The East End Lagoon and Nature Preserve - Galveston, Texas

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Audio Tour to the East End Lagoon Nature Trail: https://www.galvestonunscripted.com/eel

Tour with Spotify:
👂Listen: Rosenberg Fountains
👂Listen: East End Historical District
👂Listen: Texas Heroes Monument
👂Listen: Quick History of Galveston
👂Listen: The Galveston Seawall - Protection, Entertainment, Recreation
👂Listen: Grade Raising of Galveston - Civil Engineering Marvel

Interested in information covered in this episode? Dive deeper into the links below! :
East End Expansion: https://www.galvestonhistorycenter.org/news/reclaiming-the-swamp-the-east-end-flats-1833-1954
East End Lagoon and Nature Preserve:
http://www.eastendlagoon.org/

Transcript:
The East End Lagoon has been a destination for tourists and locals since its inception on the far east end of Galveston Island. The East End Lagoon Nature Park and Preserve is located at the extreme East end of Seawall Boulevard, along Boeddecker Drive adjacent to East Beach.

In the early to mid-1900s, the East End Lagoon provided cabanas and had a clubhouse for the enjoyment of Galveston families and tourists alike. The East End Lagoon is known today as a fishing and birding, and nature-watching destination. The Lagoon is a project of the Galveston Park Board of Trustees, the city of Galveston, and the Galveston Island Nature Tourism Council.

The Lagoon is a unique, invaluable area spanning almost 700 acres of diverse habitat, exhibiting the ecosystem of a Texas barrier island. However, the east end of Galveston has not always been the embodiment of natural beauty. Before the eastward seawall expansion in 1918, the Lagoon was in an area known as the East End Flats, essentially a swamp that extended from sixth Street towards the ship channel.

This area was extremely low-lying and had a few structures, such as Fort San Jacinto's military reservation and one of the Galveston immigration stations. The area was also used as the city's trash dump for nearly a decade. Once the eastward expansion of the seawall was complete in 1921, the South Jetty was extended. This created an erosion-resistant area in which the East End Lagoon resides today. The Lagoon is one of Galveston's largest undeveloped spaces, including one of the few remaining sizable tracks of Coastal Prairie, home to an increasingly rare ecology. 

The site contains tidal and non-tidal wetlands, beach dunes, a freshwater pond, black mangroves, an upland prairie, and an extensive marine coastline. Thi

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