- 
 siderable also in Louisiana and Arkansas. 
 They have ofiices and the various lines of 
 dry goods on the first floor, notions and 
 furnishing goods on the second, boots, 
 shoes and hats on the third and fourth, 
 and a surplus stock in a warehouse in the 
 rear. 
 
 This house has been well known in 
 years past as Halff, Weis & Co., whole- 
 sale clothing and gents' furnishing goods 
 dealers, established in 1S73. Mr. Halff 
 withdrew from the original partnership 
 four years ago, and soon after a change 
 was made in the general features of the 
 business, so as to pursue a more miscella- 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 85 
 
 neous trade in dry goods and the other 
 lines mentioned. In this movement Weis 
 Bros, were only keeping abreast of the 
 times, and wisely adapting their business 
 policy to the changing conditions of the 
 trade of the day. They have always, 
 indeed, since they have been here, ex- 
 hibited intelligence and enterprising 
 methods of business. 
 
 The successful issue of their venture is 
 indicated by the number of other concerns 
 in which the house, or the partners indi- 
 vidually, are interested. Major Weis, 
 senior member of the firm, is president of 
 the Citizens' Loan Company of this city, 
 president of the Galveston Water Com- 
 mission, president also of the Galveston 
 Cotton and Woolen Mills, ex-president of 
 the Island City Savings Bank, and is a 
 director of the First National Bank, of the 
 Texas Land & Loan Co. and Galveston 
 Canning & Packing Co. Mr. R. Weis 
 also has interests of this sort that are 
 valuable. He is the credits and accounts 
 man of the firm ; Major Weis, the mana- 
 ger of the buying and sales and other out- 
 side details. 
 
 Maj. Weis derives his title from service 
 upon Gen. Oppenheimer's staff, Texas 
 contingent Confederate service, he having 
 abandoned his business in Oakland, Col- 
 orado county, in this State, to enlist with 
 the San Antonio banker and merchant. 
 In 1865, he returned to Oakland and re- 
 embarked in business as one of the firm of 
 Weis & Bock. In 1867, he sold out to 
 Bock and came here, and was a partner in 
 Strauss & Co., cotton and merchandising, 
 for a time, and until he and his brother 
 bought out Strauss and effected the part- 
 nership with Halff. His brother had 
 been with him in Oakland and came with 
 him here. In fact, their business interests 
 have been identical, so to speak, ever 
 since the war. 
 
 J. RosENFiELD & Co. (J. Rosenficld, 
 the Co. being nominal) do the largest bus- 
 ness of any house here engaged in notions 
 
 WEIS BROTHERS' ESTABLISHMENT. 
 
 and fancy goods exclusivelv. Mr. Rosen- 
 field occupies the whole of one building on 
 the Strand, between Twenty-second and 
 Twenty-third, and the ground floor of 
 another, with as varied and well selected a 
 stock of notions, fancy goods, ladies' hats, 
 stationery and toys, as the original markets 
 from which such supplies are drawn 
 afford. He is himself an expert in his 
 business, qualified for it by a life-long 
 service in it, and is withal, an enterprising 
 and thorough manager, giving all his time 
 to his trade. He is a property owner, 
 vice-president of the Citizens' Loan Co. 
 and is a stockholder in a number of other 
 enterprises here. 
 
 Rice, Baulard & Co., dealers in paints 
 and oils, glass, paper-hangings, etc., con- 
 tracting painters and manufacturers of 
 paints, at 77 Tremont street, do the largest 
 business in their line and ai^e unquestion- 
 ably the oldest house of the kind in the 
 
86 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 State. It was established by Jos. W. 
 Rice, who came to Galveston soon after 
 its foundation, fifty years ago, and who is 
 still actively engaged in the business. He 
 is the oldest merchant, both in years and 
 length of service, in fact, of Galveston — 
 the patriarch of the business commu- 
 nity, esteemed generally for a business 
 record without a blemish and for the 
 strength and integrity of his personal 
 character. 
 
 Air. Rice began business here as a mas- 
 ter painter. The late Victor J. Baulard 
 was apprenticed to him about forty-five 
 years ago, and in 1850 they founded the 
 
 RICE, BAULARD & COMPANY'S PLACE. 
 
 house of Rice & Baulard, which was 
 engaged in jobbing and in painting con- 
 tracts, before the war. About twenty years 
 ago Mr. Geo. W. Outterside, Mr. Rice's 
 partner now, engaged with the firm of 
 Rice & Baulard, and was admitted to an 
 interest in 1881. Mr. Baulard died in 
 October, 1889, and his interest is still held 
 by his widow. Mr. Rice gives affairs a 
 general supervision, and Mr. Outterside 
 manages the outside affairs and does 
 the buying. 
 
 They handle painters' supplies of all 
 kinds, paper hangings and window shades, 
 
 and are agents for the sale of such stand- 
 ard materials as Collier's, the Southern Co. 
 and Carter's white lead, Devoe's artists' 
 materials, Johnson's kalsomine, and var- 
 nishes. Glass is a specialty with them, and 
 they carry a large stock of it. They for- 
 merly manufactured paints with machin- 
 ery, as the Galveston Paint Co., and still 
 employ about ten or a dozen hands on 
 painting work in the city. They carry a 
 $35,000 stock and have business in both 
 Texas and Louisiana. 
 
 F. Cannon & Co., Strand, between 
 Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth, are a 
 leading importing and commission house 
 of Galveston. They have now been about 
 three years established. They are import- 
 ers of coffee and general commission mer- 
 chants for the sale of sugar, molasses, 
 flour, grain, provisions, bagging and ties, 
 etc. 
 
 Hawlev & Heidenheimer, importers 
 of coffee and salt, corner of Twenty- 
 fourth and Strand, do a. very large busi- 
 ness. They are in regular receipt of 
 cargoes from Liverpool, Rio and Mexican 
 ports, and they do a big trade also in 
 sugar. Their sales are car lots altogether, 
 made to dealers in all parts of Texas and 
 the trade territoi-y of Galveston. 
 
 Mr. R. B. Hawley of the firm, has 
 been promment as a merchant here for the 
 last ten years. He was a delegate, rep- 
 resenting the city, at the recent session of 
 the Inter-State Deep Harbor convention, 
 held at Topeka, Kansas, and he gives an 
 active support to all measures calculated 
 to forward the interests of the port of 
 Galveston. Mr. Heidenheimer was for- 
 merly of Heidenheimer Bros., wholesale 
 grocers, and is still one of Heidenheimer 
 & Co., their successors. He is a man of 
 wealth, the owner of lands and property 
 in the State, and has been a notable fig- 
 ure in the business community for over 
 thirty years. 
 
 M. M. Lew, importer of coffee, man- 
 ufacturers' agent and merchandise broker. 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 87 
 
 Strand, between Twenty-fourth and 
 Twenty-fifth, is the sole representative 
 here for a number of the leading gi-oceiy, 
 canning and specialty houses of the coun- 
 try, and does perhaps the largest business 
 as a merchandise broker in Galveston. 
 His transactions in coffee, are however, 
 a more important feature of his trade. 
 He handled last year of the Mexican and 
 Brazilian berry many thousands of bags, 
 and had miscellaneous business transac- 
 tions to a notable amount. He supplies 
 a State as well as Galveston patronage, 
 and nearly all the jobbing houses of this 
 city and Houston are his patrons. 
 
 Mr. Levy is a New Yorker by birth and 
 was a merchant in Mexico for some years 
 before he settled here in 1879. He was 
 one of the firm of Uedemann & Levy 
 in 1880, afterward Levy & Coutant, but 
 for the last five years has been doing busi- 
 ness for his own account solely. He has 
 intelligent and experienced assistance in 
 his oftice work and also on the street. 
 
 J. W. Coutant, manufacturers' agent 
 of this city, with offices on Strand between 
 Twenty-first and Twenty-second, repre- 
 sents a number of houses each of which is 
 the recognized leader of its line. Among 
 these are the Samuel Cupples Woodenware 
 Co. and the Diamond Match Co. of St. 
 Louis ; James S. Kirk & Co., laundry and 
 toilet soaps, Chicago; H. M. Anthony 
 of New York, " Sterling " ball potash and 
 Horsford's bread preparations ; E. R. 
 Durkee & Co., New York, spices and 
 extracts ; John D wight & Co., New York, 
 bi-carbonate of soda ^ Atmore & Co., 
 Philadelphia, mince meats ; Corning & 
 Co., Peoria, 111., whiskies; the Peoria 
 Grape Sugar Co., glucose; Powell & 
 Smith, New York, fine cigars ; L. Pickert 
 & Co., Boston, mackerel; Justin J. Lan- 
 gles & Co., New Orleans, crackers; 
 Henry Verhage, Vienna and ham sausage, 
 Cincinnati. 
 
 Mr. Coutant has been in this business 
 ever since he came here, some ten years 
 
 ago. He sells to the Galveston jobbers 
 only, and carries a sample stock of these 
 various lines here. He is unquestionably 
 a leading merchandise broker of the 
 city. 
 
 Ratto, Lang & Weinberger, 67 and 
 69 Strand, between Twenty-fourth and 
 Twenty-fifth, were established last April 
 by a consolidation of two old houses, 
 Lang& Weinbei-ger and T. Ratto & Co., 
 both of whom had been fifteen or twenty 
 years in business here. This combination 
 makes one of the strongest houses, if not 
 the strongest of its line, in the State of 
 Texas. 
 
 The new establishment is engaged in 
 the same lines conducted by these parties 
 before they came together, viz., general 
 commission trade in fruit, produce and 
 cigars, wholesale groceries, and the man- 
 ufacture of confectionery. Four traveling 
 men are maintained on the road, and thir- 
 ty-one employes are engaged altogether, 
 most of them in the manufacture of stick 
 and mixed candies, carried on upon the 
 third floor of the firm's place of business. 
 The sales being made comprehend a 
 somewhat larger trade territory than most 
 of the business concerns here attempt to 
 cover, viz., Texas, Kansas, Indian Terri- 
 tory, and from Louisiana eastward to Key 
 West, but this expansion is justified by 
 the enlarged prospects of the house since 
 the union. 
 
 The street floor of this establishment is 
 that upon which general sales are made 
 and bulk goods handled ; the second holds 
 a stock of cigars and confectionery ; the 
 third, as has been said, is the candy fac- 
 tory. The house already does the bulk of 
 the tropical fruit trade of the city, and it 
 has large orders for its specialty, the well 
 known "Eagle" brand of stick candy. 
 
 Mr. Ratto of the firm, is of Italian 
 birth, but was raised in Memphis, and has 
 been a merchant and manufacturer of 
 candy here for twenty years. He will 
 give especial attention to the candy trade 
 
88 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 of the house. Mr. Lang came here after 
 he had served his four years in the war as 
 a Confederate soldier, and has been in the 
 line he follows now, ever since he settled 
 here. He will give the fruit and produce 
 trade of the house supervision. Mr. 
 Weinberger came here from Austin in 
 1873. He had been in the business there, 
 and embarked in it with Air. Lang here in 
 1879. The office, credits and accounts are 
 his department. All three own property 
 here and have a solid stake in the com- 
 munity. Mr. Weinberger is a director 
 of the People's Loan and Homestead 
 Association and of the Island City Sav- 
 ings Bank. 
 
 J. B. Aguilo & Co., general commis- 
 sion merchants, importers of foreign and 
 dealers in domestic fruits and in Western 
 produce, and wholesale grocers, at 212 and 
 214 Strand, do a very large city business 
 (probably $85,000 a year), and have con- 
 siderable patronage in the country also. 
 They make a specialty of the trade in but- 
 ter and cheese, car-load lots of apples, 
 potatoes, etc., in their season, and are 
 usually stocked up to the extent of ten or 
 fifteen thousand dollars' worth of all the 
 lines they handle. Mr. Aguilo, senior 
 member of the firm, manages the business 
 generally, and Mr. C. Fittger, his partner, 
 goes out on the road to sell the country 
 trade and to solicit consignments. 
 
 Mr. Aguilo is a native of New Orleans, 
 but has lived in Galveston since his child- 
 hood. He was with Seeligson & Co. and 
 Wallis & Landes, leading houses here, 
 before he went into business for himself, 
 and these, with Adoue <& Lobit, bankers, 
 and B. O. Bowers & Co. of New York, are 
 the firm's references. He began business 
 here as one of the firm of Wulf & Aguilo 
 in 1883, but bought out Wulf three years 
 after. Mr. Fittger and he have been in 
 partnership now about a year. 
 
 Mr. Aguilo is captain of the Washing- 
 ton Guards, one of the crack militia com- 
 panies of the State. Mr. Fittger is a 
 
 native of the city and has been with Mr. 
 Aguilo from his boyhood 
 
 The J. S. Brown Hardware Co., the 
 largest in resources and trade and most 
 widely known of Texas hardware houses, 
 presents, in every feature, the characteris- 
 tics of a house of the highest order. It 
 has been forty-three yeai's established and 
 does a business of $1,000,000 a year, has 
 an office in New York city, for purchase 
 of its stock; handles the fullest lines of 
 any concern competing with it in its trade 
 territory ; and has all the resources to 
 continue it in its lead. Its founder, Mr. 
 J. M. Brown, the longest experienced, if 
 not the oldest merchant of Galveston, 
 still survives and shares in its manage- 
 ment, but his son, Mr. J. S. Brown, is the 
 executive head of it. It has increased its 
 capital stock largely since the incorpora- 
 tion of the stock company to conduct the 
 business in 1885. 
 
 The stock carried by this house com- 
 prises shelf and builders' hardware of all 
 sorts, carriage makers' materials, sad- 
 dlery hardware, tools of all kinds, agi-i- 
 cultural implements and wagons, barb 
 wire, powder and shot, rubber andleathei 
 belting, the Anchor brand of nails, 
 Disston's saws, Howe and Fairbank's 
 scales and wares of every sort commer- 
 cially classed as hardware. These are 
 supplied it by direct importations, by 
 purchase from the manufacturers, or by 
 its New York buyer, Mr. Le Count, 
 located at 82 Stewart building, and they 
 fill here, the main building of the firm 
 having a block front on one street by 120 
 on the other and a warehouse opposite 
 besides, larger premises than those of any 
 hardware house south of Mason & Dixon's 
 line. The offices of the house are in its 
 larger establishment, corner of Strand and 
 Tremont street. Altogether 31.000 square 
 feet of floor service is occupied for sales 
 departments. 
 
 The J. S. Brown Hardware Co. has 
 six traveling men out. They sell every- 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 89 
 
 where in Texas, and also in Western 
 Louisiana. It has twenty employes here. 
 J. M. Brown is its president; J. S. 
 Brown vice-president. The former is 
 emphatically, as a business man, self- 
 made. He began business here when 
 Galveston was an insignificant place, and 
 he has grasped all the possibilities that 
 were unfolded in his pursuit, by its 
 growth. He has been a busy man, but 
 he has still found time for other invest- 
 ments, and is a large owner in many of 
 the local enterprises. His residence here 
 
 streets. The five views accompanying 
 this matter illustrate the interior arrange- 
 ments and very complete appointments 
 of this establishment. On the first floor 
 the retail salesrooms and offices cover 
 44 by I20 feet. These departments are 
 handsomely fitted up in walnut, with 
 show cases for musical instruments of 
 every description, and shelving for sheet 
 music and musical works of all kinds. 
 The mail order department is also on 
 this floor. 
 
 The second floor is reached bv a broad 
 
 is one of the finest examples in the city, 
 of the luxurious old-fashioned Southern 
 home. He has been a representative 
 merchant since the earliest period of 
 Galveston's real development, a time 
 antedating the war, and his son follows 
 in his footsteps in patient and diligent 
 attention to the affairs of the solid enter- 
 prise which the elder created, but to 
 which the younger is as much devoted. 
 
 Thomas Goggan & Bro., the most 
 notable house of Texas in the music trade, 
 have their headquarters at Galveston in a 
 building owned by them and situated 
 corner of Market and Twenty-second 
 
 and elegantly finished staircase. This 
 department is devoted exclusively to the 
 display of the stock of pianos and organs 
 carried by the house, and as many as 150 
 instruments can frequently be seen in it, 
 among them the finest Steinway, Weber, 
 Mathusek and Hale pianos, and Mason & 
 Hamlin and Kimball organs. There is 
 an apartment on this floor for tuning pur- 
 poses, and a room designed for the use of 
 music teachers and their pupils. Special 
 attention has been given to the lighting 
 and ventilation of these rooms. 
 
 The third floor, is in area, the same as 
 the rest, but it is divided into three rooms^ 
 
90 
 
 f 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 T 
 
 fi \\^JT^ 
 
 rf_ 
 
 
 -/ J5t rioor- Sheet Music and General Retail Salesroom 
 
 A Galveston, Texas 
 
 ni\. » 
 
 
 two of them 20 by 70 feet each. One of 
 these is utilized for the storage of the very 
 complete wholesale stock of musical 
 wares, merchandise and instruments of 
 the house. Another, as the engraving 
 shows, is the workshop of the house, the 
 most thoroughly equipped in the South. 
 All the tools used in the craft have been 
 
 provided for it, and a supply of everything 
 necessary for the repair of pianos, organs 
 and other instruments, is kept on hand in 
 it. A corps of skilled workmen is 
 engaged in it the year x^ound. The 
 remainder of this floor is resei'ved for 
 bulky goods, packing cases, etc. 
 
 The building is of brick, substantially 
 
 I 
 
 MmfL 
 
 Galvestoa JexaT 
 
 p Piano and Or$an Wareroom 2 -Floor. 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 91 
 
 built by the firm, expressly for the busi- 
 ness they do. It has its elevator, water 
 cisterns, and every modern appliance to 
 facilitate trade. The house has been 
 engaged in business here for nearly twen- 
 ty-five years, and since it was first estab- 
 lished has survived no less than fifteen 
 competitors. It has successively estab- 
 
 lished branches at Houston, San Antonio, 
 Waco, Austin and other thriving cities of 
 Texas, and has acquired prestige among 
 the music houses of the South. Its name 
 is a guarantee for the instruments sold by 
 it, for its policy has been to recommend 
 them for just what they are. Sales are 
 made by it, either for cash or on easy 
 
92 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 terms, as low as by any house North or 
 South. 
 
 W. H. Pollard & Co., Water street, 
 Brick levee, foot of Nineteenth street, are 
 importers direct and dealers in masons' 
 and plasterers' material, nine years estab- 
 lished. Mr. Pollard started with a part- 
 ner, but about four years ago bought him 
 out, continuing, however, under the old 
 firm name. He has had a successful 
 experience in the business and is now ex- 
 tending his field as fast as circumstances 
 
 in lime, cement, sidewalk and ornamen- 
 tal tiling, fire brick, sand, hair, slate roof- 
 ing, drain pipe, soapstone finish, marble 
 dust, etc. He handles first-class materials 
 only, carries a large stock and does an 
 excellent business. 
 
 He hails originally from Cornwall, 
 England, but has lived here since 1869 
 and was first engaged in market garden- 
 ing here. A few years after his arrival, 
 however, he took an agency for Cedar 
 Bayou brick, and so drifted into the line 
 
 I'gVto'E'^Gb^H'JO 
 
 W. H. I'OLLAkl.'s lUILDlNl. MAIKRIAL WAR KllUlhE. 
 
 will permit, into the West, with which, 
 relations, fostered by now mutually 
 dependent interests, are rapidly being 
 cemented. His location is unexcelled 
 here for shipping and receiving purposes. 
 He is at the wharf where cargoes can be 
 discharged, with railroad and side track 
 immediately adjoining, where ship and 
 rail, in fact, meet. 
 
 Mr. Pollard is agent for Wright's Cedar 
 Bayou brick, the best building brick in 
 this market, for the Dyckerhoff and 
 Wm. Leavitt & Co.'s, Castle brand, and 
 other Portland cements ; is a large dealer 
 
 he follows. He owns property here and 
 is one of the most enterprising business 
 men of Galveston. 
 
 A. J. Perkins & Co., lumber dealers, 
 corner of Twenty-seventh and Strand, do 
 a very large business ; are one of the most 
 important lumber firms of the State, in 
 fact. Mr. Perkins is a storekeeper of 
 Lake Charles, La., and is also interested 
 in the saw mill of Perkins & Miller, from 
 which the Galveston yards of his firm are 
 supplied ill part. The firm also owns an 
 interest in a logging railroad in the Lake 
 Charles district, which is one of the most 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 93 
 
 productive of the lumber regions of the 
 South. Mr. C. H. Moore, the resident 
 and managing partner, is a partner in 
 Lock, Moore & Co., lumbermen of Lake 
 Chai'les, and also in a lumber mill at Wal- 
 lisville, Texas. Mr. Perkins is a wealthy 
 man and devotes himself to other affairs 
 in which he has money invested. Mr. 
 Moore is an experienced lumber dealer, 
 and he gives an almost undivided atten- 
 tion to the concerns of A. J. Perkins & 
 Co. here. 
 
 He is a man of high standing in the 
 community and is a stockholder in a num- 
 ber of local enterprises. He came here 
 from California in 1867, and was at first 
 engaged, for several years, in the sash, 
 door and blind trade. In 1878 his place 
 was destroyed by fire, and he afterwards 
 was a partner in W. F. Stewart & Co.. 
 lumber dealers. In 1881 he severed that 
 connection and formed a partnership with 
 Mr. Perkins. They formerly handled 
 sash, doors, blinds, etc., but now deal 
 only in lumber and shingles, the cut of the 
 Lake Charles and other concerns already 
 mentioned. 
 
 They make a specialty of railroad con- 
 tracts and are shippers to Mexico and all 
 along the Gulf coast. They have about 
 $50,000 invested in their business here 
 and are doing about $300,000 of sales a 
 year. They employ several hundred men 
 in the various enterprises of logging, lum- 
 bering, mills, etc. Their yards here cover 
 very nearly an entire block. 
 
 Byrne & Jones, lumber dealers, hand- 
 ling also doors, sash, blinds and builders' 
 hardware, at Twenty-ninth and Mechanic 
 streets, have been established about six 
 years. They were raised in the business 
 here and have a thorough knowledge of 
 it. Many of the building contractors of 
 the city are their customers and they have 
 quite a patronage besides in different parts 
 of the State, chiefly along the line of the 
 railroads running out from here. 
 
 The partners in these yards, Messrs. 
 
 J. P. Byrne and J. C. Jones, are natives of 
 the city, long known here in both social 
 and business circles. They are progres- 
 sive and energetic, and their house is 
 rising in importance among the solid con- 
 cerns of the city. Mr. Byrne attends to 
 all the outside affairs of his firm, Mr. 
 Jones to the office, finances and accounts. 
 
 Wm. Schadt, dealer in doors, sash, 
 blinds, mouldings, stair work, builders' 
 hardware, paints, oils, etc., at Mechanic 
 and Twenty-eighth streets, is successor to 
 Wm. F. Stewart & Co., a house of the 
 same character established in 1874. He 
 was himself formerly engaged in the 
 lumber business here, and in 18S8 he 
 bought out, besides Stewart & Co., the 
 sash and blind business of A. J. Perkins 
 & Co., and of Byrne & Jones. At the 
 same time, he sold Byrne & Jones his 
 lumber business. He began here in the 
 lumber and building materials trade. In 
 1S68, with C. H. Moore & Co. and has 
 followed the business ever since. 
 
 Mr. Schadt has about $30,000 invested 
 in a very complete stock, and is doing an 
 excellent business, not in Galveston alone, 
 but also in all the adjacent country. He 
 has several valuable and profitable agen- 
 cies, among them that for the Chicago 
 Rubber Paints Co.'s specialty, ready 
 mixed rubber paints. He has had strong 
 competition to meet in building up his 
 business but is now thoroughly established 
 in the confidence and favor of a large 
 patronage. 
 
 He came to Galveston in his childhood, 
 and has spent all his life here except the 
 four years of war, during which he served 
 the Confederacy in Hood's Brigade and 
 was in all the engagements in which that 
 command participated. He was wounded 
 at Chickamauga, and in the battles of the 
 Wilderness several times, and was cap- 
 tured at Darbytown ; and while he was 
 still under parole as a prisoner of war 
 the civil conflict ended. He is a man of 
 some property here outside his business, 
 
94 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 is a director of the Island City Savings 
 Bank, a stockholder in the Citizens Loan 
 Co. and in the Texas Standard Cotton Oil 
 Co. of this city also. 
 
 The Redfield Compaxv, dealers in 
 builders' material, at 171 Mechanic street, 
 are State agents for the J. E. Bolles & 
 Co. wire and iron works, Detroit, Mich., 
 William Willer's celebrated inside sliding 
 blinds, Milwaukee, Wis. ; the New York 
 Architectural Terra Cotta Co., the A. A. 
 Griffing iron works, Jersey City, N. J., 
 manufacturers of the Bundy radiators, 
 Wm. B. Dunning, Geneva, N. Y., in- 
 ventor and manufacturer of the Dunning 
 boiler for steam and hot water heating ; 
 the Warner Elevator Manufacturing Co., 
 Cincinnati, Ohio ; the Van Duzen Gas 
 Engine Co., Cincinnati, Ohio; the Gum- 
 mey-Speiring Co., Philadelphia and Liver- 
 pool, tin plate and metal shingles, and a 
 number of other large manufacturers in 
 building material. They are the only 
 firm in the United States that controls an 
 entire State for the sale of the Wilier 
 inside sliding blinds. 
 
 They now do a business aggregating 
 over $350,000 per annum, and rapidly 
 increasing, and their trade extends all 
 over Texas ; they have also a large trade 
 in Arkansas, Louisiana and the Republic 
 of Mexico. 
 
 Mr. E. F. Redfield, the president and 
 general manager of the company, came 
 from Tennessee to Texas in 1872. He 
 had previously been engaged in business 
 in Nashville and Jasper, in that State ; he 
 is a veteran of four years' service in the 
 C. S. A., is the president of the Journal 
 of Commerce Co. here, and is a very 
 enterprising and energetic business man, 
 well known and well liked all over Texas. 
 
 Edmond Browne, slater and whole- 
 sale dealer in roofing slate, at Houston 
 and Galveston, has his ofiice and yards 
 here at Twenty-first street and Avenue A. 
 He is the pioneer in his business in Texas, 
 and the only dealer of anv note in the two 
 
 cities in which he has establishments. 
 He has been in this line in this part of the 
 country since 1865, and was in it before 
 that, in Pennsylvania, his native State, 
 He has fifteen hands steadily employed 
 here, on both new and old work, and has 
 about $30,000 invested in the business. 
 He is also a member of the wholesale 
 grocery firm of J. W. Haskins & Co. of 
 Houston, and has accumulated considera- 
 ble property in the city on Buffalo Bayou. 
 He does work in all parts of Texas and 
 frequently also in Eastern Louisiana, and 
 is a shipper of the stock he deals in to all 
 points in Galveston's trade territory. 
 
 The Galveston Coal Company, 
 which has yards and offices on Strand, 
 between Nineteenth and Twentieth streets, 
 has a trade of very large proportions. It 
 is a dealer in both anthracite and bitumin- 
 ous coals, and handles steam, blacksmith- 
 ing and domestic varieties in very great 
 quantity. Its receipts are from English, 
 Pennsylvania, Alabama and Colorado 
 mines, and its shipments are to places as far 
 distant as those of Arkansas, Kansas and 
 Mexico, as well as those in Texas and adja- 
 cent Louisiana. 
 
 This company was organized in 1873. 
 Capt. Robert Irvine, capitalist of this city, 
 is its president; C. L. Beissner, capitalist 
 and Capt. Irvine's partner in lighterage 
 and other business affairs here, and also a 
 very substantial man, is treasurer, and F. 
 C. Jefferey manager. Mr. Jefferey has 
 been managing this business for fifteen 
 years. 
 
 Park & McRae, wholesale coal deal- 
 ers, corner of Twentieth and Strand, are 
 handling eight or ten thousand tons of 
 coal now a year, and expect to complete 
 arrangements, during the current year, by 
 which they will have forty to fifty thou- 
 sand tons to dispose of, and thus become 
 the leading coal dealers at Galveston. 
 They will then^make an addition to their 
 yards, at the wharf below them, 300 x 100 
 feet, and will put up an elevator having 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 95 
 
 600 tons daily capacity to handle Alabama 
 coal consigned to them by the Export 
 Coal Co. of Pensacola, for whom they 
 will be exclusive agents. They will con- 
 tinue, however, to handle, as at present, 
 anthracite and foreign coals. 
 
 This firm runs nineteen teams for city 
 delivery, and has quite a Texas trade 
 besides. They handle building and filling 
 sand largely also, and have a contract 
 with the city to do all the grading and fill- 
 ing of the streets. 
 
 Mr. Park was formerly engaged here 
 in the wholesale grocery business, and is 
 now a member of the firm of H. N. Con- 
 nor & Co., book and stationery dealers of 
 Ft. Worth, although a resident here. Both 
 he and Mr. McRae are, as this account 
 discloses, enterprising business men ; in 
 fact, they may be taken as excellent repre- 
 sentatives of the younger generation of 
 Galveston merchants. Mr. McRae came 
 here from Richmond, Va., in 1870, and 
 after a short time spent in banking and 
 insurance embarked in business with Mr. 
 Park. They both own property here and 
 are confident from their own experiences 
 that Galveston's future is hardly yet fore- 
 shadowed. 
 
 Chas. Dalian, importer and wholesale 
 dealer in wines and liquors on Market 
 street between Twenty-fourth and Twen- 
 ty-fifth, is a Parisian by birth, but has 
 been in the liquor trade in this country 
 since 1S53, and in business for himself 
 since 1857. He was in it at New Orleans 
 for thirteen years before he came here in 
 1865, and established himself. 
 
 He makes a specialty of fine goods and 
 importations and besides the patronage of 
 most of the retail dealers of the city has 
 a State trade. He is agent for the Due 
 de Montebello champagnes, and for J. M. 
 Harper and A. H. Meyers' Schuylkill 
 malt, and he imports direct, celebrated 
 English whiskies, Bordeaux clarets and 
 other French wines and cordials of all 
 kinds. Among other specialties he handles 
 
 Peychaud, Ballou and other bitters, and 
 Wm. J. Lemp's St. Louis beer. In short, 
 he carries the finest kind of an imported 
 and domestic stock of high priced goods 
 for which his house is known to be head- 
 quarters, throughout the State. He sel- 
 dom has less than a $25,000 stock on 
 hand and frequently more, and he does a 
 business of fully $100,000 a year. He 
 is agent also for Lescarret & Co.'s Bor- 
 deaux line of sailing packets which call 
 here at intervals. 
 
 Mr. Dalian is the oldest of the local 
 jobbers of liquors, that is to say, the 
 longest established. He has been quite 
 successful in his business and has accumu- 
 lated a considerable estate, part of which 
 is the property known as Dalian's Gar- 
 dens on the beach, a place frequented by 
 the best people of Galveston. He is also 
 a stockholder in a number of the local 
 enterprises and industries. 
 
 The Protection Oil Co., under which 
 name Messrs. C. B. Pettit & Co. have 
 been doing business here for a number of 
 years, has its place of business at 2128 
 Market street. This company is engaged 
 in the trade in illuminating and lubricating 
 oils, and lamps, lanterns and burnei's of 
 all kinds. One of the proprietors (Mr. 
 C. W. Robinson) is established in Hous- 
 ton and the house has branches and repre- 
 sentatives in other parts of the State. 
 The headquarters of the company is at 
 New Orleans, and its affairs there are 
 managed by President Pettit. 
 
 The Galveston house, known generally 
 as C. B. Pettit & Co., is managed by Mr. 
 G. R. Christie, a native of this city. A 
 hot competition waged against the Pro- 
 tection, by the Texas representatives of 
 the Standard Oil Co., has been met by the 
 Protection with so much spirit, that of 
 late its greater rival has somewhat abated 
 its efforts. The specialty of the Protec- 
 tion Company is its " Ursoleum " brand, 
 a 150 degree illuminating oil, but a very 
 extensive business is done by it in bulk 
 
96 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 and barrel oils of all kinds, in gasoline 
 iind oil stoves, hanging and standing 
 lamps, burners and chimneys, sold chiefly 
 here, and by mail order in the trade terri- 
 tory of the city. 
 
 Palmer & Rev, type founders and 
 press builders, of San Francisco, the larg- 
 est printers' supply house on the Pacific 
 coast, have been established for over thirty 
 years, and are incorporated with $500,000 
 capital. They have branches in Portland, 
 Oregon, and Los Angeles, Cal., and in 
 Galveston, the latter established in May, 
 1S89, and under the management of O. 
 Paget, a printer and newspaper man of 
 twenty years' experience. The company 
 has established a branch house in Dallas 
 also, with Capt. J. O. Stanage as man- 
 ager ; but the State trade is to be done 
 from here ; and also a business in Eastern 
 Louisiana, New Mexico and Mexico. 
 
 Palmer & Rey have a very large foun- 
 dry and machine shops in San Francisco, 
 and are manufacturing there the "Califor- 
 nia Reliable" job press and "California 
 Reliable" cylinder press, which have 
 taken many premiums at State fairs, nota- 
 bly at the Dallas Exposition of 1889. They 
 handle printers' material of all kinds, and 
 carry at the branches, as well as in the 
 parent concern, a large stock of these and 
 of inks of all kinds. They have leased a 
 large building here, and have laid in a 
 complete assortment of all the articles in 
 their specimen book, and they contemplate 
 a venture here soon, employing 150 hands, 
 a full account of which will be given in a 
 later edition of this work. 
 
 They circulate also a monthly, contain- 
 ing information of interest to those who 
 follow the art preservative — the Pacific 
 Printer. Their place is on Strand, be- 
 tween Twenty-second and Twenty-third. 
 
 B. R. Davis & Bro., wholesale and 
 retail dealers in furniture and carpets, on 
 Market street, between Twenty-fourth and 
 Twenty-fifth, carry a larger stock and do 
 a larger business than anv house in the 
 
 State, They own and occupy a three- 
 story building, which is '$)6^ 120 feet, and 
 this is stocked with as complete lines as 
 can be found in one establishment any- 
 where in this country, the whole valued 
 at $125,000. 
 
 The house has been in business for 
 thirty-two years and is known wherever 
 Galveston has trade. B. R Davis, who 
 founded it, is dead, but his interest is held 
 by his relict, and the business is managed 
 by the surviving pai'tner, J. P. Davis, who 
 has been one of the firm since 1865. He 
 is a Pennsylvanian by birth but a resident 
 here from his youth, and is a man thor- 
 oughly posted in all the details of the fur- 
 niture trade. He gives an undivided 
 attention to the affairs of the house, which 
 are many and various. It has sixteen 
 salesmen, besides other employes. 
 
 Baldinger Bros., corner of Mechanic 
 and Twenty-second streets, are leading 
 dealers in crockery, glassware, house- 
 furnishing wares and goods, baby car- 
 riages, bicycles, etc., doing both a whole- 
 sale and retail business, and having a 
 large jobbing trade in Texas and Western 
 Louisiana, and a ^particularly good local 
 retail patronage. The house is one of the 
 oldest in any line hei^e. It was established 
 in 1843 by the father of its present pro- 
 prietor, and has been located on the same 
 property since 1850. It was originally a 
 grocery house, dealing in crockery and 
 glassware incidentally, but after the war 
 the present line was adopted by its foun- 
 der. 
 
 The building occupied by this house is 
 a three-story brick. Besides that two 
 warehouses are required for the stock, 
 which is one of as much variety as is 
 usually found in the large cities. It 
 includes imported as well as domestic 
 wares, and is especially complete in all 
 the requisites of domestic economy and 
 ornamentation. 
 
 E. E. Baldinger, a son of the founder of 
 the house, is principal in the management 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 97 
 
 of the business. He is a native of the 
 city and has been in the trade from his 
 youth up. 
 
 J, J. ScHOTT, druggist, at 317 and 219 
 Market street, established himself first in 
 that line here in 1S67, and was entirely 
 successful in it. He sold out in 1S85 to 
 Tarrant & King, so as to engage in 
 manufacturing specialties, but bought his 
 successors out in 18S8, and returned to 
 his original business. 
 
 He has, in all probability, the largest 
 retail drug house in the South. He has 
 six prescription clerks besides his regular 
 salesmen, and his stock is as varied as can 
 be found anywhere. He is sales agent 
 for a large number of specialties, among 
 the rest, Bucklin's remedies, Humphrey's 
 and Boericke & Tafel's homoeopathic 
 medicines. Hawk's spectacles, Johann 
 Hoff's malt extract, the "Woodcock" 
 rye, and the Irondequoit Wine Co.'s 
 preparations of claret, port and sherry, 
 packed especially for druggists. 
 
 His own specialties are numerous. 
 Schott's marking ink is used largely in all 
 the cotton States, for marking cotton. 
 Schott's cologne is preferred by many to 
 the imported article. It sells as far away 
 as New England. He manufactures, also, 
 extracts, oils and essences, tonics, lotions, 
 tooth powders, and a number of proprie- 
 tary remedies, which have preference with 
 the trade for their selling qualities, and he 
 handles about everything known in the 
 business in the way of sundries, in the 
 various departments of his place. 
 
 Many prescriptions received by mail 
 are filled in this establishment, and goods 
 are sent from it to all parts of Texas. 
 
 Wiley & Nicholls, warehousemen 
 and forwarding agents, cornier of Nine- 
 teent sti-eet and Strand, make a specialty 
 of heavy hauling, and run seven three- 
 mule floats for that purpose. They num- 
 ber among their patrons many of the 
 principal business houses of the city, and 
 they do considerable business for shippers 
 
 of all parts of the country. They have 
 five storage sheds for their warehouse and 
 forwarding business on the block back of 
 their offices; these are I30 by 100, or 
 about 350 feet square. They employ 
 fifteen or twenty hands the year round. 
 
 As forwarders they do considerable 
 business for safe, agricultural machinery 
 and implement manufacturers, and their 
 facilities and exj^erience both for these are 
 excellent. Mr. Wiley followed the sea, 
 as master of vessels, until he came here 
 some ten years ago, and then accepted a 
 position with Geo. M. Steirer & Co., in 
 this same line ; and Mr. Nicholls was like- 
 wise a mariner before he took up a resi- 
 dence here and obtained the place of 
 warehouseman with Steirer & Co. About 
 two years ago they formed a partnership 
 and bought out their employers. Steirer 
 & Co. were the successors to R. P. Sar- 
 gent & Co., who succeeded to the business 
 of N. H. Ricker & Co., established in 
 1869, so that the business of Wiley & 
 Nicholls has been established now for over 
 twenty years. 
 
 J. Levy & Bro. have the largest livery 
 and sales stables here, and an undertaking 
 establishment connected with it, and have 
 also sales stables in St. Louis at 1446 
 Broadway. Their undertaking depart- 
 ment here is on Winnie street between 
 Twenty-first and Twenty-second. They 
 have an experienced manager and funeral 
 director employed there, and four hearses, 
 eight carriages and sixteen horses used for 
 no other purpose. 
 
 Their general sale and livery stables are 
 on Church sti'eet between Twenty-second 
 and Twenty-third. Here they have twenty 
 carriages, buggies, etc., and fifty riding 
 and driving horses. They have about 
 $50,000 invested in the business in Gal- 
 veston, and do $150,000 of trade a year. 
 They are also the lai-gest dealers in car- 
 riages, buggies, harness, etc., in the city, 
 and always have a large stock of these 
 on hand in their salesroom and warehouse. 
 
98 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 Mr. Ben Levy manages affairs here, 
 Mr. Joe Levy in St. Louis. They came 
 heie in 1865 and were in mercantile busi- 
 ness at first, but have been in this line 
 solely since 1867 or 186S. 
 
 C. D. Holmes, jobbing and retail gro- 
 cer and dealer in ship stores, feed and 
 seeds, has been a resident of Galveston 
 for forty-one years, and has been in busi- 
 ness here since 1865. He has been a 
 member of the Board of Health, and active 
 always in public affairs, and he is intei-ested 
 in street railroad and other local projects, 
 besides his business. 
 
 Mr. Holmes has a large trade with the 
 shipping frequenting this port, and does 
 considerable as a contractor supplying 
 the government. His local retail trade 
 employs three delivery wagons, and his 
 seed trade, mostly with country patrons, 
 is by no means insignificant. His place 
 of business is on Market street, between 
 Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth. 
 
 The Mercantile Agency of R. G. 
 Dun & Co., which was established in 
 New York in 1841, has nine branches in 
 Texas ; namely, Galveston, Houston, 
 Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, 
 Waco, Sherman and El Paso. One of 
 the district offices is located here, and is 
 managed by Mr. Edward H. Gorse. who 
 
 has the southern half of the State under 
 his charge. His district embraces the 
 cities of Galveston, Houston, Austin and 
 San Antonio. Mr. Gorse is well qualified 
 by experience and ability to serve the 
 firm's patrons. 
 
 The Mercantile Agency publishes a 
 reference book, containing the names of 
 1,200,000 business firms in the United 
 States and Canada, with markings for 
 credit and capital. Among the special 
 advantages of this reference book are the 
 State maps, especially engraved and re- 
 garded minutely correct, and the postal 
 and shipping guides prepared for the con- 
 venience of the mercantile community. 
 
 The Agency has a special department, 
 devoted to the collection of past due 
 claims, and their business in this direction 
 is very heavy in the aggregate. No 
 organization in the country collects so 
 large an amount, and the system is thor- 
 oughlv organized. Its attorneys are 
 under bond, and the charges reasonable. 
 
 The main office of R. G. Dun & Co. is 
 in New York city, and there are 132 
 branches in the United States, Canada and 
 Europe. The office here is located at 
 Strand and Twenty-third streets, the Gal- 
 veston National Bank building, a block 
 only from the Union Depot. 
 
MANUFACTURING PROGRESS OF THE CITY. 
 
 EW life has been im- 
 parted to the indus- 
 tries of Galveston, 
 and a new spirit 
 infused in the peo- 
 ple by the provision 
 of an ample water 
 supply. New fac- 
 established, old ones 
 capital has been 
 particularly large 
 jute bagging mills, 
 cotton rope walk. 
 
 tories have been 
 
 enlarged ; and local 
 
 embarked in three 
 
 mechanical ventures : i 
 
 a cotton mills and a 
 
 the first already in successful operation, 
 
 the second just built and equipped, and 
 
 the last now building. 
 
 This same forward spirit is exhibited in 
 other lines of production also. It can be 
 seen in soap, candy, clothing, patent medi- 
 cine, wool scouring, oyster packing and 
 other concerns of recent foundation. The 
 growth of the packing industry has been 
 particularly notable ; several good-sized 
 can factories have been upbuilt by it. It 
 was in the demand for factory sites at the 
 West End of the city, that the first impulse 
 originated, which has enlivened so much of 
 late, the Galveston real estate market. 
 
 Galveston, easily first among Texas 
 cities in trade and wealth, is foremost also 
 m manufactures. Statistics compiled by 
 the publishers of the city directory, 
 Messrs. Morrison & Fourmy, show i6i 
 manufacturing establishments, not count- 
 ing minor concerns and building and other 
 contractors, and $5,003,800 of capital 
 invested in them. This would indicate 
 over 3,000 pei'sons employed, $1,375,000 
 of wages paid during the year, and a 
 gross product of $7,500,000 a year, and 
 at twenty per cent average profit, $1,500,- 
 000 of gross returns from the industries, 
 sums considerably in excess of the claims 
 
 made for Dallas, the next most important 
 trade center of the State. 
 
 Making reasonable allowance for the 
 items not counted in the table of the direc- 
 tory, it is safe to say that Galveston, 
 miscellaneous concerns, building and con- 
 tractors' work included, has $6,000,000 
 of capital invested in the productive 
 industries, and $10,000,000 of annual pro- 
 duct. This is a hundred per cent of 
 increase since 1S85. 
 
 The 161 concerns of the directory table 
 make 50 classifications, a number ex- 
 hibiting the variety and diversity of the 
 industries of the city. The most import- 
 ant, as indicated by the capital employed 
 and hands engaged, are the cotton com- 
 presses, the bagging factory, the cotton 
 factory, the cotton oil mills, the flour and 
 grist mills, the oyster packeries, the rope 
 walk and the ice and printing works. 
 These industries have a total capitaliza- 
 tion of $3,400,000 alone and fifteen hun- 
 dred of the population get a livelihood 
 from them. 
 
 Other industries, important by reason 
 of the capital embarked in them, and the 
 number of their employes, are the follow- 
 ing: Foundries, machine and boiler 
 works, for which $75,000 capital is esti- 
 mated ; railroad shops, $36,000; sheet 
 iron and tin work, $72,000; clothing, 
 $30,000; soap, $50,000; crackers and 
 candy, $93,000; coffee, $35,500; soda 
 water, $33,500; patent medicines, $28,- 
 000; wool scouring, $35,000; marble 
 works, $35,000; cooperage, $35,000; 
 cisterns, $31,000; planing mills, $50,000; 
 marine railway, $35,000; saddlery, $16,- 
 800; vinegar, $10,000; trunks, $10,000. 
 The gas works of the city represents an 
 investment of $400,000, and the three 
 electric light plants $150,000. 
 
100 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 WATER FOR MANUFACTURES. 
 
 While the growth of the city in manu- 
 factures is to be ascribed largely to the 
 success of the artesian experiments, other 
 forces also accelerate it. Some of it arises 
 from local necessity, and much also fi'om 
 the accruing advantages of an enlarged 
 commercial sphere, which has cheapened 
 material and fuel, provided enlarged 
 transportation facilities, and stimulated 
 enterprise. As the venture which has 
 quickened production most, however, the 
 Galveston Artesian Well Company 
 is the most interesting of all the city's 
 later projects. 
 
 Before this company was organized 
 progress was measurably retarded by an 
 insufficient water supply. Cisterns for 
 rain water were the sole dependence of 
 the householder and the manufacturer. 
 Many plans were proposed to surmount 
 this obstacle to industrial advancement, 
 as, for instance, the expensive scheme of 
 piping water from the mainland ; but, as 
 in that particular case, the difficulties 
 attending them discouraged the attempt. 
 Efforts had already been made too to 
 strike the underground reservoirs of the 
 Island : but they only resulted in failure ; 
 and the issue of this adventure, is there- 
 fore, regarded here, in the light of an 
 achievement, the tapping, literally, of a 
 well spring of prosperity for Galveston. 
 
 Over twenty deep artesian wells have 
 been sunk in Galveston, and others are 
 projected or in progress, and it has been 
 demonstrated beyond a peradventure, that 
 any quantity of water desired can be 
 readily obtained from these subteiTanean 
 sources at a reasonable expense. This 
 company has drilled fourteen wells here 
 thus far ; they vary in depth from 800 to 
 1,350 feet, and the deepest naturally have 
 the strongest flow. Their capacity is as 
 follows : Galveston Cotton Seed Oil Co., 
 450,000 gallons in twenty-four hours ; 
 Galveston Cold Storage and Ice Co. (two 
 
 wells), 600,000 gallons; Galveston Bag- 
 ging and Cordage Co., 310,000 gallons; 
 Galveston Electric Light Co., 50,000 gal- 
 lons ; Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe shops, 
 40.000 gallons ; eight city wells, 3.400,000 
 gallons. The city has sunk also five other 
 wells, on payment of a royalty, with this 
 company's machinery. These five have 
 about 500,000 gallons capacity, and one 
 or two other wells here, make the flow 
 from the artesian sources of supply be- 
 tween 4,500,000 and 5.000,000 gallons in 
 twenty-four hours, an amount that can be 
 increased a third, at least, by pumping. 
 
 From the successive strata encountered 
 in boring these wells, it is evident that the 
 island has been formed by slow accretions 
 of marine debris, deposited in layers of 
 clay and sand, or mixed clay and sand, 
 one upon another, until it finally rose 
 above the gulf. The water veins are in 
 the layers of sand, one at 795 feet from 
 the surface, one at 910 feet (on the west 
 side of the island only), providing a 
 bountiful flow, and one, the best vein of 
 all, and the one having the strongest 
 pressure, at 1.346 feet, the greatest depth 
 yet reached by the drill on the island. 
 
 The company has $25,000 of its $50,000 
 authorized capital paid up, and complete 
 facilities for the business, including three 
 complete sets of rock tools, two sets of 
 hydraulic tools, and experienced employes, 
 It was organized in 1SS7. J. W. Byrnes 
 is president and general manager ; B. 
 Adoue treasurer, and W. H. Sinclair, 
 postmaster of the city, secretary. It is 
 now engaged in sinking wells at Laredo, 
 on the Mexican border, for the Laredo 
 Improvement Company, and has contracts 
 for work in other parts of the State also. 
 
 Besides this of its water supply, Gal- 
 veston has other advantages for manufac- 
 tures. It has a progressive community 
 appreciative of the advantages derived 
 from industrial enterprise, and possessed 
 of the surplus capital to embark in them. 
 It has cheap building sites, and low taxes. 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 101 
 
 It is a seaport, and as such a market for 
 foreign, Pennsylvania and Alabama coals, 
 a fuel supply which, ere long will be sup- 
 plemented by the product of Central and 
 Southern Texas, where extensive fields 
 are just being exploited. It has, in its 
 rapidly populating trade territory of Texas 
 assurance at one and the same time, of an 
 expanding market, and a plentiful labor 
 supply, and in the resources of this same 
 tributary field, a superabundance of raw 
 material. And it has a climate permitting 
 operations the year round, 
 
 Texas alone can supply it the cotton 
 and wool for manufacture of fabrics, the 
 wheat and corn and oats for breadstuffs, 
 the beeves and fruits and fish and oysters 
 for packing and canning, the timber for 
 house work and furniture and wagons, 
 the hides for tanning, the horns and bone 
 for minor industries. Texas alone could 
 supply it with iron from its fields in Llano 
 and other central counties of the State, with 
 copper, marble and granite, cement, gyp- 
 sum, guano and sugar, to make it one of 
 the world's greatest centers of production. 
 
 Texas, said the Galveston News some 
 time ago, is sacrificing 33)3 -per cent of 
 the profits on its cotton crops by paying 
 transportation charges and shipping them 
 abroad to be manufactured, somewhat 
 moi-e on wool, and 50 per cent at least on 
 hides ; not to speak of the incidental fea- 
 tures of packing, harness making, fer- 
 tilizers, etc. The saving possible on a 
 single year's cotton crop by home manu- 
 facture, it calculated, would be $20,000,- 
 xxxD, enough to establish mills all over the 
 State. Twenty cotton mills might be 
 operated at Galveston as well as one, so 
 far as material is concerned, and in this 
 respect it might easily be made the rival 
 of Fall River. The opportunities for 
 manufactures generally, in a city which is 
 looked to for supplies by the most rapidly 
 settling region of the Union, indeed, are 
 limited only by special circumstances of 
 competition. 
 
 NEW ENTERPRISES SKETCHED. 
 
 Following are some of the more im- 
 portant of the new Galveston manufac- 
 turing establishments. 
 
 The Island City Manufacturing 
 Co. is one of the notable manufacturing 
 concerns established recently, because of 
 the encouraging prospects unfolded for 
 Galveston by the provision of a permanent 
 water supply, and other circumstances 
 enhancing her advantages as a field for 
 business enterprise. The principals in it 
 ai'e gentlemen of long experience in trade 
 here, and accustomed to the direction of 
 affairs of importance : Messrs. M. J. 
 Sass, who has been connected for years 
 with Weis Bros., Block, Oppenhimer & 
 Co. and their predecessors, Greenleve, 
 Block & Co., in a trusted capacity, and 
 L. Weis, a resident of Texas since 1858, 
 and formerly one of the clothing firm of 
 Levy & Weis. These are concerns among 
 the most distinguished in Texas, certainly 
 the foremost in clothing, gents' furnishing 
 goods and kindred lines. 
 
 They began in May, 1889, with a full 
 equipment for the manufacture of pants, 
 shirts, overalls and drawers, and have 
 since developed trade in Texas, Louisiana, 
 Arkansas, Old and New Mexico and 
 Arizona. They are employing 125 to 150 
 hands and have five men on the road sell- 
 ing for them. They occupy three floors 
 of a large building on Strand between 
 Twenty- third and Twenty-fourth, the 
 second floor for their oflices and sample 
 rooms, the third for manufacturing pur- 
 poses and the fourth for stock. Every- 
 thing points to a speedy realization of their 
 highest expectations with respect to their 
 venture, and to the firm establishment of 
 an industry of material benefit to the city. 
 Both partners give an undivided atten- 
 tion to the affairs of the business. Mr. 
 Weis superintends the manufacturing 
 details, and Mr. Sass devotes himself to 
 the general affairs of management. 
 
102 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 The Galveston Cotton and Woolen 
 Mills, the buildings for which aie now 
 under construction, are perhaps the enter- 
 prise biggest with the promise of progress 
 for Galveston. Besides the livelihood 
 
 shows, the structure will be one of im- 
 posing character, and not without salient 
 architectural features. It is to be of brick 
 300 by 106 feet and four stories high, with 
 an annex for a boiler house. Two high 
 
 
 THE NEW COTTON MILLS, GALVESTON. 
 
 they will afford to the laboring element of 
 population and the incidental business 
 they must make, they will further the 
 centralization here of the traffic which is 
 the life and soul of the port, the trade in 
 cotton. To an appreciable extent, they 
 will be an advantage also to all the State. 
 This enterprise, like the water wells, also 
 originated with Galveston residents and is 
 promoted entirely with Galveston capital. 
 The Cotton and Woolen Mills company 
 was incorporated in 1889, and work was 
 begun on the factory buildings soon after. 
 A site was chosen in the western outskirts 
 of the city, at Fortieth street and avenue 
 G, and construction has so far progressed 
 that it is confidently expected that the 
 mills will be in operation by midsummer 
 of 1890. As the engraving on this page 
 
 towers will dignify its front elevation and 
 a massive octagonal chimney 154 feet high 
 in the rear, will likely make it one of the 
 landmarks of the city. 
 
 It will have 25,000 spindles and 750 
 looms, and will furnish employment to 
 360 hands, who, under the direction of 
 Superintendent Lawrence V. Elder, an 
 experienced man, will be engaged at first 
 in production of medium weight domes- 
 tics ; but the mill is equipped for manu- 
 facture of the finer qualities of goods 
 demanded in the Eastern markets, and 
 these will also be produced as soon as a 
 fair start has been made. 
 
 The company has $500,000 authorized 
 capital. Albert Weis of Weis Bros, 
 is its president; B. Adoue, the banker, 
 vice-president, and Julius Runge, cotton 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 103 
 
 factor and city treasurer, secretary and 
 treasurer. The directors are Messrs. 
 Weis, Adoue and Runge, J. Reymers- 
 hoffer, Wm. F. Ladd, M. Lasker and 
 George Sealy, all of whom are sketched 
 in connection with other concerns of 
 importance in which they are interested 
 here. 
 
 The Galveston Bagging & Cordage 
 Factory is one of those recently estab- 
 lished enterprises of Galveston which tes- 
 tify at once to the progress, the enterprise 
 and the solid wealth of the city. The 
 company operating this factory was 
 organized in iSSS and has $250,000 cap- 
 ital paid up, together with a mill that cost, 
 with its site and machinery, $325,000. It 
 employs 223 hands, and almost its entire 
 product is taken by the Galveston mer- 
 chants to supply the Texas demand for 
 bagging. 
 
 The factory and warehouses cover an 
 entire block at Church and Winnie, Thir- 
 
 mote the health and comfort of the op- 
 eratives. The machinery, comprising 
 thirty-five looms and the appurtenances 
 for hackling and separating the fiber, 
 engines, etc , is conceded an unexcelled 
 equipment. It cost $125,000 and has all 
 the latest improvements devised to save 
 labor and expedite manufacture. 
 
 The capacity of the mills is 4,000,000 
 yards a year. The jute, originally grown 
 in India, is bought in New York city and 
 stoi^ed there for shipment as needed. A 
 new warehouse is about to be constructed 
 on the grounds here, however, especially 
 to hold the raw material which the com- 
 pany will shortly import direct. In con- 
 nection with the bagging, the company 
 handles also English ties, used with the 
 bagging, for the baling of cotton. This 
 item alone aggregates a matter of some 
 3,000 tons a season. 
 
 To describe the various processes pur- 
 sued in turning the jute into bagging is 
 
 GALVESTON BAGGING FACTORY. 
 
 ty-third and Thirty-fourth streets. The 
 building is considered one of the best in 
 the country for the purpose. Its ventila- 
 tion and accessories of bath, wash rooms, 
 etc., have been especially designed to pro- 
 
 hardly the province of these sketches. 
 From the beginning, when the bales ai-e 
 broken and put through the desiccating 
 machinei'v, until the baling fabric issues 
 from the sales departments, bearing the 
 
104 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 company's brand, the operations are many 
 and the proceedings exceedingly intricate. 
 It seems sufficient to say of the company 
 that it supplies a large part of the covering 
 used for the protection of the great staple 
 of Texas, is doing an excellent business, 
 and is, in respect of its management, con- 
 ducted independently of any other similar 
 venture here or elsewhere. Its resources, 
 facilities and field permit it the utmost 
 latitude for development and enlargement, 
 and measures are being taken to in- 
 crease its effectiveness. Machinery for 
 making all kinds of twines will be in oper- 
 ation by January i, 1890, and that part of 
 the factory will employ nearly as many 
 operatives as the departments for produc- 
 tion of bagging. It is supererogatory, 
 almost, to remark in this connection, that 
 it has been of equal benefit, as a new 
 industry and productive agency, to both 
 Galveston and Texas. 
 
 The officers of the company and prin- 
 cipal stockholders are B. Adoue, the 
 banker of this city, president; J. M. 
 Brown, of the J. S. Brown Hardware Co., 
 vice-president; W. F. Ladd, cotton factor 
 and cotton shipper, secretary and treas- 
 urer ; these gentlemen, with H. Kempner, 
 cotton factor, and T. W. English, iron 
 and coal dealer, directors. They are all 
 men identified by property and social ties 
 with the best interests of the city. 
 
 ExLiNE & Gruendler's Galvcstou 
 Wool Scouring Mills were established in 
 the spring of '89 by Theodore Howard? 
 in whose hands the venture was entirely 
 experimental and not at all the marked 
 success the present owners have made it. 
 They put in machinery adapted to the 
 business, and easily achieved the results 
 he aimed at, but fell short of. The estab- 
 lishment is, therefore, another confirma- 
 tion of the progress of Galveston in manu- 
 facturing industry. It may be considered, 
 too, peculiarly a Galveston enterprise, for 
 Messrs. Exline and Gruendler are residents 
 of the city, and long in business here. 
 
 Mr. Exline has been engaged in the 
 cotton and wool trade here for over 
 twenty years, and he is consequently an 
 expert in matters pertaining to these 
 Texas staples. It was he who bought out 
 the hardware stock of E. S. Wood & 
 Sons last year, on speculation, a transac- 
 tion evincing his business characteristics. 
 He is a native of Chicago, and came to 
 Texas first as a Federal volunteer, one of 
 the division of the heroic but ill-fated 
 Custer. His partner, Mr. Gruendler, is 
 a native of the city, and having likewise 
 spent a lifetime in the trade in wool and 
 hides, was far from a novice in lines like 
 this allied to it ; although they both found 
 it an entirely new undertaking, and until 
 they had thoroughly established it gave it 
 an undivided attention. 
 
 They brought operatives from the 
 North, and put in new machinery of a 
 pattern appi'oved by trial, the Smith 
 bowls, long in use and standard for wool 
 scouring at Boston, and in other large 
 centers of the trade. This machinery has 
 capacity, when 26 to 30 men are em- 
 ployed, which is their usual force, to 
 clean 8,000 pounds of greased wool in ten 
 hours. They are located in a two story 
 building, 40x120 feet ground plan, on 
 Strand, between Nineteenth and Twen- 
 tieth, and have now the most ample 
 facilities for a trade in wool, aggregating 
 1.500,000 to 2,000,000 pounds a year. 
 
 The machinery put in by them cost 
 $15,000, the building about as much more. 
 They have fully $50,000 of • capital in- 
 vested in this plant and their business. 
 They will buy from the wool factors in 
 Galveston, and will sell chiefly to the 
 New York brokers purchasing for Eastern 
 manufacturers. They have men on the 
 road also soliciting consignments. 
 
 The processes through which the wool 
 is put in this establishment are explained 
 by the following description of their 
 premises : The first floor is their engine 
 room, and has in it also four Smith bowl 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 105 
 
 scouring machines. The upper floor is 
 used as a sorting, drying, "duster," 
 "fur-picker," "breaking" and packing 
 room. The wool, as it comes from the 
 i-anch or warehouse, is first sorted and 
 graded. Next it goes through the 
 " duster, " a device whose name indicates 
 its purpose It then passes through the 
 bowls, which contain a cleansing liquor 
 (the last of them pure water), and thence 
 to a drying room, heated by steam to i30 
 degrees Fahrenheit. Revolving rakes and 
 other devices and rollers to press out the 
 water, do the work. After drying it is 
 re-sorted to detect irregularities, and then 
 bagged for shipment, 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE CONCERNS. 
 
 The following sketches exhibit the 
 characteristics of a representative number 
 of Galveston's leading manufacturing 
 enterprises, their methods, facilities, trade 
 territory, history, principals and other 
 facts likely to be interesting concerning 
 them. 
 
 The Texas Star Flour Mills, shown 
 in the illustration on page 107, are 
 among the largest, if indeed they are not 
 the very largest concern of the kind, in 
 the South. A special interest attaches to 
 them too, for the reason that they are 
 particularly a Galveston enterprise, an 
 undertaking established by residents of 
 progressive business characteristics, with 
 their own money, and developed and 
 upbuilt unassisted by these same princi- 
 pals, from a venture of moderate propor- 
 tions to one of the first rank among 
 establishments of its class. 
 
 The Messrs. Reymershoffer and their 
 associates in these mills, are of German 
 extraction, but they were raised in this 
 State and are thoroughly imbued with the 
 spirit and sentiment of the people of this 
 section ; so that this enterprise of theirs 
 is one of the many evidences that the 
 restoration of the South, and its recent 
 
 wonderful expansion, should be credited 
 to the native and long-resident stock, 
 whose innate energy, it must be admitted, 
 has wrought the changes that have made 
 the once war-wasted slave States a verit- 
 able "New South." 
 
 Some little personal mention of these 
 gentlemen is necessary to a thorough 
 comprehension of what they have accom- 
 plished. John Reymershoffer, the father 
 of the brothers engaged in management 
 of the mills, came to Texas from Austria 
 in 1854, bringing with him his wife, two 
 sons and three daughters. He embarked 
 in a general merchandising business in 
 Colorado county before the war, and dur- 
 ing it was also in business in Mexico. 
 After the war the sons established them- 
 selves here in the wholesale crockery and 
 glassware business, as J. Reymershoffer' s 
 Sons, and in 1870 converted their resources 
 and interests so as to do business under 
 the same name as general commission 
 merchants, a line in which they still con- 
 tinue to do a very considerable business. 
 
 In 1878, the brothers, John and Gus 
 Reymershoffer, although without previous 
 milling experience, organized the Texas 
 Star Flour Mills company. Lothar 
 Becker, since deceased, a miller of expe- 
 rience, and the inventor of several milling 
 devices, C. Bothman and a few other of 
 their Galveston friends, took stock with 
 them. The incorporation had $50,000 
 capital. They built a hundred barrel 
 French buhr mill, enlarging it at intervals 
 as their trade grew, until, in 1886, they had 
 a daily output of 350 baiTels, and a well 
 established reputation for their pi-oduct. 
 The development of the business, and the 
 general introduction of roller machinery 
 throughout the country, decided them to 
 build a new mill, and this was completed 
 in 1887 and put in operation about the close 
 of that year. Experts in mill construc- 
 tion were employed to do the work, and 
 provision was made for the anticipated 
 continuance of growth. Machinery suffi- 
 
THE CITY O^'GALVESTOK 
 
 107 
 
 cient to run both the old and new mills 
 was put in, so that the rapacity of the 
 establishment now is 900 barrels a day. 
 
 They had increased the capital of the 
 company, meanwhile, in 1SS3, to $100,- 
 000, and again, in 1S88, to $500,000, and 
 had built, besides the new mill, a grain 
 elevator of 400,000 bushels capacity, rig- 
 ged with separators, conveyors, steam 
 shovel anddOther facilities to receive 5,000 
 bushels an hour and to discharge an equal 
 quantity in the same time. They have in 
 the new building also a twenty-five barrel 
 plant for milling rye, and half the build- 
 ing has been so arranged that they can put 
 in the additional equipment necessary to 
 make their capacity 1,300 barrels of flour 
 daily, a step they already contemplate 
 taking. 
 
 So much for the history of this project ; 
 now, as to the equipment and product. 
 The new mill only is run at present, 
 although the old one could be put in oper- 
 ation if necessary. There are in this new 
 mill sixteen double sets of Noye-Stevens 
 rolls, sixteen Jonathan Mills reels and 
 fourteen other reels for scalping and 
 i"escalping, grading, etc. ; nine Smith puri- 
 fiers with Prinz dust collectors and two 
 extra dust collectors besides ; forty-nine 
 stands of elevators, two bran dusters, one 
 Homes & Ewell magnetic separator, two 
 Silver Creek centrifugals, aspirating fans, 
 stock hoppers, unlimited shafting, pulleys, 
 etc., four Silver Ci'eek flour packers, and 
 three Stevens' automatic scales, and the 
 necessai-y cleaning machinery and receiv- 
 ing separators, scourers, polishers and 
 cockle machines of the latest pattern. 
 
 The motive power is furnished by a 
 compound condensing engine of 350 horse 
 power and the requisite boiler capacity. 
 The mill is lighted by an electric plant of 
 225 lights. It is adjacent to the wharves 
 and shipping and has its own side ti'ack. 
 The elevator is chiefly used by the mills, 
 but is at the service also of grain dealers 
 and shippers. 
 
 Following are the brands manufactured: 
 Kaiser Auszng, Tidal Wave, Neptune, 
 Gulf Stream, Thetis, Sea Fairy, Mermaid, 
 Edelweiss, Sea Nymph, Undine, Jewel, 
 Melite, Sea Pearl, Hera, Rye Flour, 
 Pumpernickel and Graham. The wheat 
 used is obtained in Texas, Kansas, 
 St. Louis and California. The jobbers 
 of Galveston and Houston are nearly all 
 supplied by this mill. It has quite an 
 export trade to Gulf coast markets atid 
 would have a big West India business 
 also if there were shipping facilities avail- 
 able. 
 
 The officers of the company and prin- 
 cipals in its management are J. Reymer- 
 shoffer, president ; G. Reymershoffer, 
 vice-president, secretary and treasurer ; F. 
 J. Becker, head miller ; J. C. Kirschner, 
 chief clerk ; R. Hayes, chief engineer. 
 The partners in the commission house of 
 J Reymershoffer' s Sons, which has offices 
 at the mills (Center and Water streets), 
 are John and Gus Reymershoffer. They 
 are the owners of the Reymershoffer 
 building, corner of Mechanic and Twenty- 
 second streets, and of other valuable 
 property here ; and Mr. J. Reymershoffer 
 IS a director of the Galveston Wharf Co., 
 the First National Bank, and of the new 
 Galveston Cotton and Woolen Mills. 
 
 The Galveston Oil Mills, covering 
 the entire square bounded by Strand, 
 Water, Seventeenth and Eighteenth 
 streets, and part besides of another, are 
 the property of an association which has 
 other large mills at Dallas, Houston, 
 Waco, Palestine, Paris and Corsicana. 
 Those here are operated by a stock com- 
 pany of which B, Adoue is president, and 
 J. L. Kane secretary. J. F. Jaques is 
 superintendent of them. Fully $300,000 
 is invested in the Galveston plant of this 
 company. The mill building is one of 
 the largest structures in the city and the 
 equipment is a superior one. 
 
 It has capacity to work 150 tons of cot- 
 ton seed a day, from which the product is 
 
108 
 
 TFIE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 lOO barrels of oil and 50 tons of cake. 
 Nearly all this is exported, the oil to all 
 parts of the world, the cake chiefly to 
 Germany and England for use as stock 
 feed. Considerable fertilizer is also pro- 
 duced in the shape of refuse hulls. Sacks 
 are furnished planters and the standard 
 price is paid by the company for cotton 
 seed. The works have a large gin house 
 attached, and all told, employ, during the 
 cotton season, probably 220 hands, whose 
 wages make no small fraction of the cir- 
 culating medium here. Indeed the mill 
 is, from the value of its product, and its 
 permanent character, one of the most 
 beneficial of the manufacturing concerns 
 of Galveston to all classes, laboring and 
 commercial, in the city. 
 
 The Lee Iron Works, corner of 
 Thirty-second and Avenue G or Winnie 
 street, is the largest foundry in both the 
 city and State. The buildings and plant 
 of these works cover half the block on 
 which they are located, and this area, 150 
 by 300 feet, is built up two stories high. 
 The works ai'e equipped with the full 
 complement of labor saving and mechan- 
 ical devices, machine lathes, rollers, 
 cranes, punches, etc., have a Sellers' pat- 
 ent steam hammer, pattern shop, and 
 every facility known to the trade. They 
 have tools suitable for both heavy and 
 light work, for architectural, steamship 
 and railroad iron work and for saw mill, 
 cotton press and sugar mill building; also 
 for repairing steam engines and boilers of 
 all kinds. They do more work for the 
 Texas and Western Louisiana sugar dis- 
 tricts and for the shipping frequenting this 
 port, than any of their competitors. The 
 foundry at these works has ten tons a day 
 capacity. About $50,000 is invested in 
 this plant, and sixty hands are regularly 
 employed in them. 
 
 These works had their inception in a 
 small venture made here about the close 
 of the war by three expert mechanics, 
 C. B. Lee, D. Weber and Joshua Miller. 
 
 Ten years later they had made enough to 
 buy the plant of what was known as the 
 Close Foundry : this they removed to the 
 place now occupied by " the Lee." These 
 same parties are the firm of C. B. Lee & 
 Co., proprietors of the works. Mr. Lee 
 is the managing member of the firm. 
 Mr. Weber, who is a moulder by trade, 
 superintends the foundry, and Mr. Miller 
 the pattern and machine shops. 
 
 As the patentee of the Lee Ice Machine, 
 Mr. Lee has acquired the business of the 
 Neptune Ice Company, an enterprise 
 described on page 109 of this chapter. 
 He is also interested in real estate here, 
 and is now serving his third term as an 
 alderman of the city. Mr. Weber has 
 real estate investments also, acquired 
 during the long and successful opei'ation 
 of these works by himself and associates, 
 and Mr. Miller likewise is well-to-do. 
 
 Jesse Astall's West Strand Iron 
 Works, were established by him in 1866 
 and have been enlarged by him from time 
 to time since. He had been in business 
 before the war, but the peculiar conditions 
 prevailmg here after hostilities were fairly 
 commenced, forced him to abandon his 
 trade. Starting again then when peace 
 was restored, he has built himself up a 
 handsome business, not only as machinist 
 and founder, but as a dealer in mill, rail- 
 road and plantation supplies. He has 
 $25,000 or more invested in the business, 
 and has sales of proportionate character 
 and volume. Amongst other goods and 
 wares of his line handled by him, the 
 following are his specialties: iron pipe 
 and fittings, valves and couplings, steam 
 and hand pumps and injectors, vises, 
 tongs, jet pumps, hose, belting and pack- 
 ing, pullevs and hangers, flue cleaners, 
 engines and boilers. Any of these he can 
 furnish as promptly and as cheaply as any 
 house in Texas. 
 
 Mr. Astall's place is located on Strand 
 street between Twenty-sixth and Twenty- 
 seventh. 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 109 
 
 The Neptune Ice Factory, estab- 
 lished in 1883 by Alderman C. B. Lee of 
 the Lee Iron Works, and R. F. George, 
 has since, by incorporation, passed into the 
 possession of a stock company of which 
 J. H. Forbes, confectioner of Market 
 street, is president and W. B. Wallis real 
 estate agent, secretary, but Mr. Lee still 
 retains his interest and operates the place 
 as lessee of the plant and proprietor of 
 the business. He is the patentee and 
 manufacturer of the absorption machinery 
 for making ice, with which the works are 
 equipped, machinery notable from the 
 fact that it was the first used to make ice 
 successfully from salt water. 
 
 When the company was organized the 
 equipment was improved and the capacity 
 of the works enlarged. There are now 
 three ten ton machines in daily operation. 
 In connection with the ice house two large 
 refrigerating rooms of ample capacity 
 have been prepared for cold storage, and 
 beer, meats, cheese, butter and other per- 
 ishables, can thus be preserved here at 
 reasonable charges. During the summer 
 this company finds it necessary to employ 
 about twenty hands, and three delivery 
 wagons are run the year round. The fac- 
 tory is at Eighteenth street and Avenue A. 
 
 Mr. Lee has been a resident of Galves- 
 ton for thirty-four years and a business 
 man and manufacturer of the city since 
 1865. He is one of the proprietors of 
 the Lee Iron Works, the largest here, and 
 is now serving his fellow citizens, at their 
 solicitation, for the third time as Alder- 
 man. The invention and practical appli- 
 cation of this ice machinery, the ability 
 displayed by him in the conduct of his 
 iron works, during twenty-five years past, 
 and in the affairs entrusted him as a local 
 legislator, stamp him a man of superior 
 intelligence, enterprise and judgment. 
 
 The Texas Ice and Cold Storage 
 Co, is successor to the business of the 
 Texas Ice Co., who, with their connections 
 in other Southern ports, have been the 
 
 largest dealers in Northern ice in the South 
 for years. Since the successful issue of 
 the artesian borings here, however, the 
 importation of New England ice has prac- 
 tically been abandoned, and, fortified with 
 a natural flow of about 300,000 gallons a 
 day, or 600,000 when the pump is applied, 
 the equipment of this company for manu- 
 facture of ice is ample for all ordinary 
 purposes. This equipment (two H. D. 
 Stratton absorption machines — one fifteen 
 and the other twenty-five tons daily ca- 
 pacity,) gives them facilities sufficient for 
 the production of forty tons a day, and 
 they have storage capacity for twenty-five 
 car-loads. They employ twenty hands the 
 year round and do the largest ice business 
 in Texas. 
 
 Ice is sold in car lots by this company, 
 and special rates are made for large quan- 
 tities. It is delivered also throughout the 
 city. The company is agent also for the 
 Anheuser-Busch Brewing Co., of St. 
 Louis, the largest brewers in this country, 
 and the one producing, unquestionably, 
 the best beverage of the kind made in 
 America. The company has $100,000 
 capital stock and is located at Twentieth 
 street and avenue A. Besides $12,000 
 spent to get its water supply, more than 
 three times that amount was expended on 
 the equipment for ice making and cold 
 storage, for which latter business a special 
 department has been prepared, so as to 
 accommodate dealers in perishables here. 
 
 The officers of the company are Capt. 
 Charles Fowler, agent here of the Morgan 
 Line of steamers, president ; B. Adoue, 
 of Adoue & Lobit, bankers, vice-presi- 
 dent ; W. C. Ansell, secretary and treas- 
 urer. Mr. Ansell conducts the business. 
 He has been in the ice trade for the past 
 twenty years. 
 
 G. B. Marsan & Co., dealers in fresh 
 fish and oysters, Market street, between 
 Nineteenth and Twentieth, pack daily, 
 during the season, about 40,000 oysters. 
 These are mainly shipped in tin cans or 
 
no 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 wooden pails to Texas points, and to the 
 principal cities in Kansas, Colorado, New 
 and Old Mexico and Arizona. They 
 employ thirty hands and do upwards of 
 $50,000 business a year, more than any 
 other concern in the oyster trade here. 
 Their fish trade is also considerable. 
 
 The oysters are obtained in Galveston 
 bay and along the adjacent coast, and are 
 considered as good as any in the land. 
 They are furnished the firm by oystermen 
 who own small craft and are engaged 
 regularly in supplying this market. They 
 are the natural produce of these shores, 
 no cultivation having as yet been at- 
 tempted, although the State grants sixty 
 acres free to all who will undertake prop- 
 agation of the much esteemed bivalve of 
 the prolific Gulf coast. 
 
 Mr, Marsan, who established the bus- 
 iness of this house in 1S67, died in 18S7, 
 and his partner, Peter Tiboldi, succeeded 
 him. Mr. John Puppo afterward acquired 
 an interest in the business with Mr. 
 Tiboldi. The latter gives his attention to 
 the accounts and office business, and Mr. 
 Puppo looks after the outside affairs. 
 
 Chas. S. Ott's marble, granite, tile 
 and building stone works on Center street 
 (Twenty-first), between Market and 
 Mechanic, are the longest established of 
 the kind in the State. They were 
 founded by A. Allen & Co., in 1S43. 
 Mr. Ott was a partner with Allen, and 
 succeeded him in 1883. He makes a 
 specialty of monumental and cemetery 
 work, contract stone work and of im- 
 ported and domestic tiles, and has three 
 men on the road in Texas, selling and 
 taking orders for him, and among other 
 workmen, expert sculptors, carvers and 
 designers. His business last year in all 
 three lines aggregated $80,000. 
 
 He executed the contracts for the stone 
 work on the Galveston News building, 
 Samson Heidenheimer's and Leon 
 Blum's residences, the Ball school and 
 the John Sealy hospital, which are as fine 
 
 structures as any in the city, and cut and 
 erected, among other notable monuments, 
 the Governor Davis monument at Austin, 
 a Gothic shaft, 40 feet high, that cost 
 $7,000, the John Sealy monument, in 
 the new cemetery here, an Egyptian obe- 
 lisk 33 feet high, and others as costly. The 
 B. R. Davis, Hartley and Cronican 
 monuments, the most costly and con- 
 spicuous in the cemetei^ies of Galveston 
 are also his work, and he was entrusted 
 with the work of setting up the Kopferl 
 monument here, which was made in Italy, 
 and is one of the finest memorial groups 
 in any American burial place. 
 
 Mr. Ott is a Kentuckian, but has lived 
 here nearly all his life. He has been 
 doing an excellent business for years, and 
 has investments and interests outside his 
 business. 
 
 J. W. Byrnes, manufacturer of paving 
 blocks and dealer in coal tar and roofing 
 material, has offices with the Galveston 
 Artesian Well Co., Post Office street, 
 between Twenty-sixth and Twenty- 
 seventh. His warehouse and factory is 
 at Avenue A and Twentieth street. He 
 has branch establishments also at Hous- 
 ton. vSan Antonio and Fort Worth. 
 
 His plant here comprises a $25,000 
 mill for sawing mesquite and cypress 
 paving blocks, and a coal tar distillerv. 
 He is an importer of West India asphalt 
 and deals in roofing paints, and is a con- 
 tractor for roofing work and street paving. 
 The business streets of Galveston were 
 paved by him. He has been a resident 
 liere since 1873, and has been in this line 
 of business here, and in New Orleans, 
 for the last 20 years. 
 
 Mr. Byrnes is engaged in a number of 
 other enterprises here also, several of 
 which have been already described. 
 
 J. T. McCoMACK, plumber and gas- 
 fitter, has been located here in that 
 business for the past twentv-five years. 
 He came here from New Orleans, of 
 which place he is a native. At present 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 Ill 
 
 he is devoting much of his time to his 
 work at the residence of Geo. Sealv, on 
 Broadway, an illustration of which is in 
 another chapter of this volume. Other 
 notable work has been done by Mr. 
 McComack for the residences of Mr. J. 
 H. Hutchings, Col. W. L. Moody, H. M. 
 Trueheart, Mrs. Sarah C. Ball, the Ball 
 High School building, Harmony Hall, the 
 Court House and Jail, and Moody building, 
 nearly all of which are illustrated in this 
 work. Mr. McComack' s office is at his 
 residence on E. Broadway, No. 557. 
 
 The Galveston Show Case Factory, 
 Avenue A, between Twenty-third and 
 Twenty-fourth streets, is to be fitted up 
 shortly with a full complement of ma- 
 chinery for the manufacture of show 
 cases. This step has been of pressing 
 importance for some time. The business 
 increases so, year in and year out, that 
 hand labor is no longer equal to the 
 demands made upon the concern. 
 
 Mr C. Emme, proprietor of this place, 
 began business eight years ago. He is a 
 native of the city and a cabinet maker by 
 trade. He occupies two floors, one used 
 as the office and factory, the other as a 
 packing and store room. Three salesmen 
 traveling throughout Texas and Western 
 Louisiana represent him on the road. He 
 maintains, for orders to be filled at once, 
 a stock of considerable variety. 
 
 Louis E. Sien's Island City Cornice 
 and Ornamental Works, Market street 
 between Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth, 
 was established by him, with a partner, in 
 1880. The next year he bought his part- 
 ner out and has since continued the 
 business alone. He has about twentv 
 
 hands regularly employed, and does more 
 cornice work than any one here. The 
 iron cornice of the City Hall, the Rosen- 
 berg school, Beach Hotel and the John 
 Sealy hospital here, of the Central depot 
 at Houston, and the City Hall at Laredo, 
 is his work, and he has executed contracts 
 for points as remote as those of Arizona. 
 He has a shop force also making cans for 
 the trade here, and he also contracts for 
 slate roofing. In this last named line he 
 has done work on the City Hall, the 
 schools, and other public structures here, 
 and has given entire satisfaction. 
 
 In connection with his other business 
 he is also engaged as a dealer in stoves, 
 tinware, crockery and house furnishings, 
 and has sufiicient business to employ two 
 delivery wagons. 
 
 Mr. Sien is a native of Illinois, but he 
 came to Texas in 1869 and having been 
 located here for ten years, he is entirely 
 identified with the city in spirit and 
 sentiment as well as in business affairs. 
 
 R. H. John's Galveston Steam Trunk 
 Factory was established thirteen years 
 ago. It occupies the three upper floors, 
 43 X 100, of the building at 2216 and 2218 
 Market street, opposite the Tremont 
 Opera House, and has all the drummers' 
 trade of the city. Fine work is his 
 specialty, and about a dozen hands are 
 regularly employed by him on trunks and 
 sample cases. 
 
 This factory is one of the finest in the 
 South. Mr. John started here without 
 capital and has built up a State trade. 
 He is also owner of a similar establish- 
 ment at 48 Franklin street, Houston, that 
 known as John's Trunk Factory. 
 
THE STATE OF TEXAS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY COMPARISONS. 
 
 HE story of Texas should 
 be familiar to every 
 American. Not alone for 
 the superlative spirit of the 
 defenders of the Alamo, 
 unparalleled even, as its 
 memorials declare, by that 
 desperate resistance of Ther- 
 mopylaj, which had one messenger of 
 defeat, while the Alamo had none. Nor 
 yet for the triumph of Liberty upon the 
 tearless field of San Jacinto. For it is but 
 an example of the eternal fitness of things 
 that prodigies should precede, and such 
 Titanic throes as these attend the birth of 
 such a State. But as much for the wise 
 abnegation of its founders, when they 
 renounced the honors of a precarious sov- 
 ereignty for the more substantial advan- 
 tages of federation, and as well for the 
 enlightened course they pursued with 
 respect to education and their public 
 domain. For their prescience, in fact, as 
 to all the interests of their posterity. 
 
 And while many fine and graphic epi- 
 thets have been applied, and many bold, 
 and not a few ingenious comparisons been 
 drawn, to illustrate the grandeur of the 
 State of Texas, but few of these descrip- 
 tives quite contrive to do the subject jus- 
 tice. For comparisons and epithets, it is 
 evident, and marshallings of phrases are 
 as inadequate to depicture this majestic 
 
 State — already in its exuberance of re- 
 source, as in stupendous length and 
 breadth, the State of States, not to speak 
 of what it will be in the ripening fullness 
 of time — as they are to image that glorious 
 epopee of the Lone Star Republic — of the 
 Alamo of San Antonio de Bexar, of San 
 Jacinto, of Milam, and Bowie, and Crock- 
 ett, and Travis, and Houston, by which 
 and by whom this incomparable tempor- 
 ality was confirmed to the all-conquering 
 Anglo-Saxon domination forever. 
 
 The son of this soil may be pardoned, 
 then, the State pride that determines him 
 to preserve, undivided and undiminished 
 and inviolate, his blood-bought heritage 
 of Mother Earth ; a heritage which has the 
 breadth of ten degrees of latitude and the 
 length of fourteen of longitude ; which, 
 before the last admissions, measured the 
 fourth part of the Federal Union, and is 
 yet, excluding polar Alaska, an eighth of 
 the whole — 274,356 square miles, 175,587,- 
 840 acres, three-quarters of it susceptible 
 of agricultural or pastoral production, and 
 besides that three-quarters, a mineral area 
 larger than all Pennsylvania, and more 
 timber lands than the whole of Indiana. 
 Which has more grazing lands than all 
 Kentucky, more tobacco lands than all 
 Virginia, more wheat lands than all Min- 
 nesota, more sugar lands than all Louis- 
 iana — enough, indeed, the experts say, to 
 provide four times what this country con- 
 sumes — more cotton lands than all Missis- 
 sippi, and more lands equally well adapted 
 
114 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 to cotton, to grain, or to fruits, than any 
 one of these has all told. Which has a 
 coast line of 700 miles, whereon and along 
 must be located the embarcadei'os for the 
 surplus products of the vast plains west 
 
 TEXAS CYPRESS SWAMP. 
 
 of the Mississippi and east of the Rock- 
 ies, peopled already with ten millions of 
 busy souls. Which might sustain in 
 abundance the sixty million people of the 
 nation and as many opulent and powerful 
 cities as the country has now ; or might 
 raise, upon its broad and fertile acres, fif- 
 teen million bales of cotton to clothe the 
 world, and feed fifty millions of people 
 besides. 
 
 Wliich is very much larger than either 
 Italy, or France, or Germany, and con- 
 siderably greater in area than Austria- 
 Hungary, richer in all the natural 
 endowments that give to these their com- 
 manding position in the industries, fuller 
 
 of every resource but population, and with 
 a more even climate than any of them, 
 Italy, perhaps, excepted. Which could 
 support, as well as these, the pomp and 
 power of Caesars. Which has the splen- 
 did attributes, in short, of Nature's 
 own most favored realms and em- 
 pires. 
 
 ArxRICULTURAL Dn'ISIONS. 
 
 Time has dissipated many popular 
 fallacies with respect to Texas, 
 The extension of railroads, the 
 spread of population, the dissem- 
 ination of information through news- 
 papers and bureaux of immigration, 
 have corrected abroad many erro- 
 neous impressions of its social con- 
 ditions and climate, and of the 
 distribution of its arable areas, 
 concerning which last matter but 
 dim ideas prevailed, until very re- 
 cent times, within the State itself. 
 The accreting asssessed valuations 
 of the State, largely due to the in- 
 creased acreage in Western Texas 
 farms, is convincing to the man 
 who is open to conviction, that even 
 the supposed desert of the Staked 
 _^ Plain the Llano Estacado of the old 
 geographies, all its ancient Spanish 
 land-marks obliterated by the plow, 
 will respond to tilth with any equal acreage 
 of older States. And every day brings 
 fresh disclosures of unsuspected fruitful- 
 ness in newly furrowed grounds. Certain 
 it is that if Texas has not, as predominating 
 features, the interminable fens and im- 
 penetrable everglades, with their rank 
 profusion of primitive flora., that distin- 
 guish the Louisiana and Florida lowlands, 
 nor at the other extreme the Heaven-kiss- 
 ing hills and Felions piled on Ossas of 
 Colorado and California, it has still no 
 lack of scenic diversity, and all the less of 
 waste and barrens, 
 
 Texas may be roughly described as a 
 vast plain of irregular contour, extending 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 115 
 
 northwesterly from the Gulf of Mexico, 
 with an extreme length of 700, and 
 breadth of 500 miles, and rising from the 
 sea — imperceptibly, almost, over so great 
 a length — to an elevation, at its farthest 
 inland limits, of 3,500 feet. The Sabine 
 river separates it, in large part, from 
 Louisiana on the east, the Red river from 
 Arkansas and Indian Territory on the 
 north, and the Rio Grande from Mexico 
 on the south and southwest. As to its 
 physical features, it may be broadly parti- 
 tioned into three distinct divisions — the 
 flat region of coast lands, 50 to 150 
 miles wide ; the middle district of 
 undulating prairies, 200 to 300 miles 
 wide, and the higher and broader 
 western prairies, broken somewhat 
 in the southwest by the spui's of the 
 Mexican mountains. From an agri- 
 cultural standpoint, these divisions 
 are sometimes increased to six — the "J 
 
 southern coast, the timbered uplands ^ 
 
 of East and Central Texas, the cen- 
 tral black lands, the northwestern 
 red loam lands, the western and 
 northwestern plains — the latter fur- 
 ther distinguished as the "Pan- 
 handle of Texas" — and the allu- 
 vions of the Brazos and other rivers ; 
 which rivers have little navigable 
 utility, but are extremely serviceable 
 as drainage system for the eastern 
 half of the State, through which, for 
 the most part, they lead. 
 
 The State has a temperate and a 
 more uniform climate than its sub- 
 tropical position and vast area seem- 
 ingly denote. As between the north- 
 ernmost and southernmost points in 
 the State, the vai-iations are naturally 
 greatest. Districts open to the full 
 draft of the dry north wind are the 
 coolest. Fort Elliott, in the Fan- 
 handle, is one of these ; Denison, on 
 Red river, another. Eagle Pass, on the 
 Rio Grande, enjoys distinction as the 
 hottest place in the State. The coast 
 
 counties have a mean annual average of 
 53 degrees ; the State, as a whole, of 60. 
 The influence of the Gulf moderates the 
 climate of all Texas, and over it the 
 periodic " Norther " of the winter season 
 is seldom forceful enough to prevail. 
 The State, in its entirety, is remarkably 
 healthful, and the high prairies of the 
 West have an atmosphere that is espe- 
 cially dry and pure. 
 
 The annual rainfall varies from fifty 
 inches or so along the coast, to forty in 
 the central region of the State, and four- 
 
 COTTON PLANTATION, INTERNATIONAL RAILROAD, TEXAS 
 
 teen or sixteen in the extreme West. 
 The belt of twenty to twenty-five inches 
 of rainfall reaches nearly to the western 
 
116 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 confines of the State, and those districts of 
 the Pan-handle and Staked Plains, for- 
 merly mistakenly considered too arid for 
 cultivation, it has been discovered, have 
 a more seasonable and larger rainfall than 
 Colorado, New Nexico, Wyoming, West- 
 ern Nebraska and a great deal of Dakota, 
 Montana and the Pacific Slope. Water, 
 too, has been found almost everywhere 
 immediately beneath the surface, so that 
 the problem of irrigation is, in many 
 parts of the so-called dry lands, almost 
 ready-solved. 
 
 The most compactly settled farming 
 region of Texas is that lying east 
 and north of the Colorado river. 
 The characteristic of the coast line of the 
 State is its long sand-barred lagoons, in 
 many places especially favorable for 
 oyster plantations, a fact just beginning to 
 be appreciated. Broad savannas afford- 
 ing excellent pasturage, as well as swamp 
 and timbered tracts, are features of the 
 coast lands. The rich district of the 
 "Sugar bowl " of Texas lies just south- 
 west of Houston and Galveston, and it is 
 said that $15,000,000 is invested in cane 
 growing and allied industries thereabouts. 
 
 The Central Black Prairie Lands 
 stretch from Red river southwest to the 
 vicinity of San Antonio, in a belt 140 
 miles wide at the north, 100 in the middle 
 and 50 to 60 at the south. In this agri- 
 cultural division are Dallas, Fort Worth, 
 Austin, Waco, and other forward cities 
 of the State, and the greater part of the 
 cotton crop of the State is raised in it. 
 
 The Northwestern Red Lands com- 
 prise in large part the Pan-handle. South 
 and west of this region, and west of the 
 Colorado river, which flows through 
 Southeastern Texas, is the Stock Regiox. 
 much of which also is largely susceptible 
 of cultivation, and over which the envious 
 husbandman already casts a longing eye. 
 The counties North and Northwest of 
 San Antonio are considered particularly 
 well suited for sheep-raising. 
 
 production and valuations. 
 
 The Crop Report ok Texas for the 
 year ending August 31st last, is a suffi- 
 cient measure of the productiveness of 
 these several regions. Texas produced 
 during that year 1.300,000 bales of cotton 
 valued at $75,750,000; 75.500.000 bushels 
 of corn, $28,500,000; iS.Soo.ooo bushels 
 of oats. $5,350,000; 5.000.000 bushels of 
 wheat. $4,250,000; potatoes, worth $3.- 
 000,000; hay, $2,750,000; fruits, $2,300.- 
 000; sugar and molasses, $2,200,000; 
 garden products, $2,100,000: miscella- 
 neous farming staples, such as honey, 
 wine, etc., $1,400,000; and in addition 
 sheared 16.9S2.245 pounds of wool 
 valued at $3,603,406, from 3,466,678 
 sheep ; slaughtered 261,550 head of stock 
 worth $2,615,500; shipped 625,000 head 
 of cattle worth $12,500,000, and 25.500 
 horses and mules worth $1,530,000, a 
 grand total of nearly $148,000.000, — 
 more than the agricultural production of 
 the six New England States, Maryland 
 and Delaware together. Mr. Julius 
 RuNGE, president of the Galveston Cot- 
 ton Exchange, who speaks with the 
 authority of large experience, estimates 
 the market value of the products of the 
 soil of Texas for the crop season of 
 '89-'90 at $170,000,000. 
 
 Or the wealth of the State may 
 be taken as a measure of its fruitfulness. 
 The assessed valuation for the year 1S89, 
 shown by the official summaries of the 
 tax rolls were: Real estate, $480,135,- 
 007 ; personal property, $249,040,577, a 
 total of $729,175,564, an increase of 
 assessed values of nearly $50,000,000 in a 
 single year, of $202,000,000 since 1SS3 
 and of $507,000,000 since 187 1. As the 
 tax assessment is considered generally 
 equivalent to little more than fifty per 
 cent of the real value of the property 
 assessed and what -escapes taxation, these 
 figures may be doubled without over- 
 stating the truth ; that is to say, Texas has 
 
I 
 
118 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 CATTLE RANCH ON COLORADO RIVER, 
 SOUTHWEST TEXAS. 
 
 $960,370,014 of real estate and $498,081,- 
 154 of personal property, or $1,458,- 
 351,168 total valuation, an increase of 
 $100,000,000 in the last year and of 
 $404,000,000 in the last seven. In 1879 
 the assessed valuations of Kentucky, then 
 the foremost Southern State, were $318,- 
 000,000 ; of Virginia, $308,000,000, and 
 of Texas, $304,000,000. In the race for 
 precedence, Texas, in accretions of wealth 
 as in population, has fairly distanced 
 both these competitors. 
 
 These figures show the average wealth 
 per capita of 2,300,000 people in the 
 State to be about $634. The summarized 
 tax roll exhibits a levy against 115,869,464 
 acres of farming land, valued at $335.- 
 000,000; town lots, $125,000,000; 7.700 
 
 miles of railroads, $59,000,000; 7.261,- 
 769 head of cattle. $47,603,363 ; 1,357,- 
 358 horses and mules, $36,650,260 ; 
 goods, wares and merchandise, $29,- 
 000,000; lands of non-residents (in 
 back counties unorganized), $20,000,- 
 000; manufacturers' tools, material, 
 etc., $9,800,000; money on hand, 
 $13,682,371; sheep, 4,280,111 head, 
 5.032,293; hogs, 1,120.947; goats, 
 544,538, and 8,594 jacks and jennets. 
 $2,761,635. 
 
 The State has 
 for it, the nomi- 
 nal bonded in- 
 debtedness of 
 $4,237,730, and 
 has a surplus in 
 its treasury. Its 
 tax rate, twenty cents 
 on the $100, ad va- 
 lorem^ twelve and a half 
 cents school tax, fifty cents State 
 revenue poll and $1 school poll, 
 would produce, upon the assessment of 
 last year, nearly $3,000,000 of revenue, a 
 sum ample for all the expenses of govern- 
 ment, which thus far has been econqmi- 
 cally administered. 
 
 As a body politic, it has assets, consist- 
 ing of public lands, county bonds and 
 school moneys, of nearly $200,000,000. 
 Its farm mortgages are only $25,000,000, 
 as compared with $701,000,000 in Ohio, 
 $620,000,000 in Illinois, and $350,000,000 
 in Michigan, and less than those of any 
 other growing State. There are 8,500 
 miles of railroads in the State, which, at 
 the low valuation of $25,000 a mile, are 
 worth, in the aggregate, $467,500,000. 
 
 LANDS FOR SALE AND SETTLEMENT. 
 
 The lands available for settlement 
 in Texas are Jirst., those open to pre- 
 emption ; seco7id^ railroad and State 
 capital grants now in market; third., the 
 State school lands, and fourth^ those of 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 119 
 
 private owners. Within the first three of 
 these classes some 64,000,000 acres are 
 comprised, a domain twice as large as the 
 State of New York. Not all this is pur- 
 chasable, but there is certainly a sufficiency 
 for choice. By the terms of her admis- 
 sion to the Union, Texas reserved all her 
 public lands, and has disposed of some 
 32,000,000 acres in aid of railroads, and 
 3,000,000 acres to the syndicate that built 
 the imposing pile of the new capitol at 
 Austin. 
 
 The State, says Land Commissioner 
 Hall, has about 35,000,000 acres of com- 
 mon school lands for sale, of which, 
 perhaps 500,000 acres is valuable 
 for the timber on it. It has also 
 4,000,000 acres subject to pre-emp- 
 tion. The settler on these latter 
 must have the lands he takes up sur- 
 veyed and recorded at the general 
 land office, and must occupy and 
 improve them for three consecutive 
 years. The whole cost of survey- 
 ing and land office fees is about $11. 
 The price of the school lands is : 
 Dry grazing and agricultural, $3 an 
 acre ; watered lands, $3 an acre ; 
 timbered lands, $5. Payments ex- 
 acted for agricultural and grazing 
 lands are one-fortieth cash, balance 
 in thirty-nine years, with interest at 
 five per cent. Timber lands are cash, 
 and minerals found on school lands 
 are resei^ved to the State. The State 
 has no tide lands for sale. The 
 school lands are situated in all parts 
 of the State, but chiefly in the south- 
 ern, western and northern parts of it. 
 
 Extensive tracts owned by private 
 parties are in the market, at prices 
 approximating, where they are in 
 the same neighboi-hood, those of the 
 State lands. Time sales are very 
 commonly made by these proprie- 
 tors. The following Galveston land 
 owners and dealers have such lands 
 for sale : The Lasker Real Estate 
 
 Association, page 49 of this work; H. M. 
 Trueheart & Co., page 53 ; Seabrook W. 
 Sydnor, page 54 ; Hardy Solomon & 
 Co., page 53; Blagge, Bertrand & Co., 
 page 54, and the Leon & H. Blum Land 
 Co., page 83. 
 
 Galveston's infield described. 
 
 The commerce of the port of Galves- 
 ton, like the tide of a mighty river, is 
 derived from a thousand minor streams 
 that combine to swell its current. The 
 ramifications of the city's traffic, more 
 especially of its importing and exporting 
 
 EAST TEXAS FARM, INTER- 
 NATIONAL RAILROAD. 
 
120 
 
 THE CITY Ot GALVESTON. 
 
 establishments, may thus be traced to the 
 remotest parts of the far West and South- 
 west, throughout all which region are the 
 innumerable springs of trade supplying 
 its tributaries. 
 
 But the city has a province of its own — 
 an infield rich enough, if its rare resources 
 were but half developed, to sustain a 
 Galveston of itself. If a semi-circle be 
 described inland from Galveston as a 
 center, with a radius of a hundred miles, 
 it will include within it the whole of ten 
 counties of the State and parts of as many 
 others. The ten it comprises in whole, 
 are the agricultural and timbered counties 
 of Chambers. Jefferson, Liberty and 
 Orange, north and northeast of the city ; 
 Galveston county, Harris, and the Sugar 
 Bowl of Texas, the counties of Brazoria, 
 Fort Bend, Wharton and Matagorda, 
 west and southwest of it. 
 
 The railroads that center at Galveston 
 traverse several of these counties and 
 and branch out into others, but their navi- 
 gable waters, as in that fruitful district of 
 Tidewater Carolina and Virginia, known 
 as the Atlantic Garden, obviate largely 
 the necessity of these artificial highways. 
 Galveston, Chambers and Harris counties 
 between them encompass Galveston bay, 
 and the Sabine, Neches, Trinity, Brazos 
 and Colorado rivers, re-enforced by 
 numerous large bayous, pass through the 
 rest on their way to the sea. In respect 
 of the facility with which most of these 
 dependencies can be reached by water 
 routes, the insular position of Galveston, 
 which, perhaps, deprives it of some retail 
 trade with the country surrounding it, is 
 thus a positive advantage. 
 
 Galveston county comprises, besides 
 Galveston island, about 500 square miles 
 of the mainland. The three trunk lines 
 that have their termini in the city, pass 
 through it. It is sparsely populated out- 
 side the city, but lately the highlands 
 across the bay from the metropolis, have 
 been the scene of some speculation in 
 
 realty, that may lead to their settlement. 
 Tlnee bayous water it. Onlv about 
 10,000 acres of it are timbered. The soil 
 generally is a sandy loam. Some cotton 
 is grown, but truck farming for the city 
 markets is most in favor. Peaches, pears, 
 melons and small fruits are easily raised. 
 
 The populous city of Houston, seated 
 well to the south, in Harris county, usurps 
 a large share of its trade ; but the south- 
 eastern parts of it, lying on the west side 
 of Galveston bay, and reached from Gal- 
 veston by the Clinton ship channel, are trib- 
 utary to the city. This district is chiefly a 
 cattle country, but it has also many farms. 
 
 Chambers county covers 850 square 
 miles and is separated from the Gulf by 
 Bolivar peninsula, a spit of land attached 
 to Galveston county. Fully a quarter of 
 the surface of Chambers is timbered, and 
 only an eighth of its arable area is im- 
 proved lands. The soil is a dark gray 
 loam, averaging of crop product half a 
 bale of cotton to the acre, or twenty-five 
 bushels of corn, or in cane, two hogs- 
 heads. Grapes, oranges, figs and other 
 tender fruits are successfully grown. The 
 county is largely prairie, carpeted with 
 native grass, and, pastured upon it, cattle, 
 horses, sheep and hogs are easily and 
 cheaply reared. Sea island cotton would 
 grow along the shores of the bay, and rice 
 in the sedgy lands. The population of 
 Chambers, at last accounts, was 3.000, a 
 third of them colored. The tax rate is 65 
 cents on the hundred. There are 48,000 
 acres of school lands for sale in the county. 
 
 Liberty, adjoining Chambers on the 
 north, is very much like it in appearance 
 and character. It is, as a rule, a prairie 
 expanse with woodland along the streams, 
 and is chiefly a range for lowing herds. 
 It has forests of pine, and cypress brakes, 
 from which lumber and cord wood and 
 shingles are freighted to Galveston by 
 small craft, and while these resources 
 appreciate as they do, its growth must 
 continue apace. 
 
122 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 COTTON I'LATKORM AND COMPRESS, INTERNATIONAL RAILROAD. 
 
 Jefferson and Orange abut Louisiana at 
 the southeastern extremity of Texas. The 
 Sabine river partitions the great Calcasieu 
 lumber district of Louisiana — which prac- 
 tically extends over into them — and is 
 their eastern boundary, and the Neches is 
 the dividing line between them. They 
 lie in the greatest lumber district of the 
 the Southwest, and they send vast quanti- 
 ties of lumber and timbers to market on 
 the Galveston levees, by the water passage 
 of both rivers, and the estuaries of Sabine 
 lake and pass. They have connection 
 also by two lines of rail, links of the 
 Southern Pacific, and to Galveston, 
 another is projected. 
 
 Jefferson covers 1,200 square miles, of 
 which 75,000 acres is clothed with the 
 finest pine, oak, cypress, ash and hickory 
 timber. Its 15,000 acres of improved lands 
 
 are valued at $3 to $5 an acre ; its 531,635 
 acres of unimproved lands, seven-eighths 
 of them prairie, at $1 an acre. It has 
 75,057 acres of school lands unsold. Its 
 soil is a black, sandy, producing a half 
 to two bales of cotton to the acre, or forty 
 bushels of corn. Oranges, bananas and 
 figs can be raised with little trouble. 
 Salt has been found in the county. The 
 population of Jefferson is 3,600, two- 
 thirds of them colored. The assessed 
 valuations, usually reckoned a half of the 
 real equivalent of the property taxed, are 
 $3,103,893 ; the tax rate is 43^2 cents on 
 the hundred. 
 
 Orange county differs from Jefferson in 
 the fact that but a tenth of its 4,000 people 
 are colored. It is much like it otherwise, 
 however, in its characteristics of soil and 
 products, and owing to the fact that it is 
 
THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 123 
 
 more densely forested, the price of its 
 lands is somewhat higher. Beaumont, in 
 this county, is the great seat of the lumber 
 traffic of this part of the country. 
 
 While Brazoria is considered the choic- 
 est of all the Sugar Bowl, a sketch of it 
 will approximately describe the whole 
 quaternion ; for they are nearly alike in 
 soil, in products, and the golden possibili- 
 ties they afford the planter. Fort Bend is 
 the smallest of the four; Brazoria slightly 
 the largest. It covers about forty miles 
 squai-e of prairie, divided unequally by 
 the winding course of the Brazos, and 
 is intersected by streams whose banks are 
 umbrageous with native sylva of many 
 kinds. Along these streams are sugar 
 and cotton and corn lands as prolific as 
 any on the face of the earth. It is not too 
 much to expect that when capital has 
 been applied to bring this district under 
 thorough cultivation, it will enrich the 
 city in greater degree than all the rest of 
 
 its surroundings. Steamers ascend the 
 Brazos as far as Columbia, thirty miles 
 inland, and connect there with a branch 
 of the International railroad ; the Santa 
 Fe takes its northward course through 
 Brazoria and Fort Bend, and the Southern 
 Pacific through both Fort Bend and 
 Wharton. 
 
 The four counties of the sugar belt of 
 Texas embrace 3,000,000 acres of alluvial 
 lands especially adapted to the growth of 
 the sugar cane. They ai'e all abundantly 
 provided with fuel-woods for use in boil- 
 ing sugar. The results attained in this 
 industry here, quite equal the best in the 
 lowlands of Louisiana. The business is 
 conducted chiefly on as large a scale and 
 the system pursued is much the same. One 
 plantation in Fort Bend county, with 9,000 
 acres in cane, has $325,000 invested m its 
 lands and plant. It has 435 employes — 
 convicts mostly, hired from the State — 
 and works a hundred teams in the season. 
 
 
 
 _...^^„,,, 
 
 RANCH, MmLAND TEXAS. 
 
124 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTOJS. 
 
 Its daily expense is $700. It produced, 
 last year, 3,000,000 pounds of sugar and 
 1,016.500 gallons of syrup, all which was 
 taken by one Galveston house. 
 
 Unimproved lands in the Sugar Bowl, 
 suitable for cane culture, are worth $3 to 
 $10 an acre, according to location. Lands 
 with improvements and a milling equip- 
 ment, are worth $30 an acre and upwards. 
 Some lands, with proper drainage and 
 cultivation, produce two hogsheads to the 
 acre. The cost of preparing land for cane 
 is about $5 an acre ; of the seed cane, 
 $20 an acre. A planting will last, with 
 proper care, four years. For cultivation, 
 $7 an acre is estimated, and for cutting 
 and manufacturing, about $10 an acre. 
 Conducted with judgment and vigor, 
 sugar making can be made the most 
 profitable business of the State. There 
 are lands enough for it, in the vicinitv of 
 Galveston, to supply vastly more than the 
 consumption of the Union. 
 
 TIMHKR, MIXES, MANUFACTURES AND 
 HARBORS. 
 
 The most valuable pine forests of 
 Texas lie mostly between the Trinity river 
 and the eastern State line. There are 
 other extensive forests of pine in Eastern 
 Texas, but their woods are of an inferior 
 merchantable quality. The demand, 
 already large, of the treeless country west 
 and northwest of this supply, and of 
 Northern Mexico, makes it of more than 
 ordinary importance. It was estimated, 
 in 18S0. that of long leaf pine alone, these 
 Eastern Texas forests had twenty billion 
 feet standing, and that besides, there were 
 other pine woods making the timbered 
 area of I'exas twice as large as that of 
 Alabama and Mississippi combined. 
 Hardwood timbers likewise abound in 
 many parts of Eastern Texas. The 
 timbered acreage of the State, at last 
 accounts, was 46,303,000 acres; the tim- 
 ber standing, of all kinds, 67,508,500,000 
 feet. 
 
 The advancement of Texas in manufac- 
 tures has been nearly as notable as in 
 agriculture ; but, until recently, the enter- 
 prise displayed in this direction was chiefly 
 that prompted by local exigencies, and no 
 attempt had been made to explore its 
 mineral areas in the interest of its indus- 
 tries. The State, however, has now 
 undertaken a thorough geological survey, 
 and the preliminary investigations of its 
 bureau, disclose already as amazing an 
 affluence of dormant resource within the 
 bowels of the land, as there is to be 
 garnered upon its surface. In addition to 
 the petroleum, and salt, and guano, and 
 gypsum, and fire clay deposits, the gran- 
 ite, marble and other valuable building 
 stones of the State, discovery has been 
 made of silver and gold, and of natural 
 gas and iron fields and copper ledges of 
 extraordinary magnitude, and three great 
 coal beds, one in the center of the State, 
 having 20.000 square miles area, one on 
 the Rio Grande of 3,700 square miles, 
 and a third underlying fifty-four counties, 
 have been defined. 
 
 Dallas and Fort Worth have already 
 awakened to the prospect of manufactur- 
 ing eminence unfolded for them by the 
 iron and coal beds lying in juxtaposition 
 in the counties west and southwest of 
 them. Capital in both cities has embarked 
 in coal mining in these contiguous dis- 
 tricts, and in railroad projects to render 
 them accessible. San Antonio and Aus- 
 tin, both of which Nature has equipped 
 with available water power sites, have a 
 vital interest in their development; and 
 the progress of Laredo has been vastly 
 accelerated by the special advantage that 
 citv enjoys, of coal mines adjacent. 
 
 The State, in the last decade, has 
 passed through a stage of transition. It is 
 still largely an agricultural and pastoral 
 commonwealth, but it has been fruitful 
 also in these maturing years, of important 
 mechanical industries. By the census of 
 iSSo, Texas had $9,350,000 invested in 
 
\ ' ^i«<^ 
 
 
 II 
 
 .wUA 
 
126 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 manufactures, and an annual product of 
 $20,000,000. It is to be within bounds to 
 say that these figures have doubled since. 
 The tax assessment of last year, on manu- 
 facturing plants, implements and materials 
 alone, in Texas, was $9,855,427 itself. 
 
 In the list of the State's productions, 
 lumber is third. At a convention of the 
 lumber men of the State, held recently at 
 San Antonio, a capitalization of $100,- 
 000,000 was represented. The cotton 
 seed oil mills of Dallas, Palestine, Hous- 
 ton and Galveston rank among the largest 
 in capacity, of the country. Cotton and 
 woolen mills have lately been established 
 at several points in Texas — one at Dallas, 
 and another, just receiving its finishing 
 appointments, at Galveston. Local organ- 
 izations of capital are prosecuting both 
 these ventures. Fort Worth, Denison 
 and Laredo are undertaking concerns of 
 the same kind. Refrigerating and beef 
 packing plants have been put in operation 
 at Victoria and Fort Worth, by the Stock- 
 men's syndicate, and one is contemplated 
 also for Galveston. The flour mills of 
 Fort Worth, Dallas and Galveston are of 
 the first order of equipment. 
 
 There are unlimited opportunities 
 afforded, throughout the State, for other 
 manufacturing concerns : In the pine and 
 cypress and furniture woods and building 
 stones of the State ; in the countless 
 beeves and the profusion of fish and oys- 
 ters and fruits for canning and packing ; 
 in a superfluous store of hides for tanning, 
 and incidentally for the products of 
 leather ; in a superabundance of bone and 
 horn ; in iron and copper and salt and oil 
 and sugar and coal and water powers. 
 Galveston, with its facilities as a market 
 for foreign and domestic coals, its ample 
 supply of excellent water, its cheap sites, 
 and its shipping coiiveniences by land and 
 sea, is an inviting spot for such enter- 
 prises, and quite a number have been 
 founded there of late. 
 
 The configuration of the continent 
 
 clearly establishes the Texas coast region 
 as maritine province for all the great 
 West beyond the Mississippi. Commerce 
 already clamors for poi'ts along the Gulf. 
 But Nature, lavish of her bounties of soil 
 and climate and mineral wealth, has been 
 niggard of havens for the white winged 
 messengers of the deep blue sea. Accord- 
 ingly the work of harbor construction has 
 been undertaken at four points on the 
 shores of the State: At Sabine Pass, on 
 the dividing line between Louisiana and 
 Texas, so as to make a roadway for the 
 vast lumber traffic of the great forests of 
 both States ; at Galveston, which is 
 assured the rank of a port of the first class, 
 with thirty feet of water, by special appro- 
 priation of government funds ; at the 
 mouth of the Brazos, where private capital 
 is engaged in making a ship channel, and 
 at Aransas Pass (terminus of the San 
 Antonio & Aransas Pass Railroad, and 
 very nearly too of the Mexican National), 
 for which project the government is 
 sponsor also. The time is not far distant 
 when the avenues between the trade cen- 
 ters of twenty States and Territories west 
 of the Father of Waters, and the great 
 world beyond seas, will be shortened from 
 200 to 1,900 miles, or an average of 650. 
 
 POPULATION, CITIES, SCHOOLS. 
 
 Texas has a population variously esti- 
 mated, pending the national census of 
 1890, between the figures 2,300,000 and 
 2,700,000. The State has been peopled 
 largely by a steady migration into it, from 
 all the older and more crowded States. 
 This colonization has proceeded of late at 
 a rate equaling the settlement of the 
 Northwest a few years back. And these 
 homogeneous accessions have immensely 
 expedited growth. With it the lesser 
 foreign admixture, chiefly frugal and 
 thrifty Germans, has been all the more 
 readily assimilated. The Spanish-Amer- 
 ican element of San Antonio and the 
 
\ 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 127 
 
 border is fairly lost in the stream of 
 humanity now dispersed over all the 
 State, and the negro, proportionately less 
 numerous than in any of the old slave 
 States, is likewise less here of an impedi- 
 inent to progress. 
 
 Although Western Texas is rapidly 
 settling up, the great bulk of the popula- 
 
 tion of the State is massed in the district 
 about 350 miles wide, extending the length 
 of its Eastern border. In this division 
 was raised the million and a third bale 
 cotton crop of 1889, and its diversified 
 industries sustain, as in old Spain, seven 
 notable cities, the port of Galveston, 
 Houston at tidewater, San Antonio and 
 
 FOREST PKIML\ VL, L Vb 1 IKXAi,. 
 
128 
 
 THE CITY OF GALVESTON. 
 
 Fort Worth, the outermost ot the seven, 
 Waco, the most central, Austin, the State 
 capital, and Dallas. The aggregate pop- 
 ulation of these, by the State reports of 
 '87, was 300,000. It is very likely now 
 100,000 more. Others there are also of 
 minor but growing importance, Denison, 
 Sherman, Paris and Gainesville, chiefly 
 among them. The border towns of 
 Laredo and El Paso are also rapidly 
 attaining to prominence. The rapid met- 
 ropolitanization of these rising cities of the 
 State is a manifestation of the energy, in- 
 telligence and forward aspiration of Texas. 
 The Texan has doubtless acquired a 
 certain individuality from his environment. 
 The race does everywhere. But as 
 between the settled portions of the State 
 and its sisters of the Union generally, it 
 would be difficult to define the differ- 
 ences there are of social aspects. The 
 same spirit of respect for law, religion, 
 opinions, pervades the mass here, as there. 
 As liberal support is given to press, 
 schools and institutions. The household 
 gods and domestic virtues are as generally 
 cherished. And as all traces of the war are 
 now obliterated, so also sectional spirit is 
 blotted entirely out. Other issues — issues 
 of greater concern to Texas, demand con- 
 sideration. And the very speed of its evo- 
 lution the more rapidly antiquates the past. 
 
 The public school system of the State 
 was established by the foresight of the 
 fathers of the Lone Star Republic, which 
 preceded it, upon a most enduring foun- 
 dation. The reservation of lands for public 
 education is 3,542,400 acres granted the 
 various counties and 29,000,000 held by 
 the State, which, valued at $2.50 an acre, 
 is $81,355,000. Besides this there is 
 invested in land notes, bonds, and cash, 
 for the benefit of the schools and vmiversi- 
 ties of the State, $19,700,000, so that the 
 State's school fund is over $100,000,000, 
 a munificence that accords with its own 
 material grandeur. 
 
 The pro rata expenditure by the State 
 last year for schools was $4 a head, or 
 $2,182,460 for the 545.616 children of 
 school age in the State. About seventy- 
 five per cent of these attend, and 12,000 
 teachers are retained to instruct them. 
 The Texas University, located at Austin, 
 and the Agricultural and Mechanical Col- 
 lege, situated at Bryan, have their own 
 endowment funds, and the State maintains 
 two Normal schools, the " Sam Houston," 
 at Huntsville, for whites, and a colored 
 
 institute at Praii-ie V 
 
 Permanent 
 
 provision has been made also for public 
 asylums for the blind, the deaf and 
 dumb, the orphans, and the lunatics of 
 the State. 
 
INDEX TO GALVESTON TOPICS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Adoue & Lobit, bankers..-. "15 
 
 Aggregate jobbing business 16, 77 
 
 Aggregate manufacturing production 99 
 
 Aguilo, J. B. & Co., commission merchants 88 
 
 American National Bank 43 
 
 Angell, C. E. & Co., insurance 57 
 
 Ansell, W. C, Manager the Texas Ice & Cold Storage 
 
 Co 109 
 
 Arrivals and departures of transient vessels 63 
 
 Art, letters, masie, etc 27, 28 
 
 Astall, Jesse, iron works lOS 
 
 B 
 
 Baldinger Bros., crockery 96 
 
 Ball, Ilutchings & Co., bankers 44 
 
 Ball School, The 22, 23 
 
 Banks of Galveston 40 — 49 
 
 Bar of Galveston Harbor 64 
 
 Bay of Galveston described 5, 65 
 
 Beach at Galveston 10 
 
 Beers, Kennison & Co, insurance agents 57 
 
 Blagge, Bertrand & Co., real estate and insurance 54 
 
 Blum, Leon & H., dry goods dealers and cotton 
 
 factors SI 
 
 Blum, the Leon & H. Blum Land Co 82 
 
 Brown, the J. S. Brown Hardware Co 88 
 
 Browne, Edmond, slater of Houston and Galveston 94 
 
 Building Improvements 55 
 
 Byrne, R. T., agent the Mutual Reserve Fund Life 
 
 Association 60 
 
 Byrne & Jones 93 
 
 Byrnes, J. W., paving contractor and roofing works. .100, 110 
 
 C 
 
 Cannon, F. & Co., importers, grain shippers and com- 
 mission merchants 86 
 
 Capital in manufactures 16, 99 
 
 Capital in wholesale trade 16, 77 
 
 Christie, G. R., agent the Protection Oil Co 95 
 
 Citizens Loan Co., The 47 
 
 City government 18 
 
 Clarke, Chas. & Co., stevedores and contractors 67 
 
 Clayton, N. J., architect 55 
 
 Coastwise trade of Galveston 62 
 
 Colored population of the city IS, 22 
 
 Compresses of Galveston 74 
 
 Conyngton Business College, and the Texas Phono- 
 graph Co 26, 27 
 
 Cotton trade of Galveston 74 
 
 Coutant, J. W., manufacturers' agent 87 
 
 Cross, T. L. & Co., ship chandlers 73 
 
 D 
 
 Dalian, Chas., wholesale liquors 95 
 
 Davis, B. R. & Co., furniture dealers 96 
 
 Description of the city 5—30 
 
 Dun, R. G. & Co.'s Mercantile Agency, E. H. Gorse, 
 
 manager 98 
 
 P.iGE. 
 
 Emme, C, Galveston Show Case Factory ill 
 
 Equitable Life Insurance Co., Ladd M. Waters & Bro. 
 
 agents 58 
 
 Exports of Galveston 16, 63 
 
 Exline & Grueudler, the Galveston Wool Scouring 
 
 Mills 104 
 
 FT 
 
 Facilities of the port 63 
 
 Fire department, Galveston 19,56 
 
 First National Bank 42 
 
 Foreign Commerce of Galveston 63 
 
 Fowler, Capt. Chas., agent the Jilorgan Steamship 
 
 line 13, 71 
 
 G 
 
 Galveston Artesian Well Co is, 100 
 
 Galveston Bagging & Cordage Factory 103 
 
 Galveston Coal Co., The, F. C. Jeffery, manager 94 
 
 Galveston Cotton AWoolen Mills 102 
 
 Galveston harbor 5, 65 
 
 Galveston in history 10—17 
 
 Galveston National Bank 41 
 
 Galveston Oil Mills, The 107 
 
 Galveston packing companies 99 
 
 Galveston's back country 119—124 
 
 Galveston's future 17 
 
 Galveston Show Case Factory, C. Emme, proprietor... Ill 
 
 Galveston Steam.ship & Lighter Co 66 
 
 Galveston Wool Scouring Mills, Exline & Gruendler, 
 
 proprietors 104 
 
 Goggan, Thos. & Bro., piano and music house 28, 89 
 
 Gorse, E. H., manager R. G. Dun & Co 98 
 
 Government work in progress at the entrance to Gal- 
 veston harbor 5, 65 
 
 Grain shipments inaugurated 64 
 
 Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe railroad 36 
 
 Guinard, C. M. & Co., insurance 58 
 
 H 
 
 Hardy Solomon & Co., real estate 53 
 
 Hawley & Heidetiheimer, importers of coflfee and 
 
 dealers in sugar 86 
 
 Health and sanitation 17 
 
 Holmes, C. D., grocer and ship chandler 98 
 
 Hotels of Galveston 30 
 
 Houston & Texas Central R. R 35 
 
 Hutchings, J. H., of Ball, Hutchings & Co 44 
 
 I 
 
 Imports of Galveston I6 
 
 Insurance agents of Galveston 57 
 
 International & Great Northern R. R 31 
 
 Island City Cornice & Ornamental Works, L. E. Sein, 
 
 proprietor m 
 
 Island City Manufacturing Co., Sass & Weis, proprie- 
 tors 101 
 
 Island City Savings Bank, The 43 
 
 Island of Galveston described 5 
 
130 
 
 IXDEX, 
 
 J 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 John, R. H., trank factory Ill 
 
 Jeffery, F. C, Manager the Galveston Coal Company... '.t4 
 
 I> 
 
 Ladf], W. F. & Co., cotton buyers 76 
 
 Lanimers & Flint, cotton and wool factors 76 
 
 La-sker Real Estate Association, The 49 
 
 Large jobbing concerns of Galve.ston 7, 77 
 
 Leith, L. C. & Co., coal dealers 69 
 
 Lee Iron Works, The 108 
 
 Levy, J. & Bro., stablemen and undertakers 97 
 
 Levy, M. M., manufacturers' agent ,S6 
 
 Lighterage at Galveston 60 
 
 Living at Galveston 29 
 
 Loan agencies, Galveston 17 
 
 IVI 
 
 Mallory line of steamers, J. N. Sawyer & Co., agents 70 
 
 Marsan, J. B. & Co., oyster packers 109 
 
 Marwitz, II., ship chandler and grocer 7.3 
 
 McComack, .1. J., plumber 110 
 
 Menard, J. M. O. & Co., insurance 57 
 
 Mensing Bros. & Co., factors and grocers 7, 80 
 
 Moller, J. & Co., ship agents 68 
 
 Moody, \V. L. & Co., bankers and cotton factors, 45, 46, 47, 53 
 Morgan Steamsliip Line and Houston Direct Naviga- 
 tion Co., Capt. Cha.s. Fowler, agent 71 
 
 Mutual Reserve Fund Life A.ssociation of X. Y., R. T. 
 
 Byrne, agent 60 
 
 N 
 
 National Bank ofTcxas, W. L. Moody, pr&sident 42 
 
 Neptune Ice Co., The 109 
 
 New banking concerns 40 
 
 New cotton mills 102 
 
 New manufacturing enterprises 99 
 
 New rope walk 99 
 
 Newspapers of Galveston 27 
 
 New York steamship lines 71 
 
 Nicolini, Capt. C, ship chandler and grocer 73 
 
 O 
 
 Opportunity for manufactures at Galveston 99, 124 
 
 Ott, Chas. S., marble works 110 
 
 Pagoda Baths, The 19 
 
 Palmer & Rey, type founders of San Francisco, O. 
 
 Paget, agent 96 
 
 ParkctMcRae, coal dealers 94 
 
 Perkins, A. J. &. Co., lumber dealers 92 
 
 Pollard, W. H. & Co., dealers in bricks, lime and 
 
 masons' material 92 
 
 Port charges, Galveston 66 
 
 Progress of Galveston 16 
 
 Proposed bridge to the mainland 39 
 
 Protection Oil Co., C. B. Pettit & Co., G. R. Christie, 
 
 agent 93 
 
 R 
 
 Railroads of Galveston 31 
 
 Ratto, Lang & Weinberger, wholesale fruits and con- 
 feet ionerj' 87 
 
 Real estate agents of Galveston 52 
 
 Real estate market, Galveston 50 
 
 r.VGE. 
 
 Redfield. the Redfield Co., building material 94 
 
 Resorts of (Julveston 19 
 
 Reymershott'er, J. Reymershofifer's Sons, grain com- 
 mission 107 
 
 Rice, Boulard <t Co., paints, oils, etc 85, 86 
 
 Rogers, J. S., manager the Texas Co-operative As.soci- 
 
 ation S3 
 
 Rosenberg, H., banker 22, 47 
 
 Rosenfield, J., wholesale notions 85 
 
 S 
 
 Sawyer, .1. N. & Co., agents the Mallory line of N. Y. 
 
 steamers 71 
 
 Schadt, Wra., building material 93 
 
 Schools of Galveston 22—27 
 
 Sehott, J. J., wholesale and retail druggist 97 
 
 Sealy, George, of Ball, Hutchings & Co 45 
 
 Sealy. the John Sealy hospital 29 
 
 Sein, L. E., the Island City Cornice Works Ill 
 
 Ship agents of Galveston 68 
 
 Society and people of Galveston 28 
 
 Sorley, James Sorley, Stubbs & Co., insurance agents.. 58 
 
 St. Marj-'s Infirmary 29 
 
 Street railroads of Galveston 19 
 
 Sugar trade of Galveston 77 
 
 Sweeney & Co., stevedores 67 
 
 Sydnor, SeabrookW., real estate 54 
 
 T 
 
 Taxes, revenue and debt 18 
 
 Taylor Compress Co 74 
 
 Texas Co-operative Association, P. of H., J. S. Rogers, 
 
 manager S3 
 
 Texas Ice & Cold Storage Co., W. C. Ansell, manager.. 109 
 
 Texas Land & Loan Co., The 47 
 
 Texas Mutual Fire Insurance Company S3 
 
 Texas Phonograph Co -V 
 
 Texas Star Flour Mills, The 10.')— 107 
 
 Trade in transit, Galveston 16 
 
 Tramp steamships 6 
 
 Truck Farms of the Island 5 
 
 Trueheart, II. M. & Co., real estate o2 
 
 U 
 
 Ursuline Convent, The -4 
 
 V 
 
 Variety anddiversityof Galveston 's manufactures 99 
 
 Vessels registered at Galveston 63 
 
 W 
 
 Wallis, Landes & Co., cotton factors and wholesale 
 
 grocers 83 
 
 Water supply IV, W 
 
 Waters, Ladd M. & Bro., agents the Equitable Life 
 
 Insurance Co 58 
 
 Weis Bros., wholesale dry goods 84, 85 
 
 Wholesale and jobliing trade of the city 16 
 
 Wiley & NichoUs, warehousemen and transfer agents.. 97 
 Willis, P. J. & Co., drj- goods, cotton and general 
 
 merchandise '8 
 
 Wool trade of Galveston 77 
 
 Z 
 
 Zahn, Justus, photographer 28 
 
INDEX TO TEXAS TOPICS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Agricultural divisions of Texas 114—116 
 
 Agricultural productions of Texas 110 
 
 Assessed valuation of Texas 110 
 
 Cattle, horses and sheep in Texas .• 118 
 
 €horography of Texas 114 
 
 Cities of Texas 1'-" 
 
 Climate of Texas 115 
 
 Coast lands of Texas 116, 119 
 
 Coast line of Texas 126 
 
 Cotton crop of Texas 116 
 
 District adjacent to Galveston 119—124 
 
 Eastern Texas incidentally mentioned 116, 127 
 
 Endowments for Education and Eleemosynary pur- 
 poses 128 
 
 Epic character of early history of Texas 113 
 
 Farm Mortgages of Texas '. 118 
 
 Founders of the Lone Star State, foresight of. 113, 128 
 
 Fruit growing in Texas 119 
 
 History of Texas referred to.. 
 Homes for all in Texas 
 
 Immigration into Texas and the Southwest, and its 
 
 character 126 
 
 Incidental references to Texas 4, 10, 30, 52, 100 
 
 Iron and coal in Texas 124 
 
 Lands for sale and open to pre-emption in Texas 118 
 
 Liberal terms for public lands of Texas 118 
 
 Magnitude of Texas 113 
 
 Market gardening opportunities, Galveston County 52 
 
 Minerals of Texas and geological survey of the State... 124 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Misconceptions as to Texas corrected 114 
 
 Panhandle lands of Texas 116 
 
 Population of Texas, estimates of 126 
 
 Portsof the Texas coast 126 
 
 Prices of Texas State and other lands 118 
 
 Principal crops of Texas, and the value of them in 
 
 1888, a measure of its fruitfulness 116 
 
 Public domain of Texas 118 
 
 Railroad lands for sale in Texas 118 
 
 Railroad mileage in Texas 118 
 
 Rainfall of Texas 115 
 
 Rivers of Texas 115 
 
 School lands of Texas 128 
 
 Seven cities of Eastern Texas and their progress 127 
 
 Society in Texas 127 
 
 Staked Plain of Texas 116 
 
 State government economically administered 118 
 
 State pride of the Texans 113 
 
 Stock raising in Texas 118 
 
 Sugar Bowl of Texas and investment in siigar industry 116 
 
 Tax rate in Texas 118 
 
 Texas contrasted with other States and countries 113 
 
 Texas land and loan agencies with offices at Galves- 
 ton 119 
 
 Timbered area of Texas 124 
 
 Valuable forests of Texas 124 
 
 Value of wool clip, 1888 116 
 
 Vast deposits of coal and iron in Texas 124 
 
 Wealth of the State 116 
 
 Western Texas, character of lands in 116 
 
 NOTES AND CORRECTIONS. 
 
 Page i6. — " Output of manufactures, 1889," should read, " capital in 
 manufactures." 
 
 Page 50. — " Manufactures," third line second column, should read, 
 " capital in manufactures." 
 
 Page 62. — The total tonnage clearances of 1889 were, 492,677; an 
 increase of more than a third over 1888. The value of cargoes cleared in 
 '89 was $51,558,115. 
 
 Page 64. — As to "grain shipments inaugurated," credit should be 
 given to J. Reymershoffer's Sons for 70,000 bushels shipped last June. 
 
C| CXiLu^^.A.AZe/\y<^ ^ tX.^-t^c_<si..<3^. 
 
 4 
 
 •Ll ^^ 189.9 
 

 1. Galveston Brietl\- Described. 
 
 2. Galveston as a Railroad Center. 
 
 3. Banking, Loans, Real Estate, Insurance. 
 
 4. Maritime Trade of the City. 
 y Cotton Trade of the City. 
 
 6. General Trade of the Cit>'. 
 
 7. The City's Progress in Manufactures. 
 
 8. The State of Texas. 
 
 With Illustrations Showing the Architecture and Appearance of 
 Galveston, and the Scenerv of the State. 
 
 Edited by Andrew Morrison for Geo. W. Engelhardt. 
 
 Copyrijihted 1890. 
 
 "^yRiNTi N6 j:oC^^ 
 
 I F. Ap '09 
 
 «>fC 6 »«•