Kimber Fountain Bücher

Known today as a colorful resort destination featuring family entertainment and a thriving arts district, Galveston was once notorious for its flourishing vice economy and infamous red-light district. Called simply "The Line," the unassuming five blocks of Postoffice Street came alive every night with wild parties and generous offerings of hourly love. A stubborn mainstay of the island cityscape for nearly seventy years, it finally shut down in the late 1950s. But ridding Galveston of prostitution would prove much more difficult than putting a padlock on the front door. Kimber Fountain pursues the sequestered story of women who wanted to make their own rules and the city that wanted to let them.

Along Galveston's Gulf Coast runs a seventeen-foot-high, ten-mile-long protective barrier--a response to the nation's all-time deadliest natural disaster. The seawall remains a stoic protector more than a century later, shielding the island from much more than physical destruction. As the foundation of Seawall Boulevard, this structure created an entirely new tourism industry that buoyed the city's economy through war, the Great Depression and hurricanes. Adapting to the cultural trends and political movements that defined the past century, the seawall represents the unbreakable spirit of Galveston's resilient population and provides a fascinating glimpse into bygone times.