The Definitive Resource Of Oscar Wilde's Visits To America

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Galveston

Texas


The Pavilion

Monday, June 19, 1882


The Decorative Arts

Verification

Newspaper report

The Galveston Daily News, June 22, 1882, 4

The Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), June 21, 1882


Newspaper notice

The Decatur Daily Republican, June 21, 1882, 3

Venue

The Pavilion

East side of 21 Street at the beachfront, Galveston, TX


Opened: April 1881 (Nicholas J. Clayton, architect)

Built for: the thirteenth Texas Saengerfest, April 18-22, 1881

Capacity: 5000

Destroyed (fire): August 1, 1883

THE GALVESTON PAVILION

Wilde's lecture venue in Galveston had a short lifetime: it was destroyed by fire less than two and half years after it was built as the state's first building with electric lighting, and just over a year after Wilde lectured there.


The two photographs of the Pavilion below were taken concurrently. On the left a crowd gathers for an occasion for which a scaffold has been erected on the beach. On the right*, presumably later as the crowd has grown, we can see a high-wire performance.

* This photograph is sometimes shown incorrectly reversed; the towers of the building were on the left when viewed from the beach.

Accommodation

(New) Tremont House *

Corner of Tremont and Church Streets, Galveston, TX (now 23rd and Avenue F)


Built: 1871 (Nicholas J. Clayton, architect, for the Galveston Hotel Company)

Opened: February, 1872

Closed: November 1, 1928

Demolished: December, 1928

The view northeast from the roof of Wilde's hotel, before 1890.


Oscar Wilde In America | © John Cooper, 2023