Galveston Island

Template: Infobox Island / Maintenance / image missing

Galveston Iceland is one resulting from a sandbar island on the Texas coast and is situated about 80 km southeast of Houston. The island with the exception of Jamaica Beach settlement within the city limits of Galveston.

The island has a maximum height of six meters and is about 43 km long and at its widest point 5 km wide. It has an area of 165 km ² and extends from southwest to northeast. The open Gulf of Mexico lies to the south and east, to the west is the West Bay and to the north, the Galveston Bay connects. The main access to the island is located off Interstate 45, which crosses the East Bay. The extreme north of the island is separated by Galveston Harbor from the Bolivar Peninsula. This passage is the entrance to Galveston Bay and the Houston Ship Channel. Is a ferry between Galveston and Port Bolivar Iceland. The southern end is separated from the mainland by the San Luis Pass. This strait is bridged by a toll bridge. There is thus made ​​a road of the island to Surfside Beach About the Bluewater Highway.

History

Originally Indians lived by the tribes of Akokisa and Karankawa in the area. It is believed that the first known European to set foot on the island, in the Álvar Núñez Cabeza November 1528 de Vaca was involuntarily made ​​the station with his men after a shipwreck on the island.

Jao de la Porta and his brother Morin funded in 1816 the first permanent settlement of Europeans on the islands. Joa de la Porta was by birth a Portuguese Jew, who later became an important Texan businessman was.

On September 8, 1900, with the Galveston Hurricane took the largest known natural disaster that has been ravaged North America. In the early evening the storm center came here about the country and the accompanying storm surge flooded the greater part of the island with the city of Galveston, due to their importance as a port city was the most populous city in the state of Texas at that time. Through the storm and the flood, the city was destroyed and more than 6,000 residents lost their lives within a few hours.

The city could not recover its former importance and Houston developed as a new economic center. In order to avert a storm surge was later the Galveston Seawall built a 5.2 m height concrete wall that runs along the greater part of the Gulf of Mexico side facing the island.