Galveston, a port of entry, the seat of justice of Galveston co., and the most populous and commercial city of Texas, is situated on the Gulf of Mexico, and on an island at the mouth of a bay of its own name, about 550 miles W. by S. of New Orleans. It is 214 miles by rail E.S.E. of Austin City. Lat. 29° 18' N.; lon. 94° 50' W. The island of Galveston, which separates the bay from the Gulf of Mexico, is about 30 miles in length and 3 miles in breadth. The surface is level, and has a mean elevation of only 7 or 8 feet above the water. The bay extends northward from the city to the mouth of Trinity River, a distance of 35 miles, and varies in breadth from 12 to 18 miles. The harbor of Galveston, which is the best in the state, has 12 or 14 feet of water over the bar at low tide. Galveston is one of the most flourishing ports on the Gulf of Mexico, and carries on an active trade. The chief articles of export are cotton, hides, grain, and flour. Steamships make regular passages from this port to New York, New Orleans, Morgan City, Havana, Liverpool, &c. Galveston contains about 30 churches, a Catholic cathedral, a city hall, a custom-house, a United States court-house, a theatre, an opera-house, a public library, a large city hospital, a cotton exchange, 3 national banks, several other banks, 3 iron-foundries, a steam flour-mill, several machine-shops, planing-mills, cigar factories, and 2 grain-elevators. It has 50 miles of street railway operated by electricity. Three daily newspapers are published here. This city is the seat of the University of St. Mary (Catholic) and of the Texas Medical College. It is the S.E. terminus of the Galveston, Houston & Henderson Railroad, and of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fé Railroad. The value of the annual exports, is about $33,000,000. The quantity of cotton received here in a Year is nearly 1,000,000 bales. Galveston is a Catholic bishop's see. Pop. in 1860, 7307; in 1870, 13,818; in 1880, 22,248; in 1890, 29,084.

Lippincott's Gazetteer of the World: A Complete Pronouncing Gazetteer Or Geographical Dictionary of the World Containing Notices of Over One Hundred and Twenty-five Thousand Places ... Joseph Thomas January 1, 1895 J.B. Lippincott

Visit Galveston, Texas, USA
Discover the people who lived there, the places they visited and the stories they shared.