The Ghosts of Galveston Guided Walking Tour

The Ghosts of Galveston Guided Walking Tour is a 90-minute evening walk run by Ghost City Tours, booking from $29.99 per person at our August 2, 2026 check. It names two stops, the Strand and St. Mary's Cathedral Basilica. It meets at the corner of Avenue H and Kempner Street, near Trinity, and the listing warns that the walk does not end where it starts, which matters if you have parked. The age bands cover every age, infants included. One correction to older copy of ours: this is not a small-group tour, because the live listing posts a maximum of 30 travelers. It carries 4.7 from 74 reviews.

What you will see

Neither named stop is flagged as a drive-by. Worth knowing first: the operator's own website page for this tour features a different set of stops, under a caveat that not all are guaranteed on any given night, so we write the two the booking listing names and promise neither.

The Strand is a district rather than a building: about 45 acres listed on the National Register in 1970 under reference 70000748, and a National Historic Landmark since May 11, 1976. In 1881 some $38 million of merchandise and services moved through it, the harbor took between 700 and 1,400 vessels a year, and the state's five largest banks were here. It also sits higher now than it did then: the 1970 nomination records that the street once ran four to five feet below its present level.

On September 8, 1900 Isaac Cline walked this street telling merchants to lift perishable goods off their floors. The first loss of life reported in the city that day was at Reuter's saloon on the Strand, where Stanley E. Spencer, Charles Kilmer and Richard Lord died. The toll for the storm as a whole is given as a range rather than a number, and the round figures in circulation sit above it, so this page prints none of them.

St. Mary's Cathedral Basilica at 2011 Church Street was built on a gift of half a million bricks from Belgium in 1845. Bishop Jean Marie Odin laid the cornerstone on March 14, 1847, and on May 4, 1847 the Diocese of Galveston was erected, the first in Texas and, as the Handbook of Texas puts it, comprising the entire state. The building was dedicated on November 26, 1848. Nicholas J. Clayton designed the transept tower in 1876, and the cast-iron statue of Mary, Star of the Sea went up on it in 1878, after the flood of 1875. The church was listed on the National Register in 1973 and made a minor basilica in 1979. You will not see the Belgian brick, because it is under stucco.

The clergy's own 1900 account, written from inside the rectory, is the hardest documented material on this route: the two-ton bell torn out of its iron bands, the iron crosses on the front towers wrung from their fastenings and carried into the street, and the bishop telling the priests to prepare for death. With most of the city's churches wrecked, Mass was said here on September 16, 1900. The listing's stated reason for the stop is different: the guide talks about yellow fever and how it shaped the city. The one anchor on the lawn is contested, though. The Handbook of Texas calls the obelisk a memorial to the city's 1853 yellow fever victims, while Father Kirwin in 1900 described a small marble shaft over seven priests of this cathedral who died in the 1854 and 1869 epidemics.

One confusion to avoid: St. Mary's Orphan Asylum, where ninety orphans and ten sisters died in the 1900 storm, stood by the beach west of downtown and was destroyed completely. It shares a name and a hurricane with this cathedral and nothing else, so every image of nuns roping children to themselves belongs to that site, across town. As for the hauntings, neither stop appears in the operator's own published index of haunted Galveston locations, a twenty-entry list.

Who it suits

Ninety minutes for $29.99, with a band for every age including infants, wheelchair and stroller access on the listing, and only two named stops. It suits families and budget bookers who want a short evening walk with a church stop rather than a bar route, as long as a group of up to 30 is no obstacle.

• Skip it if you want a small group. The posted cap is 30, and the small-group framing on older copy is not supported by the operator's own number.
• Skip it if you want to go inside the cathedral. It is a working church and the group stands outside.
• Check with the operator if back problems or pregnancy apply.

How it compares

Within Ghost City Tours' Galveston lineup this is the joint cheapest, level with Galveston's Haunted Cemetery Walking Tour at the same $29.99, and the only route that pairs the Strand with a church. The Shadows of Revelry Walking Ghost Tour is $34.99 and 16 and over; Galveston Haunted Pub Crawl Walking Tour is $34.99, 21 and over, and runs two hours. Historic Galveston Ghost Tours works the same district on a three-stop route at $31, sold as Ghost On the Strand Ghost Tour and Spooky Strand Ghost Tour. We are not calling this the cheapest ghost tour in Galveston: our own card set carries a cheaper Galveston product outside the group we checked in detail. See also Galveston ghost tours compared and haunted places in Galveston.

Questions people ask

Is it a small group?

No. The live listing posts a maximum of 30 travelers, mid-pack for Galveston, where posted caps run from 15 to 40. Older copy calling it small-group is not supported by the operator's own number.

Where does it end?

The listing states that the end location differs from the meeting point but does not say where it is, so plan your parking accordingly.

Are children allowed?

Yes. The bands cover infants at 0 to 5, children at 6 to 11 and adults from 12. The operator adds that the walk is not recommended for travelers with back problems or for pregnant travelers.

Do we go inside the cathedral?

No. It is a working church, the listing marks the stop as admission not included, and the group stays outside.