Galveston's Historic Broadway Avenue (Avenue J) Mansions Corridor

Broadway was where Galveston put its money on display — a central boulevard lined with oleander trees and Victorian and Edwardian mansions built by the men who ran cotton and finance through what was once Texas's largest city and the world's leading cotton port. The 1900 hurricane, which still holds the record as the United States' deadliest natural disaster, ended that era. The mansions survived. Walk the corridor and you're reading what Galveston was before the storm remade everything.