Pelican Island from Pier 21 - Galveston, Texas

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Tour with Spotify:
👂Listen: Jean Lafitte
👂Listen: The Strand
👂Listen: Pier 21
👂Listen: Port of Galveston

Interested in information covered in this episode? Dive deeper into the links below! :
Quarantine station
Galveston Naval Museum
Seawolf Park
Texas A&M University at Galveston

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Transcript:
While standing on Pier 21, you will be able to see pelican Island across the harbor. Pelican Island can only be accessed by the 51st St. bridge which can be seen at the far west end of Galveston Harbor. Today, Pelican Island is home to Texas A&M University in Galveston, Seawolf Park, and the Galveston Naval Museum, which exhibits a World War II era destroyer escort and submarine. Texas A&M University Galveston was established in 1965 by prominent Galveston businessman George P Mitchell. This campus is currently home to the Texas Maritime Academy, one of the seven Maritime Academy‘s in the United States. The campus is also world renowned for its maritime business and marine biology programs. Pelican Island is mostly man-made from mud pulled from the Galveston, Texas City, and Houston ship channels during dredging projects over the past century. When a ship channel is deepened and widened, there needs to be a place to put the mud and pelican island became the ideal place for engineers looking for a place to expand real estate in Galveston bay. Over the past 100 years, the island has steadily grown into what you see today. When you look at maps dating back to the late 1800s and early 1900s, you will see two small islands north of Galveston itself. These were known as Pelican Island and pelican spit. Seawolf Park sits at the location of pelican spit and it’s also where one of the quarantine stations for immigration was built in the early 1900s. If you have time on your trip to Galveston, I highly recommend driving to the far east end of pelican Island to experience the Galveston Naval Museum and Seawolf Park. Seawolf Park is known in this part of Texas as a first class fishing destination. As you look across the water from Pier 21, you probably see ships, oil rigs, tugboats, or possibly all of the above. Pelican Island is Home to multiple Maritime related businesses including dry docks for vessel and oil rig repair, tugboat companies, offshore vessel services and even a dock specifically made to load crude oil onto shipping vessels. 

Key Words: Galveston, Texas, History, Island, Beach, cruise, cruise ship, vacation, Henry Rosenberg, Fountains, East End Historic District, Strand, Seawall, Bolivar, Houston,