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Galveston
Story by Ann Walton Sieber
About
1900 Galveston: “The city exhibited a rare harmony
of spirit. Blacks, whites, Jews, and immigrants lived
and worked side by side with an astonishing degree of
mutual tolerance.”
—Isaac’s Storm, by Erik Larson
The
harmonious atmosphere in Galveston that Erik Larson describes
in his book about the 1900 hurricane might today be easily
expanded to also include gays and lesbians.
“Galveston
Island near Texas, it’s the most undiscovered gay
mecca,” says Eldridge Langlinais, who owns Island
Properties Real Estate, and last year, with his lover
Tim Jennings opened the Paradise, a gay guest house.
“Thousands of gay people are living here. The personality
of Galveston is very, very gay-friendly. It’s totally
okay to be gay. You can go to the grocery store in drag
and it’s like it’s nothing. I don’t do
it, but I have a friend...”
For decades, the gay and lesbian community of Houston
has sought out Galveston: for Splash Day on Stewart
Beach, the notorious gay party that announces the start
of the summer season; to escape the bar raids of the
’60s and ’70s; prowling around the quaint
antique stores and art galleries; enjoying the nude
beach. Or as a place to buy a weekend house on the cheap;
a place with an easygoing pace and all the gaiety and
freewheeling fun of a beach town; a place to move for
a small-town atmosphere in everything but its progressive
embracing of the gay community. In this special Galveston
issue, we tell you where to go if you visit Galveston,
give a portrait of some of Galveston’s many interesting
people, explore the gay side of Galveston history, and
even include a story from a friend about renovating
a historic Galveston cottage.
“When
you come over that causeway, everything slows down,”
says Galvestonian Susan Henry. “We all work very
steady and hard, but it’s still different. It’s
a real respite for Houstonians.”
It’s remarkable that this town of 60,000 has a
half dozen gay bars; two well-established gay guest
houses; a monthly publication, The Galveston Gayzette;
and numerous, numerous businesses owned by local gay
individuals and couples. The many gay women and men
who live on the island have played a strong civic role
in helping revive Galveston, work on its historic neighborhoods,
promote its arts. The wider community is smart enough
to realize this and be thankful. Indeed, for the past
two years, Galveston has been alight with economic development
and people wanting to buy properties.
And just as the town as a whole is accepting of the
gay community, many of the gay people I spoke with made
pains to be inclusive of everyone, too.
“Not
just gay, I emphasize gay-friendly,” Eldridge said,
in talking about the island and his guest house. “I
am not one to exclude gay-friendly heterosexuals. There
are hundreds of wonderful heterosexual people who do
not care what you do—you can slow dance right in
front of them. I would not exclude those people for
the world.”
We at OutSmart first started thinking about Galveston
when we heard about David Bowers, the openly gay three-time
city councilman who ran for mayor this spring. Although
he lost by a small margin, we were impressed that his
sexual orientation, though known by everyone, really
didn’t seem as though it were an issue in the race.
As we started to talk to people in Galveston and explore
gay community down there, we discovered a very gay-friendly
town, but one quite different in nature from Montrose.
Even though both share a certain funky eccentric ambiance,
in Galveston, there is much less of a strong sense of
bold-blaring “gay identity,” and more just
a sense of people being who they are—some straight-laced,
some outlandish. Sexual orientation was just one aspect
of people’s lives that they didn’t feel called
to make a big to-do over.
Indeed, in seeking out quote-unquote Gay Galveston,
we didn’t want to come down and create a label
where there really wasn’t one. But at the same
time, a small town this liberal and accepting, this
friendly and fun, and this close, seemed cause for attention
and celebration.
“It’s
like everything down here,” says Nathan Sweeten,
who owns the huge Peanut Butter antique warehouse on
the Strand. “It’s much more laid back. But
I never felt down here that there was ever a problem
with anybody in the public eye, if you were gay. It
being a small town, you can be gay and live here and
enjoy the small-town life much more freely than in most
any other small town.”
Which is not to say that Galveston has achieved gay
utopia status, and is about to be annexed as an island
colony of Vermont. Although there is an acceptance of
being gay, there is also a feeling that maybe you just
don’t shine a spotlight on it. Several people who
were very friendly in helping with this article asked
that their names not be published. Maybe it’s just
a sense of privacy, another Galvestonian trait.
“It
isn’t something we discuss a lot,” says Oma
Galloway, a born-on-the-island treasure, who just celebrated
his 70th birthday. “We don’t ask personal
questions about you, we just let it be. Which is one
of the magical things about Galveston.”
Also, the biggest employer is the University of Texas
Medical Branch, and they have a reputation of being
conservative; they don’t offer domestic partner
benefits, and some employees don’t feel safe with
being out.
Galveston had their Anita Bryant moment two years ago,
when a local Baptist minister, Ken Barber, wrote a column
for the Galveston County Daily News protesting the opening
of Bob Wilkin and Sherman Houck’s gay guest house,
the Hollywood, spouting homophobic rhetoric of the most
nauseating stripe. He organized a protest in front of
the Hollywood, and though his numbers were few, they
were telling, with skinheads carrying a Swastika flag,
and a KKKer coming in his white pointy get-up (until
he got too hot, and stripped back to his jeans). Daily
News editor Heber Taylor had some experience with how
the KKK uses publicity to get attention, so he gave
their appearance minimal coverage, according to Janet
Cohen, a frequent writer for the Daily News.
After Barber’s column and protest, for two weeks,
the Daily News carried an expanded Letters section as
readers, largely heterosexual, wrote in objecting to
Barber, with headlines like, “It’s not Barber’s
place to judge others,” “Galveston doesn’t
need radicals like Barber,” “Bible shouldn’t
be used as crutch for hateful ends,” and “Galveston
enriched by intellect of diverse people,” in which
the letter-writer says, “Galveston Island has been
greatly enriched by the intellectual, civic, academic,
financial, social, spiritual, and aesthetic contributions
of the gay community.”
Susan Henry says she had known Galveston was a gay-friendly
town before that, but the Hollywood incident really
confirmed it very concretely in her mind.
“I
think every gay person who lives in Galveston thought
and knew these things,” she says, “but we
always wondered. When the whole Hollywood thing happened,
it showed the support the community felt. It really
was a defining moment in Galveston.”
Special thanks go to Susan Henry for her generous
help with the Galveston OutSmart issue. Thanks also
go to Eldridge and Tim at the Paradise, to Bob and Sherman
at the Hollywood, to Danial Zorn and the many other
Galvestonians who gave of their time, expertise, and
enthusiasm in making this issue come together.
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