The founders of the city donated to the public every tenth block through the center of the city from east to west for public parks. They also gave three sites for public markets and set aside one entire block for a college, three blocks for a girls' seminary, and gave to every Christian denomination a valuable site for a church.
The growth of the city in population was slow until after the war of the rebellion. It is a remarkable fact that for the population Galveston does double the amount of business of any city in America. The population in 1890 was 30,000, showing an increase of over 400 per cent in thirty years. At the time of the disaster the population was estimated at 40,000.
Galveston has over two miles of completed wharfs along the bay front and others under construction, all of which are equipped with modern appliances. The Galveston Wharf Company, which owns practically all the wharfage, has expended millions during the last five years for improvements in the way of elevators and facilities for handling grain and cotton. During the cotton season, Sept. 1 to March 31 inclusive, large ocean-going craft line the wharves, often thirty or more steamers and as many large sailing vessels being accommodated at one time, besides the numerous smaller vessels and sailing craft doing a coastwise trade.
Manufacturing is one of the chief supports of the city. In this branch of industry Galveston leads any city in the State of Texas by 50 per cent in number and more than 100 per cent in capital employed and product turned out. Of factories the city has 306, employing a capital aggregating $10,886,900, with an output of $12,000,000 a year.
The jetty construction forms one of the chief features of its commercial advantages. The construction began in 1885, progressing slowly for five years, when the desire of the citizens for a first-class harbor led to the formation of a permanent committee, which succeeded in getting a bill through Congress authorizing an expenditure of $6,200,000 on the harbor. The bill provided that there should be two parallel stone jetties extending nearly six miles out into the gulf, one from the east point of Galveston Island, the other from the west point of Bolivar Peninsula. The jetties are fifty feet wide at the bottom and slope gradually to five feet above mean low tide, and are thirty-five feet wide at the top, with a railroad track running their entire length, which railroad is the property of the Federal Government. The immediate effect of early construction of the jetties was to remove the inner bar, which formerly had thirteen feet of water over it, and which now has over twenty-one feet of water.