Grade Raising of Galveston - Civil Engineering Marvel

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👂Listen: Quick History of Galveston
👂Listen: The Galveston Seawall - Protection, Entertainment, Recreation.


Interested in information covered in this episode? Dive deeper into the links below! :
Galveston Seawall & Grade Raising 
Seawall
Great deep dive Podcast on this subject : Wise About Texas Ep. 40 Raising Galveston and Walling off the Sea

Transcript:
As the seawall was being built, The entire urbanized portion of the island was elevated using dredge mud from the ship channel. Before the grade raising, the highest point on the island was only 8 feet above sea level. The grade raising not only supported the seawall, but also was set to improve drainage and sewage systems which were badly needed, but difficult to implement with an extremely low elevation. The initial grade raising took place from 1903-1911.The project was handled in square quarter-mile sections and involved enclosing each section in a dike and then lifting all structures and utilities such as streetcar tracks, fireplugs, and water pipes. Around 2,000 buildings were raised and put on stilts using hand-turned jackscrews. The sand fill was dredged from the entrance to Galveston Harbor and then transported to the residential district through a 20-foot deep, 200-foot wide, and 2.5 mile long canal using four self-loading hopper dredges. After the fill was discharged in the areas to be raised, new foundations were constructed on top of it. Today, You can see evidence of many of Galveston‘s homes and buildings that were elevated during this project. Take a look at the bottom of most of Galveston‘s East End homes, you can see that the original structure is sitting high above the ground. Most, but not all, of these structures were lifted and placed to their current height over 100 years ago. The Galveston grade raising was one of the largest civil projects in Texas and the United States in the early 1900s. To get a good idea of Galveston‘s original elevation, take a ferry over to bolivar or drive out to Galveston‘s west end. It’s hard to imagine that the largest city in Texas in the late 1800s I was sitting on a low-lying sandbar. While standing on the seawall facing north, notice that the island slopes towards Galveston Harbor. This was purposely designed so that any flood water runs off into Galveston Bay.

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