Norris Wright Cuney, or simply Wright Cuney, was an American politician, businessman, union leader, and advocate for the rights of African-Americans in Texas. Following the American Civil War, he became active in Galveston politics, serving as an alderman and a national Republican delegate. He was appointed as United States Collector of Customs in 1889 in Galveston. Cuney had the highest-ranking appointed position of any African American in the late 19th-century South. He was a member of the Union League and helped attract black voters to the Republican Party; in the 1890s, more than 100,000 blacks were voting in Texas.
Norris Wright Cuney
Cuney Homes
Galveston is a coastal resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of 211.31 square miles (547.3 km2), with a population of 53,695 at the 2020 census, is the county seat of surrounding Galveston County and second-largest municipality in the county. It is also within the Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan area at its southern end on the northwestern coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
Plan of the City of Galveston (c. 1845)
The Beach Hotel catered to vacationers until a fire in 1898.
Sunset Route, Seawall, Galveston, Texas (postcard, c. 1907)
Damage after Hurricane Carla, 1961