Garten Verein

In February 1876, a group of German businessmen organized the Galveston Garten Verein (“garden club”) as a social club for family and friends. Only Germans or German speakers
could hold stock in the club, but others could petition for membership. The group purchased the five-acre homestead of a prominent Galveston businessman, and laid out
the property as a park, with a clubhouse, lawns, gardens and walkways, bowling alleys, tennis courts,
croquet grounds, playgrounds and a dancing pavilion.
The Garten Verein’s tiered dancing pavilion, built in 1880, is the only one of the structures to survive the 1900 Hurricane.