Galveston

The island was named after Bernardo de Gálvez, an 18th-century Spanish governor. The first European settlement was built around 1816 by the French privateer Louis-Michel Aury, and the Port of Galveston was established by the Mexican Congress in 1825. During the Texas Revolution the island was the main port of the Texas Navy and briefly the republic's capital. On 19 June 1865, two months after the end of the Civil War, Union General Gordon Granger informed the enslaved people of Texas in Galveston that they were free — the event commemorated as Juneteenth.

In the 19th century Galveston was one of the nation's largest cotton ports and, for a time, the largest city in Texas, known as the "Queen City of the Gulf". Cotton passed through its wharves, immigrants — Germans and Jewish merchants among them — arrived through its port, and its merchants built Victorian mansions along Broadway.

In September 1900 a hurricane drove a storm surge of 8 to 12 feet across the low island, destroying about 7,000 buildings and killing at least 6,000 people — the deadliest natural disaster in US history. The city built a seawall and recovered, encouraging new immigration, including about 10,000 Eastern European Jews in the Galveston Movement of 1907–14, but the Houston Ship Channel brought Houston's port into competition with its own. During Prohibition the island reinvented itself as the "Free State of Galveston", a resort of illegal gambling and drinking clubs that lasted into the 1950s. Hurricane Carla struck in 1961 and Hurricane Ike in 2008; after Ike the city rebuilt, adding the Pleasure Pier in 2012.

Galveston's culture is shaped by the sea and its own long memory. The Victorian architecture of the Strand, the East End and the Silk Stocking District is protected and celebrated, the Galveston Historical Foundation keeps the Bishop's Palace open for tours, and the 1900 storm is remembered with the 1900 Storm Memorial on the seawall.

The island is the birthplace of Juneteenth: Granger's order of 19 June 1865 is commemorated every year, and Ashton Villa on Broadway is remembered as the place where it was read. Celebrations of the day began in Texas in 1866 and spread across the South and, with the Great Migration, the rest of the country; it is now a federal holiday.

The festival year is crowded for a city of its size. Mardi Gras Galveston, one of the largest Carnival celebrations in Texas, fills the Strand before Lent, and Dickens on the Strand brings Victorian costume and street performers in early December. The Grand 1894 Opera House, the official opera house of Texas, is run as a performing-arts theatre, and the boxer Jack Johnson, the "Galveston Giant", who grew up on the island and became the first Black world heavyweight champion in 1908, is honoured with a statue. The St Joseph's Church built by German immigrants in 1859–60 is the oldest German Catholic church in Texas.

About 53,700 people lived in Galveston at the 2020 census, making it the second-largest city in Galveston County, of which it is the county seat. The city covers Galveston Island and Pelican Island, and much of it is at the southern edge of the Houston metropolitan area.

The University of Texas Medical Branch, founded in 1891, is a major economic force, with more than 70 buildings and over 2,500 students; Texas A&M University at Galveston, a marine-focused campus, and Galveston College add to the student population. Tourism is the other pillar: summer beachgoers, cruise passengers — Galveston is ranked the leading cruise port on the Gulf Coast — and weekend visitors from Houston. The Moody family's businesses and foundation remain important in civic life.

Summer brings beachgoers from across the Houston area. The seawall protects the city centre, but it also caused the old wide beach in front of it to wash away, and storms remain the island's abiding concern: Ike in 2008 wrecked the old pleasure pier and a landmark seafront hotel, and every hurricane season brings the possibility of evacuation.

Seafood from the Gulf is the heart of Galveston eating: shrimp, oysters, blue crab and Gulf fish such as red snapper, fried in Southern style, grilled or boiled with spices. The restaurants along Seawall Boulevard and the harbour by the Strand serve it with views of the water; Gaido's is one of the seafood restaurants on the seawall, and a restaurant beside the tall ship Elissa is known for its seafood too.

The island's mixed history shows on the table. Mexican cafés are popular, and there are Greek and Italian restaurants too, a reminder of the immigrants who came through the port after 1900. The island also shares the wider food of the Texas coast and Houston: Tex-Mex, barbecue and crawfish boils in season.

The Strand is the place for sweets, with a block of old-fashioned candy shops, and ice cream and other treats are sold on the Pleasure Pier. Mardi Gras and Dickens on the Strand bring street food and drink into the district.