History comes alive as the Galveston Historical Foundation presents the Menard House 'Galveston Firsts' Summer Lecture Series.
Galveston Historical Foundation will honor the 175th anniversary of the City of Galveston with special lectures and tours at the historic Menard Campus, 3302 Avenue O. The lectures will take place at 2 p.m. on Sundays June 1, June 22, July 13 and August 3.
In addition, Galveston’s oldest residential dwelling, the 1838 Menard House, will be opened for public tours.
June 1 – The First Customhouses and Customs Officers in the “City of Firsts”
When the city of Galveston
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History comes alive as the Galveston Historical Foundation presents the Menard House 'Galveston Firsts' Summer Lecture Series.
Galveston Historical Foundation will honor the 175th anniversary of the City of Galveston with special lectures and tours at the historic Menard Campus, 3302 Avenue O. The lectures will take place at 2 p.m. on Sundays June 1, June 22, July 13 and August 3.
In addition, Galveston’s oldest residential dwelling, the 1838 Menard House, will be opened for public tours.
June 1 – The First Customhouses and Customs Officers in the “City of Firsts”
When the city of Galveston was founded 175 years ago, it was the largest city and port in the new Republic of Texas. President Sam Houston wasted no time in establishing a Customs Service and then appointing a Collector of Customs, eventually building a Custom House at Galveston.
The new Republic needed revenue to survive and Galveston provided more revenue to the meager Treasury than any other Customs district in the Republic. The first Collectors of Customs were not “faceless bureaucrats” but well-known entrepreneurs and adventurers that helped to build this exciting “City of Firsts”.
Men with well-known names like Menard, Borden, Harris and Sorley occupied Galveston’s first Custom Houses. The story of the building of the first Custom Houses in Galveston and the men that collected the revenue is as intriguing as the history of Galveston itself.
Presented by Steven W. Hooper, Special Agent in Charge for the United States Customs Service, Retired. Serving in field offices in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Houston and at the U.S. Customs Service Headquarters in Washington D.C., Hooper spent over thirty-one years with the agency, involved in investigations and prosecutions that protected revenue, intercepted contraband, and enforced neutrality and money laundering laws, working for the United States government in many foreign countries including Russia, Albania, Bulgaria, South Africa and Suriname.
About the 1838 Menard House (pictured above)
Built in 1838 by John and Augustus Allen for the founder of Galveston, Michel Branamour Menard, the property passed between Menard and the Allen brothers (founders of Houston) in many complicated dealings in its early years. It is the oldest surviving residential dwelling in Galveston and the only structure to be owned by the founders of both Galveston and Houston.
For more information on the Menard Summer Lecture Series at Menard Hall or public tours of the 1838 Menard House, call Jami Durham at (409)750-9108 or e mail Jami.Durham@galvestonhistory.org.
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