Before Houston, Texas Had a Richer City. One Night Ended It

Before Houston became Houston, Texas had a richer city. Galveston had the busiest cotton port in America, a main street people called "the Wall Street of the Southwest," and, it was said, more millionaires per person than any other city in the country. On the night of September 8, 1900, it ended. And the people of Galveston were warned. Galveston's highest point was just 8.7 feet above sea level. In 1891, the city's top weather official called the idea that a hurricane could seriously damage it "an absurd delusion," and no seawall was built. In 1900, forecasters in Cuba believed the storm was heading into the Gulf of Mexico, toward Texas. But the head of the U.S. Weather Bureau had barred Cuban weather telegrams, and Washington stuck to its own forecast. Then a storm surge of more than 15 feet rolled over the island. At least 6,000 people died, probably 8,000 or more. It is still the deadliest natural disaster in American history. In this video: how Galveston became the richest city in Texas, the warning that never reached the island, the night of the storm, Clara Barton's last mission, the 17-foot seawall and the raising of an entire city, and how the Spindletop oil gusher and the Houston Ship Channel sent Galveston's future 50 miles inland to Houston. Then the question for today: the city that took Galveston's place sits on the same coast. After Hurricane Ike, engineers designed a giant coastal barrier, the "Ike Dike." Its estimated cost has risen to as much as $57 billion, and most of the money still isn't there. Do you think Texas has really learned the lesson of Galveston? Tell me in the comments. ▶️ Another time Texas went from boom to bust (the 1980s banks):    • The Last Time This Happened, America Borro...   📚 SOURCES 1900 Galveston hurricane (overview, deaths, seawall, grade raising): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900_Ga... Rosenberg Library / Galveston History Center, 1900 Storm FAQs: https://www.galvestonhistorycenter.or... Galveston County Museum, City of Galveston: https://www.galvestoncountytx.gov/cou... Origins (Ohio State University), "Galveston 1900: 125 Years After the Storm": https://origins.osu.edu/read/galvesto... Erik Larson, "Isaac's Storm" (Willis Moore's letter of Aug 28, 1900), via Econlib: https://www.econlib.org/lessons-from-... Isaac Cline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_C... St. Mary's Orphanage: https://1900storm.com/orphanage.html Clara Barton in Galveston: https://1900storm.com/barton.html 1915 Galveston hurricane: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1915_Ga... Ike Dike / Coastal Texas Project (KSAT, Dec 4, 2025): https://www.ksat.com/news/texas/2025/... Population: U.S. Census Bureau (1900 and 2020) 🎞️ PHOTO CREDITS (via Wikimedia Commons) CC BY 2.0: Shixart1985. CC BY-SA 2.0: Ken Lund, formulanone. CC BY-SA 2.5: Daniel Schwen. CC BY-SA 3.0: Jim Evans, Grynslvr2. CC BY-SA 4.0: Jim Evans, Michael Barera, David Montermoso, Farragutful, Matthew T Rader, Rifleman 82. Public domain and no-known-restrictions images: Library of Congress, NOAA, NASA, FEMA, U.S. National Archives, New York Public Library, Rosenberg Library and 1900 stereo cards (Underwood & Underwood, Griffith & Griffith, M. H. Zahner) via Wikimedia Commons and Flickr Commons. Maps: Natural Earth. Music: YouTube Audio Library. This video is for educational purposes only. #Texas #Galveston #TexasHistory