Dr. Patricia Bixel

Well, you would have seen a very, very active port.

Galveston is, of course, based on Galveston Island, which is a barrier island that parallels the Texas coast.

It was the only natural harbor in the state at the time.

So it was the major port of the area.

At one point, something like 80 to 90 percent of anything coming into Texas came through Galveston.

And you probably would either be hearing about or looking forward to the Labor Day Parade, which was a huge event in Galveston at the time.

Because of the economic importance of the port and all of the unions and all the men that worked in the port operations, there was always a massive Labor Day Parade.

Because of the port, you had the infrastructure, the financial infrastructure that goes with that.

So you had banking and insurance.

So it was a very wealthy community.

The city itself was a mixture of very large, prominent stone and brick business buildings with large housing areas that reached toward the beach, with the port on the sort of mainland side of the island and then the beach and those houses and those neighborhoods that stretched away from the port toward the beach.

Galveston had a summer population that came for the beautiful weather and the beaches.

It was also a port city, and port cities are different.

Port cities, because people and goods and ships are coming and going all the time, tend to be very diverse.

Galveston had a significant ethnic and racial diverse population.

And you had the culture that went with the money that was there.

So you had operas and symphonies and music and dance halls and bars and brothels and all the things that come with being a port city.

So Galveston at the time was the major and most developed city in Texas.

They did.

Occasionally, people would bring to the city council the idea of some level of protection for the island, but by and large, it was just seen to be too expensive.