Southeast Downtown Industry

Downtown / EaDo

From the Melrose and Texaco buildings to the Palace Hotel and the Maxwell House coffee plant.

4 stops · 0.8 mi

1. 1
   

   1952 · International Style

   Melrose Building

   • NRHP

   Completed in 1952, the Melrose Building is recognized as Houston's first modern skyscraper in the International Style, marking the city's architectural shift away from the ornamented towers of the prewar era. It was designed by the Houston firm Lloyd & Morgan, which later helped design the Astrodome. The tower's clean grid of windows and unornamented curtain wall expressed the postwar corporate modernism that would dominate downtown Houston's later boom. After a period of decline and vacancy, the building was restored and converted to a Le Meridien hotel, reopening in 2017. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as an early and intact example of modernist commercial design in Texas.

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2. 2
   

   1915 · Renaissance Revival

   Texas Company Building (Texaco)

   • NRHP

   Built in 1915 as the Houston headquarters of The Texas Company, later known worldwide as Texaco, this thirteen story building was designed by Warren & Wetmore, the New York firm behind Grand Central Terminal. Its construction marked the arrival of the oil industry as a dominant force in Houston's economy, a decade and a half after the Spindletop gusher launched the Texas oil boom. The Renaissance Revival design is faced in brick and terra cotta, with an ornate crown added when the building was expanded in the 1920s. Texaco occupied it until 1958. Long vacant and threatened, the building was restored and converted into apartments, reopening as The Star. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

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3. 3
   

   1903 · Romanesque Revival

   Palace Hotel

   • NRHP
   • City Landmark

   Built in 1903 and attributed to architect Olle J. Lorehn, the Palace Hotel is a rare surviving Romanesque Revival commercial building on Houston's near east side. Its round arched windows, rough stonework and corner turret recall the era when La Branch Street was a busy corridor between downtown and the Second Ward's working class neighborhoods. The building served travelers and workers in the rail and warehouse district and is one of the oldest surviving hotel buildings in the city. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006, it stands as a reminder of the dense, walkable commercial city that existed before Houston's automobile era.

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4. 4
   

   1917 · Early Commercial

   Cheek-Neal Coffee Company Building

   • NRHP
   • Protected

   Built in 1917 to designs by Joseph Finger and James Ruskin Bailey, the Cheek-Neal Coffee Company Building was the Houston plant of the Nashville coffee firm whose founders created Maxwell House coffee. Here the company roasted, blended and packaged coffee for the Texas market, part of the wave of light industry that grew up along the rail lines east of downtown. The building is a handsome example of early 20th century industrial commercial architecture, with generous windows that lit the factory floors. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016 and designated a City of Houston Protected Landmark in 2015, it anchors the historic warehouse district now surrounded by the rapid redevelopment of EaDo.

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