What to see in America . e offered to return to Europe. Just after the war of 1812 ended, Jean Lafitte, the Pirateof the Gulf, built a fort on the site of the city of Galveston,and a flourishing town grew up in which his own house,appropriately painted red, was the most conspicuous his men he was known as the Lord of Galveston. In1821 the United States sent an expedition to break up thenest of pirates, and Lafitte sailed away in his favorite vessel,the Pride, which mounted fourteen guns. He never returned,and a few years later died in Yucatan. September 8, 1900,a tidal wave that ac
What to see in America . e offered to return to Europe. Just after the war of 1812 ended, Jean Lafitte, the Pirateof the Gulf, built a fort on the site of the city of Galveston,and a flourishing town grew up in which his own house,appropriately painted red, was the most conspicuous his men he was known as the Lord of Galveston. In1821 the United States sent an expedition to break up thenest of pirates, and Lafitte sailed away in his favorite vessel,the Pride, which mounted fourteen guns. He never returned,and a few years later died in Yucatan. September 8, 1900,a tidal wave that accompanied a hurricane almost destroyedthe place, costing directly or indirectly the lives of aboutseven thousand people. But the city was promptly rebuilt,and a great future seems assured. On the outer side of theisland that the city occupies, an immense sea wall five and onehalf miles long has been constructed to prevent the recurrenceof such a catastrophe. The wall is seventeen feet high, and 308 What to See in America. rests on piles drivenforty-four feet deep. Onthe seaward side is asplendid beach, smoothand hard, and thirty mileslong. This affords excel-lent motoring, driving,and walking. The gen-eral level of the city,which formerly was little above the bay, has been raised tenfeet. Galveston has a notably fine harbor, and its com-merce is only exceeded in value on our continent by thatof New York. Its streets are lined with palms, and thesegraceful trees adorn many of the yards. Beaumont is the leading lumber town of the state, but isbest known because of the tremendous excitement caused bythe discovery of remarkable gushing oil wells at Spindle Top,four miles to the south, in 1901. The original well began toflow at the rate of 70,000 barrels a day. Many hundredsof wells were put down in the region around, but the entireSpindle Top Pool proved to be under an area of about twohundred acres. Sour Lake, not far distant, which rivaledBeaumont in flooding the region with oil,
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Keywords: ., bookauthorjohnsonc, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1919
