| Elections in Texas |
|---|
 |
 Government |
The mayor of Galveston is the official head of the city of Galveston in the U.S. state of Texas. The incumbent mayor is Craig Brown, who was elected in 2020, re-elected in 2022, [1] [2] and was re-elected to another three-year term on May 4, 2024. [3] He took office in July 2020, succeeding the previous mayor, Jim Yarbrough. [4]
Local politics in Galveston have a tradition of being nonpartisan. There are no party labels on local ballots. [5]
When Galveston originated the commission form of government, starting the year 1901, [6] [7] the mayor officially held the title of "Mayor-President" and was president of the board of commissioners. Galveston's first mayor under the commission system was William T. Austin, who served for four years. [8]
The city of Galveston has had a council-manager system of government since its adoption of the form in 1961. [9]
Below is a list of Galveston's mayors and presidents of the Board of Commissioners.
| No. | Image | Mayor | Term start | Term end | Party | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | John Melville Allen | March 1839 | June 1840 | Democratic [10] | First Mayor of Galveston | |
| 2 | John H. Walton | June 1840 | May 1841 | — | ||
| 3 | John Melville Allen | 1841 | 1842 | Democratic | ||
| 4 | James M. Branham | 1842 | 1843 | — | Announced a curfew for all blacks, free and slave, in the city of Galveston that prohibited being in public after 8pm without a permit and forbade being in public after 10pm in all cases. [11] | |
| 5 | John Melville Allen | 1843 | 1846 | Democratic | ||
| 6 | John Seabrook Sydnor | 1846 | 1847 | — | Plantation owner that operated "the largest slave market west of New Orleans in the heart of Galveston". [12] | |
| 7 | Joseph Bates | 1848 | 1848 | Whig | Fought in the Second Seminole War, was a representative of the Alabama legislature. [13] | |
| 8 | Hamilton Stuart | 1849 | 1852 | Democratic | Founder of the Galveston Civilian, [14] once argued "that the products of slave labor sustain the commerce of the world, civilization and Christianity." [12] | |
| 9 | Michael Seeligson | 1853 | June 1853 | — | Resigned in June. | |
| 10 | Willard B. Richardson | 1853 | 1854 | — | Mayor pro tempore, editor, partner and proprietor of the Galveston News. [15] [16] | |
| 11 | James Cronican | 1854 | 1855 | — | Had previously represented the district of Galveston in the First Texas Legislature from February 1846 to December 1847. [17] | |
| 12 | James Edward Haviland | 1855 | 1856 | — | ||
| 13 |  | John Henry Brown | 1856 | 1857 | Democratic | Later became the mayor of Dallas. |
| 14 | Thomas Miller Joseph | 1858 | 1862 | Democratic | Leslie A. Thompson was claimed to be the mayor in 1858 in some later sources. However, he is only mentioned as a city alderman in 1856 [18] and 1857. [19] | |
| Vacant | 1863 | 1863 | ||||
| 15 | Charles Henry Leonard | 1864 | 1867 | Democratic | Former soldier of the Texian Army, fought to suppress the Córdova Rebellion and Native American revolts in 1838 under General Rusk. [20] | |
| 16 | J. C. Haviland | 1867 | June 17, 1867 | — | Major General Charles Griffin, commander of the Fifth Military District, ordered Haviland to disband the city's entire police force. Haviland was removed from office by Griffin as he was considered "an impediment to reconstruction" [21] on June 17, 1867. [18] | |
| 17 | Isaac G. Williams | 1867 | 1869 | — | Appointed to fill the vacancy after Haviland was removed from office. | |
| 18 | James A. McKee | 1869 | March 6, 1871 | Republican | ||
| 19 | Albert Somerville | June 5, 1871 | 1873 | — | ||
| 20 | Charles W. Hurley | 1873 | 1875 | — | ||
| 21 | Robert L. Fulton | 1875 | 1877 | Democratic | ||
| 22 | D. C. Stone | 1877 | 1879 | — | ||
| 23 | Charles Henry Leonard | 1879 | 1881 | Democratic | ||
| 24 | L. C. Fisher | 1881 | 1883 | — | ||
| 25 | Robert L. Fulton | 1883 | 1893 | Democratic | ||
| 26 | Ashley Wilson Fly | 1893 | 1899 | — | ||
| 27 | Walter Charles Jones | 1899 | 1900 | — | Mayor during the Great Storm of 1900. [22] | |
| 28 | William T. Austin | 1901 | 1905 | — | First mayor under the commission plan. [8] Died in office. | |
| 29 | Henry A. Landes | 1905 | 1909 | — | Elected as mayor-president after Austin's death. | |
| 30 | Lewis Dallam Fisher | 1909 | 1917 | — | Under his administration the seawall was first built. [23] | |
| 31 | Isaac Herbert Kempner | 1917 | 1919 | — | Early advocate of the commission form of government. [24] | |
| 32 | Harry O. Sappington | 1919 | 1921 | — | ||
| 33 | Charles H. Keenan | 1921 | 1923 | — | ||
| 34 | Baylis Earle Harriss | 1923 | 1925 | — | ||
| 35 | John Elias Pearce | 1925 | 1935 | — | ||
| 36 | Adrian F. Levy | 1935 | 1939 | — | ||
| 37 | Brantly Callaway Harris | 1939 | 1942 | — | ||
| 38 | Henry W. Flagg | 1942 | 1943 | — | ||
| 39 | George W. Frazer | 1943 | 1947 | — | ||
| 40 | Herbert Yemon Cartwright Jr. | 1947 | 1955 | — | ||
| 41 | George Roy Clough | 1955 | 1959 | — | ||
| 42 | Herbert Yemon Cartwright Jr. | 1959 | 1960 | — | ||
| 43 | Edward Schreiber | 1961 | 1962 | — | ||
| 44 | Theodore B. Stubbs | 1962 | 1963 | — | ||
| 45 | Edward Schreiber | 1964 | 1970 | — | ||
| 46 | Marcus Lamar Ross | 1971 | 1973 | — | ||
| 47 | Ralph Albert Apfell | 1973 | 1977 | — | ||
| 48 | Elias "Gus" Manuel | 1978 | February 2, 1984 | — | Died in office. | |
| 49 | Janice Reddig Coggeshall | 1984 | 1989 | — | ||
| 50 | Barbara Krantz Crews | 1990 | 1996 | — | ||
| 51 | Henry Freudenburg III | 1996 | 1998 | — | ||
| 52 | Roger Reuben "Bo" Quiroga | 1998 | 2004 | — | ||
| 53 |  | Lyda Ann Thomas | 2004 | 2010 | — | |
| 54 | Joe Jaworski | 2010 | 2012 | Democratic | ||
| 55 | Lewis S. Rosen | June 22, 2012 | 2014 | — | ||
| 56 | James D. "Jim" Yarbrough | 2014 | July 15, 2020 | Democratic | ||
| 57 | Craig K. Brown | July 2020 | Present | — |
The Republic of Texas, or simply Texas, was a breakaway state in North America that existed from March 2, 1836, to February 19, 1846. It shared borders with Mexico, the Republic of the Rio Grande, and the United States of America.
Galveston is a coastal resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of 211.31 square miles (547.3 km2), with a population of 53,695 at the 2020 census, is the county seat of surrounding Galveston County and second-largest municipality in the county. It is also within the Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan area at its southern end on the northwestern coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
Galveston County is a county in the U.S. state of Texas, located along the Gulf Coast adjacent to Galveston Bay. As of the 2020 census, its population was 350,682. The county was founded in 1838. The county seat is the City of Galveston, founded the following year, and located on Galveston Island. The most-populous municipality in the county is League City, a suburb of Houston at the northern end of the county, which surpassed Galveston in population during the early 2000s.
The city of Houston in the U.S. state of Texas was founded in 1837 after Augustus and John Allen had acquired land to establish a new town at the junction of Buffalo and White Oak bayous in 1836. Houston served as the temporary capital of the Republic of Texas. Meanwhile, the town developed as a regional transportation and commercial hub. Houston was part of an independent nation until 1846 when the United States formally annexed Texas. Railroad development began in the late 1850s but ceased during the American Civil War. Houston served the Confederacy as a regional military logistics center. The population increased during the war and blockade runners used the town as a center for their operations.
The following is an alphabetical list of articles related to the U.S. state of Texas.
Galveston Bay is a bay in the western Gulf of Mexico along the upper coast of Texas. It is the seventh-largest estuary in the United States, and the largest of seven major estuaries along the Texas Gulf Coast. It is connected to the Gulf of Mexico and is surrounded by sub-tropical marshes and prairies on the mainland. The water in the bay is a complex mixture of sea water and fresh water, which supports a wide variety of marine life. With a maximum depth of about 10 feet (3 m) and an average depth of only 6 feet (2 m), it is unusually shallow for its size.
James Walker Fannin Jr. was an American military officer, planter and slave trader who served in the Texian Army during the Texas Revolution. After being outnumbered and surrendering to the Mexican Army at the Battle of Coleto Creek, Fannin and his fellow prisoners of war were massacred soon afterward at Goliad, Texas, under Antonio López de Santa Anna's orders. He was memorialized in several place names, including a military training camp and a major city street in Houston.
Timeline of historical events of Houston, Texas, United States:
The Runaway Scrape events took place mainly between September 1835 and April 1836 and were the evacuations by Texas residents fleeing the Mexican Army of Operations during the Texas Revolution, from the Battle of the Alamo through the decisive Battle of San Jacinto. The ad interim government of the new Republic of Texas and much of the civilian population fled eastward ahead of the Mexican forces. The conflict arose after Antonio López de Santa Anna abrogated the 1824 Constitution of Mexico and established martial law in Coahuila y Tejas. The Texians resisted and declared their independence. It was Sam Houston's responsibility, as the appointed commander-in-chief of the Provisional Army of Texas, to recruit and train a military force to defend the population against troops led by Santa Anna.
Gail Borden Jr. was an American inventor and manufacturing pioneer. He was born in New York state and settled in Texas in 1829, where he worked as a land surveyor, newspaper publisher, and food company entrepreneur. He created a process in 1853 to make sweetened condensed milk. Earlier, Borden helped plan the cities of Houston and Galveston in 1836.
The Houston Ship Channel, in Houston, Texas, is part of the Port of Houston, one of the busiest seaports in the world. The channel is the conduit for ocean-going vessels between Houston-area terminals and the Gulf of Mexico, and it serves an increasing volume of inland barge traffic.
The 1994 Texas gubernatorial election was held on November 8, 1994, to elect the governor of Texas. Incumbent Democratic Governor Ann Richards was defeated in her bid for re-election by Republican nominee and future President George W. Bush, the son of former President George H. W. Bush.
John Kirby Allen, was a co-founder of the city of Houston and a former member of the Republic of Texas House of Representatives. He was born in Canaseraga Village, New York. He never married. He died of congestive fever on August 15, 1838, and was buried at Founders Memorial Cemetery in Houston, Texas.
After declaring its independence from Mexico in March, 1836, the Republic of Texas had numerous locations as its seat of government. This being seen as a problem attempts were made to select a permanent site for the capital. January, 1839, with Mirabeau B. Lamar as the newly elected president, a site selection commission of five commissioners was formed. Edward Burleson had surveyed the planned townsite of Waterloo, near the mouth of Shoal Creek on the Colorado River, in 1838; it was incorporated January 1839. By April of that year the site selection commission had selected Waterloo to be the new capital. A bill previously passed by Congress in May, 1838, specified that any site selected as the new capital would be named Austin, after the late Stephen F. Austin; hence Waterloo upon selection as the capital was renamed Austin. The first lots in Austin went on sale August 1839.
The Galveston Bay Area, also known as Bay Area Houston or simply the Bay Area, is a region that surrounds the Galveston Bay estuary of Southeast Texas in the United States, within Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan area. Normally the term refers to the mainland communities around the bay and excludes Galveston as well as most of Houston.
The history of Galveston, Texas, begins with the archaeological record of Native Americans who used the island. The first European settlements on the island were constructed around 1816. The Port of Galveston was established in 1825 by the Congress of Mexico following its successful revolution from Spain. The city served as the main port for the Texas Navy during the Texas Revolution. Galveston was founded in 1836 by Michel Menard, Samuel May Williams, and Thomas F. McKinney, and briefly served as the capital of the Republic of Texas. The Battle of Galveston was fought in Galveston Bay during the American Civil War when Confederate forces under Major General John B. Magruder attacked and expelled occupying Union troops from the city.
For a period of over 7000 years, humans have inhabited the Galveston Bay Area in what is now the United States. Through their history the communities in the region have been influenced by the once competing sister cities of Houston and Galveston, but still have their own distinct history. Though never truly a single, unified community, the histories of the Bay Area communities have had many common threads.
The Texas oil boom, sometimes called the gusher age, was a period of dramatic change and economic growth in the U.S. state of Texas during the early 20th century that began with the discovery of a large petroleum reserve near Beaumont, Texas. The find was unprecedented in its size (worldwide) and ushered in an age of rapid regional development and industrialization that has few parallels in U.S. history. Texas quickly became one of the leading oil-producing states in the U.S., along with Oklahoma and California; soon the nation overtook the Russian Empire as the top producer of petroleum. By 1940 Texas had come to dominate U.S. production. Some historians even define the beginning of the world's Oil Age as the beginning of this era in Texas.
The Twin Sisters are a pair of cannons used by Texas Military Forces during the Texas Revolution. They are among the most famous artillery in Texas military history with the "Come and Take It" cannon starting the revolution at the Battle of Gonzales and the Twin Sisters winning it at the Battle of San Jacinto. The Twin Sisters were also potentially used during the Mexican Invasions of 1842 and American Civil War.
The incumbent mayor, John B. Allen,[sic] a professional revolutionist who had been with Lord Byron when he died in Greece and who had been a military hero at the Battle of San Jacinto, was a dedicated democrat.