To understand the true significance of these two monuments, you must know the history of Galveston in 1900:
On September 8, 1900 a hurricane hit the Texas coast with estimated winds of 140 miles per hour. The storm surge was 15 feet while the highest point on the island was 8 feet above sea level. Between 6,000 and 8,000 people were killed. Property damage exceeded $20 million dollars, over $700 million in modern times.
From The American Society of Civil Engineers
GALVESTON SEAWALL AND GRADE RAISING PROJECT
Galveston Island is a barrier island located two miles off the Texas coast. The island is about 3 miles wide at its widest and about 28 miles long. The Galveston Seawall extends over 10 miles along Galveston's oceanfront, protecting life and property against hurricanes and tropical storms.
The need for such a seawall became apparent when on September 8, 1900 a hurricane struck Galveston Island resulting in the greatest natural disaster in U.S. history. The storm killed, at a minimum, 6,000 of the island's 44,000 inhabitants and caused an estimated $30 million in damage. A three-member board of engineers [Henry Martyn Robert, Alfred Noble (President, ASCE 1903), and Henry Clay Ripley] was formed to make recommendations regarding protecting the city from overflows, raising the city above overflows, and building a seawall.
The board presented its report on January 25, 1902 and recommended construction of a curved-faced concrete seawall rising 17 feet above mean low tide and stretching over 3 miles in length along the oceanfront. In response to this recommendation, Galveston County, Texas contracted with J.M. O'Rourke and Company of Denver for construction of a 17,593-foot seawall. Built between 1902 and 1904, the seawall consisted of a curved, concrete gravity section 16 feet wide on the base at elevation 1 foot above mean low water, and 5 feet wide on top at elevation 17 feet above mean low water. It would weigh 40,000 pounds per foot of length. A 100-foot wide embankment was built up behind the concrete section to a maximum elevation of 16.6 feet. Over time the seawall was extended both westward and eastward to provide protection to other areas.
Concurrent with construction of the seawall, the city of Galveston undertook extensive grade raising which not only provided support for the seawall but also facilitated drainage and sewage systems. The initial grade raising took place from 1903-1911. Work was accomplished in quarter-mile-square sections and involved enclosing each section in a dike and then lifting all structures and utilities such as streetcar tracks, fireplugs, and water pipes. Around 2,000 buildings were raised on hand-turned jackscrews. The sand fill was dredged from the entrance to Galveston Harbor and then transported to the residential district through a 20-foot deep, 200-foot wide, and 2.5 mile long canal using four self-loading hopper dredges. After the fill was discharged in the areas to be raised, new foundations were constructed on top of it.
Facts:
The seawall was founded on timber piles and protected from undermining by sheet piling and a layer of riprap, four-foot-square granite blocks extending 27 ft outward from the toe of the sea face of the wall.
Materials used in constructing the original seawall included 5.200 railway carloads of crushed granite; 1,800 carloads of sand; 1,000 carloads of cement; 1,200 carloads of round wooden pilings; 4,000 carloads of wooden sheet pilings; 3,700 carloads of stone riprap; and 5 carloads of reinforcing steel.
About 500 city blocks were raised using 16.3 million cubic yards of sand spread from a few inches to eleven feet thick.
From Galveston Island Guide Website.
Seawall and Grade Raising Monuments
Only a calamity with the size and magnificence of The Great Storm could have propelled the citizens of Galveston to achieve the next chapter of its awe-inspiring history. Even before the storm the city was bankrupt; inept financial management and loose, easily evaded tax policies had brought Galveston to the brink of financial ruin. The trail of destruction left by Mother Nature was estimated at that time to be over thirty million dollars, and many thought that would be the end of the Island city.
But with a resiliency, tenacity, and community spirit that knew no bounds, the prominent men of the town gathered to not only take control of the local government, but to take the means necessary to make sure the events of September 8th would never happen again. Led by Isaac “Ike” Kempner, these men drafted a new city charter, and included provisions for the appointment of a Board of Engineers whose express purpose would be to formulate a plan to fortify the island. When that plan was released, it astounded everyone.
The first half of the plan was to build a seventeen foot high, six mile long seawall. That was the easy part; it only took a year and a half to complete between 1902 and 1904. The second half of the plan was by all accounts borderline insanity: raise the elevation of the Island to meet the height of the seawall. 2,126 homes were lifted into the air on jack screws and placed to rest on stilts. Watery silt composite was dredged from the bottom of the harbor and piped in to fill underneath the raised houses. The water would drain and leave the silt behind, and then the process was repeated again and again. The grade raising took seven whole years to complete, as citizens sacrificed their convenience and well-being for the good of the future of Galveston. Most amazingly, the entire project was completed without a dime of federal assistance.
The construction of the Seawall and the Grade Raising has been recognized by the American Society of Engineers as one of the most brilliant feats of civil engineering in the history of the nation. Their monument to the achievement stands on the Seawall at 47th Street. Galveston’s tribute, the Grade Raising Monument, was erected in 1904 and sits further east on the Seawall at 23rd Street. Also look for a plaque embedded into the top of the wall at 16th Street, which marks the site where the very first piling of the Seawall foundation was pounded into place.
From The Gifts of Louis Amateis and Others to Galveston.
Posted on September 4, 2011 by oldsaltbooks
It has been one of the great benefits of this country that graduates of the Military Academy at West Point were trained a civil engineers just as their compatriots at the Naval Academy at Annapolis were trained as marine engineers. When there was a job to be done that required engineering on a massive scale or to protect a border or to maintain the highways and waterways of interstate commerce the Army Corps of Engineers could be and were called on.
One of their greatest projects was the construction of the Galveston Sea Wall after the 1900 Storm. But it was not only the construction of the Sea Wall but it was also the grade raising of the city behind the sea wall that is a key part of this gargantuan undertaking – if you build a dike around something and don’t raise it you have New Orleans after Katrina. While the Sea Wall in all its glory is the work of the Corps of Engineers the grade raising was exclusively a Galveston project designed and paid for by Galvestonians. When you visit the island today you are anywhere between two to sixteen feet higher than you would have been in 1900. Houses and whole building were lifted and supported while dredged fill was pumped under them and then they were set back in place – and people continued to live and work in them all the while.
The Sea Wall worked. Where the casualties had been 6,000 souls in 1900 there were only 400 lost in 1915 which was a more intense storm. The grade raising worked. Galveston hasn’t washed away after another century of storms have done their worst.