St. Joseph's Catholic Church
Independence Trail Region
By 1860, German Catholics constituted roughly half of Galveston’s ethnic population. Seeing a need for German-language masses, Bishop Jean Marie Odin authorized the construction of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. Incredibly, the wood-frame church building survived the devastating hurricane of 1900 with only minor damage and was repaired, enlarged, and redecorated within a year of the storm. The church was an active congregation until 1968 and is now owned by the Galveston Historical Foundation.