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"Within the last two or three years, people have begun to think that the islands and peninsulas along the Texas and Louisiana Coast are unsafe for human abiding places.  And Galveston Island is but a waif of the ocean liable at any moment of being engulfed and submerged by the self-same power that gave it form."
                                                                       from Braman's Information About Texas, 1858

The hurricane of September 8, 1900 left an estimated six thousand dead, but that is only a guess.  It is the most awesome natural disaster in our nation's history.  Galveston had a population of 40,000 at the turn of the century and was a major center of commerce before the hurricane covered the island from Gulf to Bay and laid it waste to the sea.  This is what prompted the city to build the seawall that still stands.