Podcast: Galveston Invents A Government: The Galveston Plan

Imagine sitting down with pen and paper, and your task is to invent a whole new way to govern a city. A system that's never been tried before. You'd have to convince your fellow citizens to abandon the familiar, rally leaders around an untested idea and prove that this bold new approach could actually work. All while facing criticism at every turn. This is no small feat.

Building a new form of government is like reshaping the foundation of a city while everyone's still living in it. What was it that led this small sandbar off the coast of Texas to pioneer a form of government so effective that it spread nationwide and continues to influence municipal leadership across the country today? Let's talk about the Galveston Plan.

It's the turn of the century, the year 1900, in Galveston, Texas. The island city seemed unstoppable. Ships crowded the docks, streets buzzed with merchants, and everyone felt that this port city right on the Gulf was destined to continue its prosperity for centuries to come. But on September 8th of 1900, disaster struck. A massive hurricane, known as the 1900 storm, struck Galveston Island and, to this day, is still the deadliest hurricane in U. S. history. This storm tore through the island, leaving nothing but devastation in its wake. Over 6,000 people lost their lives. And many of the island's homes and buildings were completely destroyed.

Galveston was left with a question that went far beyond simple rebuilding. How could the island protect itself from such a nightmare ever happening again? How could it rebuild in a way that would last? For Galveston, the answer would come from rethinking how the city was governed in order to plan the city's protection and its future.

Galveston was a city built on international trade as a key import and export gateway for the state of Texas, and the devastation from the 1900 storm dampened not only the Galveston economy but the Texas economy. Galveston's business leaders and a group called the Deep Water Committee, dedicated to growing the capabilities of the port, with a focus on ship channel dredging and international trade relations, felt the old city council wasn't up to the task of rebuilding not only the port... but the city of Galveston. These Galveston business leaders knew they needed a more robust, focused, organized, and efficient structure of government that could handle the challenge of a complete rebuild of the once great city on the Gulf.

So they proposed a temporary commission, a small team of appointed leaders, each in charge of a specific area of government like public safety or finance, to meet every critical need quickly and decisively. But this proposal didn't sit well with every Galvestonian. The people of Galveston felt uneasy about the appointed leaders. The five yet-to-be unelected and appointed commissioners, one of whom would act as mayor, were set to be appointed by the state of Texas to bring the Galveston and Texas economy back up to its pre-storm numbers. They worried that a commission of appointed men would truly listen to them and genuinely represent the interests of those living on Galveston Island rather than pure business interests. To address these concerns, the committee adapted its plan; they gave the people a voice by allowing voters to elect two of the five commissioners, ensuring citizens could still participate in the city's rebuilding efforts, as well as Galveston's future direction.

By 1901, the new commission government was underway, and soon, each commissioner got to work, taking responsibility for their own department and the general rebuilding and protection of Galveston Island, bringing order and expertise to a city that desperately needed it. Galveston's recovery was fast and effective, a dramatic turnaround from the ruins left by the storm. A three-mile-long seawall was built to protect from future hurricane waves. The entire urbanized portion of Galveston Island was elevated to protect it from future hurricane storm surges, and the Port of Galveston, once again, was flowing with imports and exports from around the world.

Galveston's recovery was relatively fast and effective for the time, a dramatic turnaround from the ruins left by the 1900 storm. The city's progress was published in newspapers around the country, and people took notice.

In Texas, cities like Houston, Dallas, and Fort Worth saw what Galveston had done and began to adopt the same model of municipal government. For A City Commission, the Galveston Plan became a beacon for cities seeking new ways to govern. But the Galveston Plan didn't stop in Texas. By 1907, Des Moines, Iowa, became the first city outside of Texas to adopt the city commission model. Des Moines improved on the plan by adding nonpartisan elections and direct democracy tools, like Initiative: which allows citizens to propose new laws by gathering enough valid signatures to place a measure on the ballot. The Referendum: Which empowers citizens to overturn a decision by submitting a petition. And Recall: enabling citizens to remove an elected official through a petition and or a special election. Most of which were adopted by the Galveston City Commission a little later on. Cities across the country saw this as a fresh, efficient way to manage public resources.

By the 1920s, the commission model had spread to over 500 cities.

Governmental reformers praised it as a way to bring expertise and order, especially in cities struggling with corruption or inefficiency. But not everyone saw it that way. Some reformers argued the commission system gave too much power to business interests, potentially sidelining the voices of working-class people.

The plan was criticized as a double-edged sword. Yes, it was efficient. But it was too close to catering to the priorities of the businessmen. In the 1920s, a new idea was on the rise: The council-manager form of government. This model brought a professional city manager, a trained expert overseeing daily operations. The council-manager setup kept some of the critical elements of the commission model, like nonpartisan voting. Still, it added a central figure to prevent the infighting that sometimes happened when commissioners focused only on their departments.

Gradually, the Galveston Plan and the Council-Manager System gained traction throughout the United States through the mid-20th century. However, many cities moved away from the Commission model, preferring the Council Manager System. Galveston itself made the shift to the Council-Manager System in 1960, abandoning the very system it had pioneered, and by 1984, only 177 cities still used the Commission form of government, while thousands had moved to either council-manager or mayor-council structures.

Today, the pure commission form of government is almost gone in Texas, though some cities still use a manager commission hybrid. The largest city in the United States to still use a form of the Galveston Plan is Portland, Oregon, but in 2025, Portland will be restructuring its municipal government. Yet the legacy of the Galveston Plan endures.

From the days following the 1900 storm on Galveston Island, Galveston taught cities how to rebuild from tragedy and laid a foundation for modern city governance across the United States. Out of devastation came innovation, showing that communities can come together, adapt, and find a new path forward when faced with even the greatest challenges.

The Galveston plan.