Main at Capitol - South
9 January 1911: From left to right: 1. 1312 Main: First Methodist Church; 2. 920 Main: First Presbyterian Church; 3. 820 Main: The Bender Hotel [See Main at Walker], 12 floors, 1909; 4. 806 Main: The Carter Building, 17 floors, 1910; 5. 720 Main: Houston Trunk Factory; 6. 714½ Main: Pearce Theatre Building, Pearce’s Theatre, moving pictures, and offices of various professionals (real estate agents, dentists, Southern Trust Co., Producer’s Oil Company, and Albert C. Finn, architect); 718 Main: Thos. Goggan & Bros., pianos; 7. 710-712 Main: Woolworth Building, F. W. Woolworth 5, 10, and 15c store; 8. 706-708 Main: Texas Building, The Texas Company, (and offices of Howard Hughes, William Stamps Farish, early oilmen in Houston) , and J. W. Carter Music Co.; 9. 702-704 Main: The red-brick crenelated Adobe-Blaine Hardware Company on the first floor and various professionals on upper floors (real estate agents, attorneys, an architect – Adrien Delisle).
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12 March 2014: From left to right: 1. 1300 Main: Travis Tower (The Conoco Building), 21 floors, 1955; 2. 1000 Main: Reliant Energy Tower, 36 floors, 2003; 3. 914 Main: Commerce Tower, 24 floors, 1929 (converted into condominiums in 2003); 4. 930 Main: McKinney Place Garage (built on the site of Woolworth’s store 1949-1999), 12 floors, 2002; 5. 812 Main: Battlestein’s Building, 10 floors, 1923; 6. 806 Main: The Carter Building, 23 floors, here being converted into the J. W. Marriott Downtown by the removal of the 1969 vertical cladding; 7. 712 Main: The Gulf Building, 36 floors, 1929 - built by Jesse Holman Jones, designed in 1929 by Alfred C. Finn as an homage to Eliel Saarinen’s design for the competition for the Chicago Tribune Building in 1922 featuring a Manhattan set-back design with Indiana limestone for the first 6 stories and tapestry brick above. The tallest building west of the Mississippi River when it was opened, it featured a twin beacon on the top floor. In 1965 the building was topped with a rotating illuminated 53 foot orange Gulf Oil logo sign that could be seen from the outskirts of town. It was removed in 1974 during the energy crisis, but for generations of Houstonians it was the emblematic logo for the city; 8. 708 Main: The Great Jones Building (Bankers Mortgage Building, Texas Company Building), 10 floors built in 1910, extended to Capitol Street in 1921 with the demolition of the Levy Building and the northward extension of the office building.
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Postmarked: January 9, 1911
Stamp: 1c Green Ben Franklin #374 To: Miss Jessie Cramb Brooklyn Mich. R.F.D. #2 Message: Ive arrived here last Fryday after traveling 3 days & 2 nights out of Winter into summer. It is to hot for us this is a beautiful place going to Galveston in 2 weeks gieve Pa and Ma our love from Mr. & Mrs Frank Wolf Houston Tex [inverted practice penmanship “r” “y” G”] |
Jessie Cramb was single when she received this postcard, a 27 year old farm girl with a brother Clare and a sister Mae Belle. A little more than seven months later she married August Trefflich in Detroit, Jackson County, MI [a community that has not been located] on 30 August 1911. This was apparently her second marriage as she is listed as married (in 1909) on the 1910 census, 0 children and no husband in the household. Her father was Austin R. Cramb, her mother Ada Lowella Burcham. Just as her parents had, Jessie and August Trefflich made their living as farmers in Norvell, Jackson County, MI. They had one daughter, Evelyn, who never married.
Jessie died at 42 and is buried in Cambridge Junction Cemetery in Lewanee County, MI just south of Norvell. Albert died in 1975 and Evelyn in 1975, they are buried in the family plot. In the same cemetery are Austin (1858-1943) and Ada Cramb (1856-1916), and her Cramb grandparents, Josiah (1830-1900) and Sallie Anglemeyer (1834-1908), and brother Clair (1885-1953). Her sister Mae Belle Howard (1892-1981) is buried in Glendale Cemetery, Okemos, Ingham County just north of Jackson County. The identity of Mr. And Mrs. Frank Wolf has not been established. |