January 28th, 2006
Murdoch’s Bath House
In his book Galveston: A History of the Island
The Island was changing, too, in its perception of itself as a tourist mecca. Visitors no longer asked about the port or the cotton-factoring facilities, but about the surf and the casinos. Galveston was on its way to becoming a year-round resort. The Moodys built two new beachfront hotels, the Miramar Courts—”an apartment camp”— and the four-hundred-room Buccaneer. They also built the ten-story Jean Lafitte Hotel, which replaced the old Tremont as Galveston’s downtown social center: after fifty-two years of service, the Tremont Hotel was allowed to close in 1927.
Now that the Hollywood Club had broken the barrier, there were gambling joints on all four corners of the 61st Street and Avenue S intersection. Supper clubs with names like the Roseland and the Kit-Kat Garden spread across town. Bathhouses and amusement piers ran for miles along the seawall, which was being advertised as “Galveston’s counterpart to the famous Boardwalk of Atlantic City.” Murdoch’s Pier was expanded to three floors, and included a gambling casino, a bathhouse, and Gaido’s restaurant.
| Murdoch’s Bath House had, by then, been around for years. The original Murdoch’s Pier was there long before the destructive 1900 hurricane. After the storm, Murdoch’s was rebuilt and became a popular destination on the new seawall.
By the 1940s, there was a ballroom, bingo parlor, gift shop, arcade, and portrait studio as well as dressing rooms. |
A large part of the pier was wrecked by Hurricane Carla in 1961, and never rebuilt. A few fragments of this structure still stand on this site today.
The Ocean Grill Restaurant offers dining over the surf at the location of the historic Murdoch’s Pier.
An establishment called Murdoch’s has been at 23rd and Seawall for generations.
