Bird's-Eye View of Dock Front, Galveston (1900)

• 37%
• 1900
• Documentary
• Albert E. Smith

At the first news of the disast by cyclone and tidal wave that devastated Galveston on Saturday, September 8th, 1900, we equipped a party of photographers and sent them by special train to the scene of the ruins. Arriving at the scene of desolation shortly after the storm had swept over the city, our party succeeded, at the risk of life and limb, in taking about a thousand feet of motion pictures, although Galveston was under martial law and photographers were shot down at sight by the excited police. The series, taken as a whole, gives a definite idea of the most terrible disaster since the Johnstown flood of 1889. The pictures are copyrighted and fully protected by law. They are made from original negatives, taken at a great expense, and expressed to us immediately after they were taken, and are positively the only motion picture films secured while the city of Galveston was in a state of chaos. Showing dismantled cars, wrecked warehouses, schooners and tugs stranded on the docks, and the tents rigged up for the homeless.