A day of history and water for our last visit to Galveston

Any day I spend near the water is a good. Today was a good day.

Galveston city marker

The day started early when I woke up already thinking about our coming trip home. Heck, I even started thinking about the moment when I’ll have to back the trailer into the driveway back in Lapeer. So at 6:20 a.m. I got up and got an early start on the day.

To see more photos of Galveston scroll down to the next post.

After clearing my e-mail I headed out for my morning walk. The day opened beautifully with partly cloud skies and temperatures in the high 60s.

Joan was almost awake when I returned from my walk about 8 a.m. and she got up and started getting ready as we knew we had a full day of sightseeing back in Galveston.

By 9:45 a.m. we were on the road headed to Galveston for the fourth, and certainly the last time on this trip.

During previous visits there Joan expressed a desire to see the film “The Great Storm of 1900” the story of the horrific hurricane that swept over the island at the turn of the 20^th Century and left in its wake total destruction and the loss of an estimated 7,000 lives.

Texas Seaport artifact

The total human cost will never be known because many bodies were swept to sea and piles of bodies were piled and burned without identification during a period of martial law in the days after the hurricane to ward off disease from the rotting bodies.

The film, a multi-media presentation that relied on drawings and still photos from the period, drew on journals and letters from survivors of the storm. Even 112-years later it is a heart wrenching tale that stirs deep emotions.

We pass a barge on our cruise

At the time, the Mayor of Galveston took charge, declared martial law and set immediately to the work of clearing debris and bodies and securing his city. This is a time of poor communications and no CNN, Fox News or other 24-hour news organizations giving non-stop coverage to the storm. The American Red Cross sent four people to the scene, one of them the famous Clara Barton.

To clear his city of bodies the mayor forced able bodied men at gunpoint to become part of a body disposing detail or face execution.

In the days following the storm, dozens or possibly up to 125 looters, some who were cutting off the ring fingers of the dead, were summarily executed by order of the mayor.

Pelicans make a home of this shrimp boat

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin could have taken a lesson from this guy.

In the years to come the city raised the entire populated portion of the island by about 15-feet and erected a 3-mile long 17-foot high seawall along the Gulf of Mexico to help protect the city from destruction in future storms.

Many of the houses and large buildings and churches that were destroyed in the storm were raised up to 17-feet using large jacks. It took nearly 11 years to complete the job.

The harbor cruise crossed paths with our ferry from last week

When we arrived at the theater the theater teller was having a hard go of it with a man waiting to watch the movie because she apparently had declined to adjust the schedule so he could get in to an earlier showing.

Then he was less than pleased when she held off starting the 11 a.m. showing a few minutes while she waited to seat about 35 high school students who were coming to that showing.

At first we wondered how it was going to be with all those high school students sitting in the dark, three days before spring break, but they were remarkably well behaved, probably owing to the presence of a very large coach-type teacher who watched over them from the side of the theater.

The Elissa from the water side

At the end of the Storm movie we stuck around to see the next short movie the story of Pirate Jean Lafitte, who terrorized mostly Spanish ships, but occasionally attacked an American vessel.

Lafitte ended his career on Galveston Island and there is a persistent rumor that a large treasure is buried somewhere on the island. We didn’t have time to look.

While the island has been the scene of other devastating storms, the efforts done to raise the island have helped keep the damage from other storms from reaching the level of the 1900 storm.

After the movie we headed to the end of Pier 21 and the Texas Seaport Museum and the tall ship “Elissa,” which is a fascinating story of revival all its own.

Joan in the hold of the Elissa

The lady who was checking us in for the ship and museum tour said for just a couple dollars more we could also take a one-hour cruise on Galveston Bay. Anytime I can get on the water, I go, so we added the cruise.

We spent a little time looking around the Seaport Museum, which had some interesting exhibits on the seafaring history of Galveston.

An oil rig waiting to be scrapped

One thing I learned today, that I didn’t know previously, is that Galveston was an equally import port for the immigration of foreigners and as many people entered the U.S. through Galveston as entered through Ellis Island in New York.

During the cruise we passed by several offshore oil rigs that are parked in the bay waiting to be scrapped. The skipper told us that new regulations from the federal government have cost 100,000 jobs in the gulf and that the oil rigs that aren’t being scrapped have moved to the North Atlantic and elsewhere.

Right where I belong

Also new fishing regulations and the refusal of the federal government to issue renewal shrimping permits have permanently ended many fishing careers in the area. Not to mention the loss of 4,000 NASA jobs with the end of the Shuttle program.

To top that off, he said his son a sergeant in the Marine Corps is having his military career ended early because of the military downsizing with the end of the Iraq War. I think it is safe to say he will not be voting for the incumbent President in November.

Back at the dock, Joan and I completed the final third of our combination ticket and toured the beautifully restored “Elissa” a square-rigged, steel-sided, sailing ship that first sailed in 1874.

The Elissa

The history of this ship was fascinating to an old sailor like me, but it apparently is the oldest ship of its type still sailing. Sailing is a relative term as the ship is preparing to go into dry dock for some needed hull repairs before it can return to sea trials as it does every year.

But it is meticulously maintained and there were at least two volunteers working on her today with varnish and paint.

If I lived anywhere near here, I’d be there to help too.

Joan was a real trooper and walked up and down those ship ladders to visit the officers’ quarters and ship’s hold.

The Strand

At the end of the tour, I man waiting on the pier spotted my Navy t-shirt and USS Cogswell hat and asked me what ships I had served on. We talked Navy for a few minutes and then Joan and I headed downtown to walk “The Strand” in the old part of Galveston.

We used up every minute of the 6 hours of parking I purchased downtown and we enjoyed the souvenir shops and stores downtown. We even found a cute little t-shirt for the littlest grandchild

Joan at her tattoo parlor

I almost had Joan talked into getting a belly piercing at a local tattoo shop, but at the last minute she backed out. So she got a little butterfly tattoo instead. Not really.

With the touring done, we headed to Miller’s, a seafood restaurant suggested by the skipper of our afternoon harbor cruise. Miller’s is located along the seawall and we had a wonderful dinner at a window seat overlooking the Gulf of Mexico.

Dinner

Joan had the Crab Cakes and I went with the Fried Shrimp dinner, both of which were delicious. By the time we got out of the restaurant the wind had picked up, the clouds had rolled in and there was a spit of rain hitting us and the car as we left Galveston for the final time on this trip.

As I write this about 8 p.m. tonight, the winds are whipping around the trailer and it appears as if we are in for a pretty significant weather change.