Free State of Galveston biggest names in the entertainment business, including Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Guy Lombardo, Jack Benny, Gene Autry, Phil Silvers, Jane Russell, George Burns, Duke Ellington, and Bob Hope. The Texas League, a baseball league, was founded in the 1800s, temporarily discontinued, and then restarted in the early 1900s evolving into a minor league. During the 1930s investors in Galveston, particularly Shearn Moody, established the Galveston Buccaneers baseball team, a successor to the former Galveston Pirates. The Buccaneers won the league championship in 1934 but the team was sold in 1937 after Moody's death. After the war, the new Gulf
Galveston Island would hold until nearly the end of the 19th century. Galveston for a time before the American Civil War was the largest cotton shipping port in the world and the second-largest port for immigration in the United States. In the mid-19th century, it was a major port of entry for the many Germans who entered the state. During the Civil War, the Union army seized control of the island from the South for a few months during early 1863. Confederate forces commanded by John B. Magruder expelled them from the island, and the Confederates controlled it for the remainder of