Old Galveston Custom House and Courthouse - 20th and Post Office - Galveston, Texas
Galveston Unscripted | Free. Texas History. For All.
English - November 07, 2021 22:00 - 3 minutes - 2.53 MBHistory Society & Culture Places & Travel galveston texas history audio tour free island education texas history historic Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
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Interested in information covered in this episode? Dive deeper into the links below! :
Custom house: https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/galveston-custom-house
Battle of Galveston: https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/galveston-battle-of
Transcript:
The old Galveston Custom House, also known as the United States Custom House and Courthouse. This building was formerly a customs house, post office, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, and later for the Southern District of Texas. The first customs house in Galveston and Texas predates this one by three decades.
While Mexico still maintained control of Texas, a customs house was established in 1830, a few years after the port was officially founded. This customs house would've been small and more like an office. After Texas won its independence and the United States gained control of Texas, Galveston's population and significance developed through the 1840s and 50s and the port was recognized as one of the most important ports to the nation.
As the United States began to spread West towards California, the ease of access to a protected deep water port and proximity to the frontier transformed this small sandbar into a thriving city and a means of taxation by the federal government. By the late 1850s, the Galveston port and business community was focused on wholesale commerce.
Galveston was the main pass-through for all goods imported into Texas and dispersed into Indian territory, Louisiana, and New Mexico. The federal government collected tariffs on all goods that entered into Texas.
United States Congress approved the funds for the Customs house in 1855 and construction began in 1860. The building was built at an unprecedented pace and completed in 114 days. That's under four months, completed just in time for Texas's succession from the United States. During the Civil War, the Confederate Army utilized the building as their headquarters as it was one of the island's few brick