STUDYING. PEARLAND. OVER. TIME.
On The SPOT
Hurricane of 1915
This section will focus on the Hurricane of 1915 and its consequences on the recently recovered Pearland.
Devastation
While Galveston learned from their mistakes before 1900 and erected a new seawall that held the hurricane at bay, for Pearland, it was 1900 all over again. While there were 0 casualties, Pearlanders lost nearly everything else they had.
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Homes, businesses, and the possessions from years of sweat and sacrifice were destroyed. The hurricane demolished the second floor of the recently constructed brick school, forcing a generation of students to finish their education-the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh grades-in Webster for the next 22 years. In 1937 the Pearland residents approved a new school bond.
Image Credit - Pearland Historical Society
Image of the Pearland High School Historical Marker
Image Credit - Pearland Historical Society
Image of Pearland High School after 1915
Response
The 1915 evacuation that ensued far surpassed the scale of the one after the Storm of 1900. And this time, there was no real estate promotion to accelerate recovery, as the Allison Richey company left.
Afterwards
Haymakers, a cornerstone in the Pearland economy, lost their biggest customer after the First World War, when the U.S. Army dissolved the cavalry. Cattlemen held strong until a costly quarantine, caused by an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease, and a freak blizzard in the mid-1920s combined to devastate herds and ruin many ranchers.​
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By 1917, nine years before rural electrification reached Pearland and nineteen before natural gas, Charles Treat Davidson founded Pearland's first telephone system with the name Suburban Garden Telephone Company. Telephone Road is named because it was where the first telephone lines were placed. Before this, Charles Davidson established a telephone system in Almeda, Texas. In the next year, he rented space for his mom-and-pop utility in the rear of Dr. W. E. Long's combination doctor's office, drug store, and private bank on Main Street. The Davidsons later put in a public phone booth, which doubled as the voting booth during elections. Charles Davidson died in March 1925 from pneumonia complications he fell ill while working on telephone lines during the historic ice storm of December 1924.
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Due to a lack of marketing for Pearland real estate, the amount of residents emigrating to Pearland was less than the amount seen after the storm of 1900. Some citizens still came between 1915 and 1930. Pearland in 1930 had an estimated population of 260, which is a net gain of 90 residents in a decade.
