Texas

Galveston Island has been occupied for thousands of years, serving as a home to Akokisa Indians, the Karankawa Indians and the infamous pirate Jean Lafitte. Once known as “Ellis Island of the West” and “the Wall Street of the Southwest,” the once richest city in Texas later became the site of the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.
Galveston was named for Bernardo de Gálvez, a Spanish colonial governor and general. Galvez sent Jose de Evia to chart the Gulf of Mexico from the Texas coast to New Orleans, and on July 23, 1786, de Evia charted an area near the mouth of a river and named it Galveston Bay. Later, the island and city took the same name. Bernardo de Gálvez died the same year, never setting foot on his namesake island.
In 1528, when the first Europeans landed, Galveston Island was home to Akokisa and Karankawa Indians who camped, fished and hunted the swampy land and buried their dead here. The Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca was shipwrecked on the Island and lived among the Karankawa for several years as a medicine man and slave. In the late 1600’s, French explorer Robert Cavelier La Salle claimed this area for King Louis and named it St. Louis.
The pirate Jean Lafitte arrived on the Island in 1817, making it his base of operations and naming it Campeche. The little village contained huts for the pirates, a large slave market, boarding houses for visiting buyers, a shipyard, saloons, pool halls, gambling houses and Lafitte’s own house, the “Maison Rouge.” At one point, Campeche was home to about 1,000 people.
General James Long attempted to recruit Lafitte to help make Texas independent from Spain and Mexico, but Lafitte remained neutral. In 1820, Mexico won independence from Spain, but Lafitte stayed on the Island. In May 1821, after Lafitte’s attack on an American ship, he was forced to abandon his operations in Galveston. Before leaving, he hosted a huge party for his pirates with wine and whiskey and burned his settlement. It is believed that he had buried treasure on the Island, but it has never been found.
In 1821, Jane Long, while waiting in vain for the return of her husband General James Long, who had been killed in Mexico, became “The Mother of Texas” giving birth to the first Anglo-Saxon native Texan, Mary Jane Long on Bolivar Peninsula.
In 1836, four ships of the Texas Navy made headquarters on the Island and protected the Texas coast from harassment by the Mexican Navy. These ships prevented supplies and men from reaching Santa Anna, ensuring a victory for Sam Houston’s army at San Jacinto, 22 miles northwest of Galveston.
Galveston overcame the devastation to become a top resort city. One of its greatest attractions was the annual Pulchritude of Beauty Pageants, between 1920 and 1932. During the 1920s through the 1940s, Sam Maceo’s famous nightclubs, the Balinese Room and the Hollywood Dinner Club, were host to such performers as Phil Harris, Paul Whiteman, Guy Lombardo, Duke Ellington, Freddy Martin, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, and Jimmy Dorsey. Phil Harris and Alice Faye were married by Judge Piperi at the Galvez Hotel. Galveston’s own Badgett quadruplets were the flower girls for the wedding. Galveston attracted people from all over the nation with great dining, big name entertainment, roulette, blackjack, craps tables and slot machines. This era ended in 1957 when the Texas Rangers raided the city and closed all the illegal gambling spots.