The Great Galveston Disaster / Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Including Vivid Descriptions of the Hurricane and Terrible Rush of Waters; Immense Destruction of Dwellings, Business Houses, Churches, and Loss of Thousands of Human Lives; Thrilling Tales of Heroic Deeds; Panic-Stricken Multitudes and Heart-Rending Scenes of Agony; Frantic Efforts to Escape a Horrible Fate; Separation of Loved Ones, etc., etc.; Narrow Escapes from the Jaws of Death; Terrible Sufferings of the Survivors; Vandals Plundering Bodies of the Dead; Wonderful Exhibitions of Popular Sympathy; Millions of Dollars Sent for the Relief of the Stricken Sufferers

by Paul Lester

WHITE MEN AND NEGROES PLUNDER TOGETHER.

“They are not alone in this, but I am sorry to say that white men are side by side with them in their damnable work. Women could be seen on the first morning after the flood with baskets over their arms taking everything they could possibly pick up, without regard to whom it belonged to or what its value might be. What the city needs most, in my estimation, is pure water, food and able-bodied men who are willing to work, so the bodies can be removed from the wreckage and carried from the island and the carcasses of animals be burned or disposed of as quickly as possible. Whatever is to be done should be done at the earliest possible moment, as provisions are scarce and it is next to impossible to get fresh water. The sewerage system is also choked, and this combined with the stenches from decaying animal matter makes it almost impossible for people to exist for many days.

THE WRECK OF A DWELLING WHERE TWELVE MEN AND WOMEN HAD A MIRACULOUS ESCAPE

CREMATING DEAD BODIES TAKEN FROM GALVESTON WRECK.

EXTERIOR VIEW OF ST. PATRICK’S CHURCH, WHICH WAS DEMOLISHED

WRECKAGE AT CENTRE STREET, LOOKING NORTH FROM AVENUE O ½

RUINS OF PUBLIC SCHOOL, TWENTY-FIFTH STREET AND AVENUE P

REMAINS OF RAILROAD POWER HOUSE, TWENTIETH STREET AND AVENUE I

A CLEAN SWEEP OF EIGHTEEN BLOCKS BY SIX, WAS THICKLY POPULATED AND COMPLETELY DESTROYED

RUINS AT TWENTY-FIRST STREET AND AVENUE O ½

“Immediately on my arrival here a meeting of the Woodmen was called and $200 in cash subscribed and turned over to me, and about $300 more pledged to be placed in my hands on demand. All camps throughout the State are requested to immediately call meetings and forward such subscriptions as they may see proper to me at Dallas. This will be used for the benefit of Woodmen and their families, many of whom are in absolute want and distress, and we hope to raise at least $30,000, which is less than $1 each from our members.”

From Houston came the following heartrending news of the Galveston horror two days after it occurred:

“The dreadful fatality of Galveston is looking worse, in the face of facts brought out to-day. Three men, who reached here this morning, tell of so and so many dead bodies being found in a single house or yard or on one block, that the conclusion is almost irresistible that a greater number than 1000 has been lost. They tell that twenty or forty or a hundred were lost by the collapse of a single large house, they having gathered there for safety, but they are unable to say anything about the hundreds of small houses that were swept away, some vacant, of course, but many occupied, but without a mark, a sign or a memory to recall the lost.