Grade Raising of Galveston - Civil Engineering Marvel - Galveston, Texas

📍Visit our interactive map!

Enjoy this content? Buy me a book! 📚

📱Social and other ways to explore Texas History

Tour with Spotify:
👂Listen: Quick History of Galveston
👂Listen: The Galveston Seawall - Protection, Entertainment, Recreation
👂Listen: East End Historical District
👂Listen: Texas Heroes Monument

Interested in information covered in this episode? Dive deeper into the links below! :

Seawall
Great deep dive Podcast on this subject : Wise About Texas Ep. 40 Raising Galveston and Walling off the Sea
 
Contact us: [email protected]

Transcript:
Shortly after the 1900 storm, and in conjunction with the building of the sea wall, city officials decided to bolster the island's defenses against hurricanes. As the sea wall 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 eight 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 challenging to implement with an extremely low elevation. The initial grade-raising project took place from 1903 through 1911.

The project was accomplished in square, quarter-mile sections and involved closing each section in a dyke and then lifting all structures and utilities, such as street car tracks, fireplugs, and water pipes. Around 2000 buildings were raised and put on stilts using hand-turn jack screws. The sand fill was dredged from the entrance to Galveston Harbor and then transported to residential districts through a 20-foot deep, 200-foot wide, 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 of these structures were lifted and placed to the current height over a hundred years ago. The Galveston Sea Wall 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 to Boliver or drive to Galveston's West End.

It's hard to imagine that the largest city in Texas in the late 18 hundreds 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 floodwater runs off into Galveston Bay. 
Key Words: Ga

Support the Show.

Galveston Unscripted Digital Market