Old Galveston Customhouse
SE corner 20th and Post Office (Ave. E) Sts., Galveston, TXThe Old Galveston Custom House is a handsome late Greek Revival brick two-story building with nearly all of the detail, the columns, cornices, balustrades, dentils, entablatures, and window architraves of cast iron. The structure has a fine scale and proportion and the detail is handled with sensitivity. The Custom House is architecturally distinguished and important historically.
Galveston was the leading seaport and commercial city in Texas during the 19th century, and most of the imported commercial goods entered the state through this port. The business community of Galveston, composed chiefly of wholesale concerns, furnished the trade goods for all of Texas, Indian Territory, and parts of Louisiana and New Mexico.
Ammi B. Young, the architect of the original plans, was the first supervising architect of the office of construction of the Treasury Department of the United States and was responsible for a number of distinguished government buildings during his tenure. Charles B. Cluskey and E.W. Moore, contractors for the building, were important in their own right. Moore was at one time Commodore of the Navy of the Republic of Texas. Cluskey was a noted architect of Savannah, Georgia, and later Washington, D.c.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1970.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.