The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1915-05-01

ny IuC uOLCht weighing 4 " - POuAioc
each, are So and $3.50 per dozen.
Dressed 28c. to 30c. per pound. Eggs
at present are 18c. All kinds of
green vegetables grow all the year
round. All this produce is brought
to Galveston in small gasoline boats
from the main land.
There are some of the most magni-
ficent homes in Galveston / have yer
seen anywhere. The architecture is
largely Spanish. Vegetation is trop-
ical. Grounds filled with date palms,
having dates on them, Palmettoes
and all other palms and ferns which
we keep in our lighthouses, banana
trees, rubber plants, poinsettas, roses,
blooming all winter and dear little
~violets peeping at you from every
where. Oxalis grows wild here. They
call it "horse sorrel." Galveston is
rightly called the "Oleander City,"
Oleanders are everywhere. Streets
are lined with them. Broadway and
25th Street are very wide with a cen
trail parkway the entire length. These
Pathways are filled with Palm trees
and oleanders. Oleanders are budding
now and will be a mass of bloom all
summer.
Galveston Island is a long low san
dy island separated from the mainland
by a bay two miles wide, across which
is built a concrete causeway, COM
pleted three years ago at a cost of
! 2 ,000, 900. The eight different R. RS
enter the city over this causeway; al
so the Interurban Trolley. Has also
a foot bridge and driveway and au-
tomobile boulevard. They claim the
shell automobile roads here are the
best in the world as they claim every
thing else in Texas is the best.
The normal rise and fall of the tide
here is only between n and two feet.
A five or six foot rise would inundate
the island or would have done so be-
fore the building of the seawall. The
great storm of 1900, which destroyed
most of the city and in which so many
people, ~variously estimated between
5000 and $4,000, lost their lives,
ed this seawall to be built. The en-
gineers were brought from Holland.
The east end of the city toward the
bay was saved by the wreckage lin
this wreckage were hopelessly en-
tangled hundreds of human bodies),
being washed to this end and piled
in a solid mass, forming a breakwater
thus protecting the houses from the
beating and force of the waves.
1t was this mass of wreckage for
ming a breakwater that gave them
the idea of the seawall. This sea-
| wall is of solid concrete, II fit. high,
six miles long. On top is a sidewalk
of concrete 16 fit. wide. The wall wi
dens at the bottom, toward the sea,
forming a rip rap, where great mass
es of rocks have been dumped. These
rocks are gradually being covered
with sand. Inside the seawall the en-
tire length has been filled in solid,
raising the grade of the whole city's
water front 10 fit. for the slope is to-
ward the Gulf from a 60 #. brick
paved automobile boulevard which
joins this 16 foot sidewalk. There is
a gradual rise in grade from Broad
way to the Boulevard, a distance of
six squares. This filling in took TO-
000,0 900 cubic yards of sand, which was
pumped from the bottom of the bay.
Houses were raised on stills and filled
in under; streets, sewer and side
walks relaid and vegetation replanted,
Ia gigantic task. The arrangement
of the electric lights make this sea
wall Boulevard a particularly beauti-
full place at night. Steps lead from
the wall to the beach and the bathing
is said to be fine all winter. 1t is
too cool for me to say from expert
ence.
The seawall has had but one really
severe test. This hurricane came a
few years ago in July. They refer
to it as the "July storm" At this
time the tide rose to within two feet
of the top of the wall. The wind
had attained a velocity of Ito miles
an hour, when the recording instru-
ment went to pieces. We shore peo-
pie can imagine how the waves dashed
over that seawall with old ocean only
two feet below and a 10 mile gale
blowing. The city was flooded of
course, but the seawall stood. Not a
house went down and not a life was
lost. The entire water front outside
the seawall,@piers, bath houses, ETC.,
and the iron rail topping the a
wall, went down like so much paper.