Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1902 — THE NEW GALVESTON [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE NEW GALVESTON

HER SPLENDID RECOVERY THE MARVEL Or THE AGE. To Be Protected in the Future by a Gigantic Sea Wall and by Elevating the Entire Bite of the City from One to Twelve Feet. When the great gulf storm of Sept. 8, 1900, had swept oven the city of Galveston, Texas, and had left in its wake more than 5,000 corpses and such a scene of ruin and desolation as was never before presented on the American continent, it was only the stoutest heart and the mqst optimistic mind that predicted that the city would or could ever recover from the great calamity. But that is just what the brave city is doing. More than that, the new Galveston promises to far outrank the destroyed city in every way. From the* miles-of wreckage, from the ruined business blocks, from the great gulf shore territory which the storm transformed from a beautiful residential secticfa to a barren waste, there is ing a city more beautiful, more substantial, a more prosperous than the one so frightfully wrecked by wind and water a little more than two years ago. Galveston’s struggle against awful odds and in the face of the greatest discouragement constitutes one of the bravest chapters in the annals of American 'enterprise. No AnJerlcan city was ever so stricken, no recovery has been so phenomenal. That which has already been done arid that which is to be done is of such magnitude as to transcend belief. The sound of the hammer and the saw has never ceased since the invading waters retreated into the gulf. The

piles of wreckage have been cleared away and the scars of the fatality removed. Miles of blocks of orderly houses and modern stores have risen from the sand. The splendid palms have been replanted and the beautiful oleanders are blooming again. Galveston the new looks little the worse for its mishap, and when projected improvements have been completed will far outshine the Galveston of old. The Great Sea Wall. The great enterprise which is on every tongue Is the sea wall, by means of which it is calculated to shut out any further encroachment of the sea and restore the confidence ot the timid in the safety of the city. It is not at all likely that another such storm will visit this part of the coast in a hundred years, but If another does come it will find an Insurmountable barrier lurrounding Galveston. Work has already begun upon a huge concrete wall three and one-third miles in length, which will be seventeen feet above mean low tide, sixteen feet wide at the

oase and five feet at the top. The top of the embankment for thirty-five feet back of this gigantic wall will be protected by vitrified brick laid on edge, and this, when surrounded by an iron railing, will provide a driveway thirty feet wide and a sidewalk five feet wide. It will be ornamented by a fringe of Bermuda grass. This Is the most pretentious piece of engineering of the sort ever attempted in the United States. The excavation will require the removal of 100,009 wagon loads of sand; there will be used in Its construction 9,900 carloads of piling and 5,200 earloads of concrete; 100,000 tons of rock will be hauled from a quarry 280 mllqs distant, and 120 tons of re-euforc-ing rods will be utilized. It will take 400 men a year and a half to do the work, and in order to complete the job in this rime every kind of labor-saving machinery that has been Invented for use in work of this kind will be employed. The estimated cost ot the great undertaking will be 91,204,735. The original elevation of the grounds upon which the city was located in 1838 was in many places but little above high Ude. This condition was helped somewhat by filling in the low places with sand from the ridges along the island and with dirt from the mainland. The extreme lowness of the land teas what caused the trouble when the high water came. It is proposed to h medy this also by filling the entire city from the sen wall on the gulf side of the bay. The fill will graduate from twelve feet down to one. A district

squares one way and twenty-two the other—will be included in the project. The work, if properly rushed, ought to be accomplished in two years. The earth for the filling will be brought from the mainland and will consist of about 2,800 train loads of twenty cars each. The estimated cost will be sl,500,900. The funds to prosecute the work iare to be raised by the Legislature allowing the city of Galveston to divert for fifteen years its State taxes from the treasury into a fund to be used solely for grading the city. The last session remitted thri taxes for two years fOr this purpose, and it is practically certain that the bill will be adopted in full at the next session. The argument in favor of the plan is that there can be no objection on the part of the taxpayers of . the State, because it is not a direct appropriation, the money being used coming solely from Galveston; and that afterward the vastly increased property values resulting from it will more than repay the State for what it misses during the period the taxes are allowed to lapse.

A NEW STREET IN RESURRECTED GALVESTON.

GALVESTON AFTER THE STORM.