From days of European conquest, the Gulf of Mexico was the main road to Texas. Some settlers of the 1820s even came by keelboat, going ashore along the way to kill game, in the same way an overland party would live off the country while traveling. Planters from the Old South and some farmers from the mid-continent came by land. But roads, wet and rough, had too many rivers crossed only by costly, ill-tended ferries; and cutthroats haunted many of them. Galveston in the 19th century was chief port of entry. It was sister city to New Orleans, so well organized was passage from one to the other. Texas ports of entry included also Velasco, Quintana, La Vaca, Indianola, Matagorda, Point Isabel, Houston and Corpus Christi. Yet Galveston -- with the best natural between Pensacola and Vera Cruz -- dominated travel into Texas. This port welcomed statesmen, speculators, teachers, soldiers, clergymen, doctors, merchants, craftsmen, tourists, European immigration. Col. Wm. Lewis Moody (1828-1920), a Virginian, landed here in 1852, entered business world, courageously led unit in the Civil War, founded a fortune. Gifts of his family to Texas for education and humane purposes have included facilities at this site. Incise in base: Replaced 1982; Hoblitzelle Foundation / Texas Historical Foundation.
This page last updated: 7/15/2008 |
Galveston: Gateway to Texas Historical Marker Location Map, Texas
|
|
Related Themes: Texas C.S.A., Texas Confederate States of America, Confederacy
Explore other
Texas Confederate Historical Markers.
|
