June 19 in1865, a ship landed in Galveston with the news of the Emancipation Proclamation, which was signed on January 1 in 1863...at the time, according to local Galveston lore, the blacks claimed that they were intentionally held in slavery for the extra yr+, before they were allowed to have the info that they were free...the term Juneteenth was created/celebrated primarily in Texas locally for a long time, before it caught national attention as THE freedom day...back in mid 1800's Texas was a wild and dangerous land, without regular communications resources, so Galveston, being known as "the Wall Street of the Southwest" was the hub for business, until the 1900 hurricane took out most of the town.