Strand Historic District, The

Galveston's Strand district is a group of at least forty-five commercial buildings near the shipping channel, built mainly between the 1850s and 1890s. For decades it was the city's main business street and the base of influential merchants and financiers such as Henry Rosenberg, John Sealy, J. J. Hendley and W. L. Moody. The buildings show popular styles from Greek Revival to Beaux Arts, usually in modest forms, with arcaded ground floors, cast iron fronts and stuccoed or red brick walls. Several were designed by Nicholas J. Clayton. The 1858 Hendley Building took part in the 1863 Battle of Galveston, when a shot was fired from its roof. Fires in the 1870s and the 1900 hurricane removed many cornices and raised the street level. The district was valued as a largely intact record of late nineteenth-century commerce. At the time of the nomination the buildings were run down, several were vacant, and local groups were beginning restoration and reuse.