The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-09-08
Galveston Remembers
 Dead In the Great ~e Storm of 1900

/ Galveston people will recall today the most terrible experiences in the
 history of the Texas city, for this is the fifteenth anniversary of the great storm which almost destroyed the town and took a toll of 1000 lives.
 Thanksgiving and mourning will
 n1ingIe in the observance of the trag-
 edys for the great sea wall which was
 bnilt to protect Galveston has re- rcently been put to the supreme test,
 and has not been found wanting. The
 terrific. hurricane of three weeks ago
 was as furious as the 1900 tornado,
 but the heavy seas, hungry for prey,
 lashed thef sea wall without making
 an impression. Galveston did not es-
 cape unscathed, but, in view of what
 might have been except for the pro
 tection of the mighty bulwark, the
 people have cause to be thankful. & It was the calamity of Sept. 8, 1900,
 which saved Galveston this time, for
 it, aroused the survivors to the neces- sity of making extra ordinary pro- vision against the assaults of the trop- ica1 storms to which, by reason ofrits location, the Texas seaport city is peculiarly exposed. Although the island city was reduced to a mass of
 ruins by the 1900 storm, the work
 of rebuilding was soon commenced, and within a decade the great trinity
 of. protective works fortifying the city against the sea, had been com p1eted. Only one of these, the $2,- 100000 causeway connecting Calves to meet the expectations of the build
 CTS. The causeway was partially destroyed in the recent storm, but it will be rebuilt stronger than ever.
 1 The first and most important of the gigantic tasks undertaken by Gal weston after the 1900 storm was the construction of copcrete seawall five miles in length and r feet in the
 air. The next job was the pumping of 16,OO0,000 cubic yards of sand from the. bed of the ocean to raise the, grade to thisNnew level. Finally the two-mile causeway \ was built,
 making a peninsula of Galveston is- land.
 Before the seawau was commenc- | ed, however, Galveston had to have | a political and civic housekeeping g, and this was accomplished by the adoption of charter providing for l the first city commission. Under this new regime the new era for Galveston commenced. and the supposedly
 bankrupt municipality spent more than $1o,ooo.00o in 10 years.
 The seawaH which so recently lsdemonstrated it's value iss 8 rampant
 enclosing the entire side of the city
 facing the south on the Gulf of Mex ico. It is solid barrier of steel 1 re-enforced concrete, IS feet thick al the base and five feet thick at the I top, the outer face of which curves l in a concave sweep. The great mass
 rests on rnuftitudes of heavy piling | driven 40 feet in blue clay and faced with a riprap apron of colossal blocks of granite. The wall was given rather
 a severe test in 1909, before the fill ing was placed behind it.
 1 To raise the grade of the city even ] with the top of the seawaIl was
 another tremendous task. Houses
 were raised on piling, street cars ran 1 on; trestIes over flowing sand and I water and pedestrians travelled about | for months on elevated plank walks f When the city-raising was completed i a great automobile speedway, border | ed by cement promenades was con structed overlooking the Gulf. The Icauseway, badly damaged in the re lcent storm, is over two miles long EThis span of concrete provided 9 broad roadway for railroad and inter urban tracks, automobiles vehicles and pedestrians. gf