Near the visitor’s center was the Rosenberg Library Museum Galveston ’s history, much
of it dealing with the turn of the 20th Century.
One of the things I found
interesting was this blue glass bottle, called a “fire grenade.” Filled
with chemicals, it was used by the fire department to get to areas where the
hoses might not reach. I looked at this as the reverse of the Molotov
Cocktail, and wondered how many of these “grenades” have survived.
Since it was time for lunch, we set
out to find some of the places mentioned on the tram tour. We located the
Star Drug Store, which still has a huge Coke sign out front. Originally built in 1886, the building was
renovated a couple times. After a severe
fire in 1998, a restoration project to return this to the look of the 1950’s, when
the center lunch counter was the first to be desegregated in the city.
Mum was able to get the vanilla Coke, which she remembered having when
she was young. I let her know it could be purchased at most
stop-and-robs, but didn’t frequent corner stores to know that. Besides,
she added, the fountain made version would be better than any bottled version.
Can’t argue with that.
There were display cases all around
the edge of the store, which contained a lot of items … some many decades
old, and some fairly recent. It gave us a lot of interesting things to
look at while we were waiting for our food. This was a great place for
lunch, and still a local favorite. A had a nice chocolate milkshake to so
along with my meal.
When
travelling with a group, you have to look at things that everyone would want to
do. The Pirates of the Gulf
Coast Galveston
for a third day, as I wanted to see what else was in the Webster area. I figure I’ll come back at some time later to
hit that, as well as two other things which caught my attention (which is why
I’m mentioning them here): Haunted
Mayfield Manor, and the Galveston
Railroad Museum
One item which I thought we’d get a
more historical bang for our buck was the Pier 21 Theatre, which had a film on
1900 Hurricane. Finding Pier 21 was easy (as they’re all marked with
bright red flags), but find where to park was more difficult (as that wasn’t
very well marked). We did find the public lot, and the theatre would
validate your parking for about two hours, so that’s a good little tidbit to
know.
Since the naming of hurricanes has
only been since the 1950’s, any prior storms where just usually known by the
year it happened. If there was more than one massive storm in a season,
that was probably part of the reason why they were given “names.” The hurricane that devastated Galveston in 1900 was
aptly named “The Great Storm,” as it’s been the worst one to hit there in
recorded history. At that time, the island was only about eight feet
above sea level, so a thirty-foot storm surge wielded massive destructive
power. The film showed the early footage of this thriving port city
during the height of the cotton boom, followed by an explanation of the tragic
events, and then the newsreels of the aftermath. Hundreds dead, thousands
injured, and millions in damage doesn’t even describe the impact.
Part of the presentation also
showed how the entire city was lifted about eight feet, and the twenty-foot
Seawall was built to protect against future storms. It took a couple
years to complete, and the millions it took to build where in the currency of
the day (so a similar undertaking today would be in the billions, in order to
put that in perspective). There were many at the time who felt spending
so much was foolish. But when a hurricane in 1915 rolled through the
area, and most of force was deflected by the Seawall, it showed this was
well-worth the money. As bad as Alicia and Ike were when they hit, their
effects were also minimized because of this too.
We still had free time in the
parking lot, so we went next door to the Texas Seaport
Museum Galveston since 1900 was Hurricane Ike, with
a tidal surge of 22 feet, and winds of 110 mph.
While the museum was severely damaged and subsequently repaired, the
damage to the hull of Elissa remained
undetected until 2011. The were
seriously rotted, so a restoration project began to save it. We couldn’t
go on the boat, but were still able to take pictures of it sitting in the dock.
In addition to information about
the damage and restoration, the Texas
Seaport Museum Galveston was known
for a period as “South Ellis Island ”).
There were some other restaurants and small shops around the area within
walking distance, so take advantage of the parking in the area.
We had another major target which
we’d learned about on the tram tour, which was an old fashioned candy and ice
cream store, except we couldn’t remember where it was (considering the zig-zag
nature we’d done). We remembered it was on one of the streets that
paralleled the pier area (in the historic “Strand” district), so I just
methodically went up and down each street. That allowed us to see
something which were mentioned on the tour that we didn’t get pictures of, like
the arch constructed by the first Mardi Gras held on the island…
…to thing which were just sitting
randomly in the city with any any given explanation. This giant horn
being one of the examples, as there was no indication as to why it was there.
This wasn’t a freakin’ music store, and I didn’t see any sign as to why
what the significance was. Let’s just chalk this up to pure weirdness.
Soon we
located La King’s Confectionery, which dates back to the 1920’s, and still has
that feel of that period. It easy image this didn’t look very different
than it did when it first opened. The place also bought the recipes for
“Purity Ice Cream,” which was Texas ’ first ice
cream manufacturer, founded back in 1889 in Galveston . Of course we needed to stop
and get ice cream.
I ordered my second chocolate
milkshake of the day, and whoa Nelly, what a milkshake it was! As a kid I
remember ordering shakes, and the metal container they were mixed in being
brought to you with the full cup (so there was enough for almost another
serving there). The milkshake I received at La King’s came in the metal
mixing container, and held enough for _three full glassfuls_. That was
ultimate milkshake saturation, and worth every penny. At that point, I
couldn’t give a damn about dinner, because I was full for the evening.
We looked up and down all the cases
which contained various types of candy.
These cases went as far as the building was long, so it was almost as
long as the ice cream side of the building. Since I work with some
diabetics, I had to note the entire case of sugar-free candy. With our
sweet tooth satisfied, we made a quick discussion to see if there was anything
else we wanted to hit while we were here. The Moody Mansion
On the drive out, we pulled into a
random parking lot in order to get pictures of the statue of the Victory in the
center of the main street. We’d seen this previous day and on the tram
tour, but weren’t in the position to get a good look at this. The bronze
figure alone is 22 feet tall. This was
the Texas Heroes Monument
It was rush hour again as we were
leaving Galveston ,
and I made sure to point to my parents the circular blue roads signs here.
Those were the marked evacuation routes.
Now picture this bridge we were going over, and the entire population of
the island trying to leave at once. There’s a reason why you pay
attention to the weather service. We weren’t that hungry after our swim,
and ended up having appetizers for dinner at a Cheddars (only because we knew
what we get on the menu). That gave us some opportunity to plan out our
attack for the next day.
For more information on the places visited or mentioned:
Star Drug
Store: http://www.galvestonstardrug.com/
Pirates of the Gulf
Coast
Haunted Mayfield Manor:
http://www.hauntedmayfieldmanor.com/
Pier 21
Theatre: http://www.galvestonhistory.org/The_Great_Storm.asp
La King’s Confectionery:
http://www.lakingsconfectionery.com/
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