Galveston, Texas January 1990, and was demolished in 2006. The Strand plays host to a yearly Mardi Gras festival, Galveston Island Jazz & Blues Festival and a Victorian-themed Christmas festival called Dickens on the Strand (honoring the works of novelist Charles Dickens, especially "A Christmas Carol") in early December. Galveston is home to several historic ships: the tall ship "Elissa" (the official Tall Ship of Texas) at the Texas Seaport Museum and USS "Cavalla" and USS Stewart, both berthed at Seawolf Park on nearby Pelican Island. Galveston is ranked the number one cruise port on the Gulf Coast and fourth in the
Port of Galveston than expected pace, requiring more dredging in 2016. The western part of the port will be dredged from a dept of to , at a cost of $12-15 million. To accommodate cruise ships, the area where the ships turn around is routinely dredged every four years. During the late 19th century, the port was the busiest on the Gulf Coast and considered to be second busiest in the country, next to the port of New York City. In the 1850s, the port of Galveston exported approximately goods valued almost 20 times what was imported. The main export was cotton. The