The Galveston Architecture Guidebook includes the city's imposing business blocks, institutional buildings, and houses, both large and small. Conceived in the nineteenth-century, Galveston's town plan was highly sophisticated reflecting the city's role as a major Southern port from the end of the Civil War to the turn of the 20th century.

The guidebook also addresses more recent architectural episodes, such as the growth of the city's highly acclaimed medical center, the development of its neighborhoods, and the evolution of its beach front.

Each entry in the guidebook includes a photograph, an identifying number keyed to a tour map, as well as historical, descriptive, and critical commentary. Also included are several appendices for easy reference: an illustrated building typology, and architectural glossary, and a selected bibliography.

The Galveston Architecture Guidebook will be invaluable to all those who visit Galveston. Historic preservationists, scholars of nineteenth-century material culture, architects, and historians will be fascinated by the broad range of buildings and urban conditions it documents. Finally, anyone interested in Galveston or the Gulf Coast will find in this book a wealth of information.