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The City of Galveston kicked off the holiday season Friday with its annual Tree Lighting Celebration at Hotel Galvez. The event featured the lighting of a 35-foot Chrismas tree, visits with Santa and performances by local groups.

If you think ghosts are merely Halloween fantasies, guests who’ve stayed at the 100-year-old Hotel Galvez say you might change your mind after spending the night there. The rooms and halls of the century-old landmark are said to be haunted. Reports of strange noises, ghostly images and unexplained events are common. But nothing is as common as the reports connected to room 501.

Best Historic Preservation - 2011 Now the only historic beachfront hotel left on the Gulf Coast, the Hotel Galvez & Spa has just completed an $11 million renovation in celebration of its 100th anniversary. Owners George Mitchell and his family have made several updates to the property, modernizing it while maintaining its turn-of-the-century charm.

While the East End Historic District of this island claims one of the country’s largest concentrations of well-preserved Victorian-style architecture, Donna Leibbert knows her home is far from the grandest...To “islanders,’’ as residents often call themselves, it’s almost symbolic that the Hotel Galvez is, throughout the year, celebrating its 100th anniversary, highlighted by a community-wide party and fireworks next weekend.

The sun wasn’t shining and the surf was rough, but a large crowd on the beach was pretty happy. The bathing beauties contest was back. The Saturday event was part of the Galveston Island Beach Revue, a weekend-long salute to the Hotel Galvez, which has graced the beachfront for 100 years. The contestants vied in two categories — vintage or vintage-inspired swimsuits and contemporary numbers.

Commemorative Book Released for Hotel Galvez Centennial.

Listen carefully to the locals when you head south of Houston to go beachcombing: Most don’t refer to their town as “Galveston;” they will call it “Galveston Island.” Being an island is a big part of the lifestyle in this strip of land along the Texas Gulf Coast. Islanders have a different mindset than mainlanders, even when their spit of dirt is connected via a causeway. There’s a separateness to being here, which sometimes manifests as a survivalist mentality.

Some couples are using the great weather this weekend to get into the spirit of Valentine's Day. They're showing their love for one another, re-committing themselves to each other on the front lawn of the Hotel Galvez.

While hurricanes have certainly influenced Galveston's fortunes, storms are just one aspect of the island's colorful past. As Gary Cartwright notes in the new book Hotel Galvez: Queen of the Gulf, "This barrier island is neck deep in the dust of history and knows exactly how to use what nature and providence provide."

The Hotel Galvez, built in 1911 as a symbol of Galveston’s recovery after the Hurricane of 1900, has been a military headquarters during World War II, a temporary White House for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s staff and in the 1920s served as a hub for Galveston’s social, political and business scene.