From colonialism to cruise ships, Galveston has a long and tumultuous history. And in 1900, a single hurricane made sure that there would be lingering haunts to match.
Galveston Island was first settled by Europeans in 1816, though some scholars say that Spanish explorer Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca made a pit stop here in 1537 before traveling across the U.S. Southwest. Famous privateer Jean Lafitte soon settled on the island from Louisiana and used the island as a base for piracy and slave smuggling, though he was forced to leave in 1821 by the U.S. Navy after he attacked an American ship. It changed hands several times during the Mexican Revolution, the Texas Revolution, and the American Civil War, but it remained a major port in the Gulf of Mexico.
In 1900, the deadliest natural disaster in the history of the U.S. hit that port.
Naming conventions for hurricanes hadn’t yet been standardized, so the hurricane that hit Galveston Island is most commonly referred to as The Great Storm of 1900. Within hours, it left between 6,000 and 12,000 fatalities, most of which occurred on Galveston Island itself. Out of a population of fewer than 38,000 people, about 10,000 were left homeless, and over 7,000 buildings were destroyed. This destruction led potential investors in the port to bring their money to Houston instead, leading to the end of its status as an economic powerhouse.
The storm was first formally sighted by a ship on August 27th, 1900, about 1,000 miles east of the Windward Islands in the Caribbean. By September 1st, it had grown into a small tropical cyclone, and it was observed by Father Reese Gangoite in Havana, Cuba. The system made landfall early the following day in the Dominican Republic, before passing Haiti, landing in Santiago de Cuba, and emerging into the Straits of Florida as a tropical storm on September 5th.
Gangoite noticed that there was a large, persistent halo around the moon, accompanied by cirrus clouds moving northwards and a deep red color in the sky. He and the Cuban government notified the National Weather Service, then called the United States Weather Bureau, but the USWB discredited the Cuban report due to the tense relationship between the two nations following the Spanish-American War. The director of the USWB forbade the use of the words “tornado”, “cyclone”, and “hurricane” in official weather reports.
At 8:00pm on September 8th, 1900, the United States would suffer the consequences of this decision. The storm made landfall on Galveston Island as a Category 4 hurricane. Floodwaters rose 4 feet in only 4 seconds, and soon, much of the island would be underwater.
St. Mary’s Orphanage was owned by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. During the storm, the 10 sisters who ran the orphanage moved its 93 occupants into the girls’ dormitory, the newest and sturdiest part of the building. The nuns used a clothesline to tie themselves to eight children per nun in a desperate attempt to save the children from the building’s impending collapse. Only 3 children survived, and all of the nuns died. Recovery crews found the bodies of the nuns with the children still tied to them.
Some say that the Hotel Galvez, which was built near the site of the orphanage, is haunted by the children and their caretakers. Guests have reported phantom children laughing, running through halls, or playing piano in the lobby. A historical marker lies on the Seawall nearby, in front of a Walmart supermarket. Some visitors to the island have reported seeing ghostly orbs of light in the parking lot.
The Tremont Hotel was used as another shelter, though it was destroyed by the hurricane and later rebuilt. Guests have reported waterlogged footprints appearing in dry hallways and the smell of seawater in interior rooms. Ghostly apparitions appear here, Bishop’s Palace, Moody Mansion, and several other places in the Strand District of the island, including in the upper-story windows of shops.
After the storm, there were so many bodies that it was impossible to bury them all. About 700 were collected and taken out to sea to be dumped. These souls were not content to be thrown to the same force that had claimed their lives.
Most of the 700 bodies washed back onto the shore by the gulf currents. With no other options, funeral pyres were set up on the beaches, which burned constantly for several weeks after the disaster. Any remains that didn’t get consumed by the fire were thrown into unmarked mass graves. Those lucky enough to be buried were interred in Evergreen Cemetery and Old City Cemetery, where visitors have also reported orbs, shadow figures, unexplained temperature drops, and phantom voices.
Gothic Bite Magazine 