Boyds Untethered #27


Ashton Villa is one of the many fine old building and mansions to be found in Galveston.

Beyond the cool architecture these buildings have a lot of history too.

Ashton Villa was built in 1859…. the first house to be built on Broadway, the first mansion built on the island and one of the first brick residence to be built in Galveston.

Nowadays it is an event center but it’s history includes…. residence, Civil War headquarters (both the Confederate Army and the Union Army), hurricane refuge (1900 storm) and the site of many Juneteenth celebrations. 

After the 1900 storm, the basement was filled with sand and the grounds were raised by 2 feel as part of the efforts to raise the grade of the city to protect against future storms.

I took this pixture during the ghost tour we took in May…. but have no recollection of who is supposed to be haunting it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Boyds Untethered #59

Image
Our long time  friends  Jay and Sue gave us the wine glass for an anniversary. Our 2yr old friend, from the archery range, Annabelle picked the rose for us from her garden. I think they go pretty well together… and how lucky are we.
Read more

Boyds Untethered #51

Image
When the Galveston City Company laid out the city in 1838, it was done in a grid-like fashion, where all of the streets that ran north to south were assigned a number with 21st street being labeled as the "center" of the city and thus, it was also called Centre Street. North to south streets east of 21st decreased in their numbered assignment as one traveled east and increased in their numbered assignment as one traveled west.  When the Sandusky map of Galveston was drawn in 1845, the city stopped at 7th Street to the east and 57th Street to the west. Some of these names evolved, too, as 21st/ Centre street did, most notable 25th Street, also known as Bath Avenue (because it led to the bathhouses along the beach, and today it's Rosenberg, in honor of Henry Rosenberg) and 23rd Street, known as Tremont because of the original and second incarnation of the Tremont Hotel, both of which fronted 23rd Street. Contemporary re-branding of 21st, 22nd, and 24th Streets honor three l...
Read more

Boyds Untethered #26

Image
There aren’t many things about Galveston that we don’t like. We have the beachfront lifestyle we were looking for in a city big enough to have all we need. But at the same time we have a small town feel. If I did have a complaint it would be about the sunsets. The quality is fine but the beach is on the wrong side (east) of the island to get great ones, daily. Some say I should get up to see the sunrises.... but a sun event needs a beer and that still seems wrong for breakfast. But all that being said, this one’s not too bad.... so maybe more after dinner beach time is in order as the warm weather comes.
Read more