Portal:Houston/Music, Arts & Culture/October 2007

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The Strand District, in downtown Galveston, Texas (USA), is a National Historic Landmark District of mainly Victorian era buildings that now house restaurants, antique stores, and curio shops. The area is a major tourist attraction for the island city and also plays host to two very popular seasonal festivals. It is widely considered the island's shopping and entertainment center. The street labeled "The Strand" is actually named Avenue B, which runs parallel to Galveston Bay. Today "the Strand" is generally used to refer to the entire five-block business district between 20th and 25th streets in downtown Galveston, very close to the city's wharf.

The original plat of Galveston, drawn in the late 1830s, includes Avenue B, but the origins of its nickname are unknown. Some have speculated that it was named after the well-known Strand in London. (The word strand comes from the Old English word for "shore" or "river bank"; in German, Swedish and Dutch, the word means "beach".) The Strand's very earliest buildings were typically wooden and vulnerable to fires and storms that hit the island frequently throughout the 19th century. Eventually those structures were replaced with iron-fronted brick buildings. The two oldest buildings still standing on the Strand date to 1855 and 1858; other historic buildings date back typically to the 1870s and 1880s.