Rosenberg Monument

1916: Unveiled on 22 April 1900, the Rosenberg Monument to the Heroes of the Texas Revolution was sculpted by Italian-born sculptor, Louis Amateis in his studio in Washington, DC. Four months after the unveiling, the devastating hurricane of 1900 bulldozed its way through the city, mowing down St. John’s Methodist Episcopal Church which stood behind the monument at 2501 Broadway and Rosenberg Avenue. After the broken structure was removed, the lot remained vacant until 1916, when the house seen here at 3. was occupied by George N. Copley (1880-1969), the Secretary-Treasurer of Thomas Goggan & Bro., Galveston’s state-wide piano company and sheet music publisher. Copley’s wife, Eveline Catherine Goggan (1885-1966), was the granddaughter of Thomas Samuel Goggan (1843-1903), the Company’s founder. Other houses seen in this view are: 1. 1109 Rosenberg Avenue (25th): Nicholas Louis Ballich (1876-1946), founder of the Elite Café, which opened at 2208 Market Street (Avenue D) shortly after the hurricane of 1900 and became a Galveston institution until 1950; 2. 1021 Rosenberg Avenue (25th): Bettie Grafton Austin (1854-1934), widow of Judge William Tennant Austin (1850-1905), a Princeton-trained jurist who was head of the Galveston Board of Commissioners; 4. 2509 Broadway (Avenue J): Mrs. Mary Fowler Bornefeld (1860-1938), widow of Arthur Bornefeld (1850-1902), who taught music at her house for a number of years after her husband’s death.

24 March 2019: The site of the St. John’s Methodist Episcopal Church and later the Copley mansion is now Elite Pawn Shop and the rest of the strip center is a Subway sandwich shop (where the Bornefeld house stood at 2509 Broadway), a mobile phone store, and a Conoco filling station and convenience store (where a large house stood at 2525 Broadway once occupied by Dr. John Fannin Young Paine (1840-1912), first faculty member of University of Texas Medical School, dean of faculty and professor of obstetrics and gynecology – his 6’4” height and 300 pound frame made him a imposing figure). The Austin house at 1021 Rosenberg has been replaced by three smaller structures built in 1965: a dentist’s office at 1025 Rosenberg, a similar single floor building at 1019, and a tax preparation company at 1015. A substantial two-story house at 1103 was built in 1926, now situated between these three houses and the still extant 1895 Ballich house at 1109 Rosenberg.

---

For a detailed explanation of the various panels and a history of the manufacture of the Rosenberg Monument, see galveston.com website.

The sculptor of the Rosenberg Monument, Louis Amateis (1855), was born in Turin, Italy and educated in architecture at the Instituto Italiano di Tecnologia and in sculpture at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, with advanced studies in Milan and Paris. He came to New York City in 1884. He married and raised a family of four sons in Washington, DC, where founded the school of architecture at Columbian University, which became George Washington University in 1904. In addition to the Rosenberg Monument, he also sculpted the 1909 “Call to Arms” Confederate Monument in Corsicana, the 1912 Dignified Resignation Confederate Monument in Galveston [See City Park Pedestal, Confederate Monument, Central Park,] and the 1908 Spirit of the Confederacy in Houston once located in Sam Houston Park (City Park) in downtown Houston, but now removed due to public demand. Other works by Amateis are found in the Capitol Building at Washington, D. C. including busts of President Chester Alan Arthur (1829-1913), General Winfield Scott Hancock (1824-1886), General John Alexander Logan (1826-1886), General Benjamin Franklin Butler (1818-1893), Secretary Thomas Francis Bayard (1828-1898), James Gillespie Blaine (1830-1893), and Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), and the 1910 Capitol Bronze Doors near the crypt just down the stairs from the Rotunda.