Main above Franklin
18 December 1911: 1. Houston Dry Goods and Notion Company at 111 Main and F. W. Heitman & Co. Hardware store at 113 Main; 2. Western Union Telegraph Co., 115-117 Main; 3. Houston Land & Trust, 119 Main, with tenants including Max Westheimer, Insurance; [Franklin Street] 4. First National Bank of Houston, 201 Main, 8 floors, 1904, tenants included attorneys, real estate agents, physicians and commodity brokers: Western Electric, Kirby Lumber Company and offices of John H. Kirby on the penthouse floor, Sanguinet & Staats, architects who designed this building, The Carter Building,The Paul Building, and many local residences: Link-Lee House, residences on Courtlandt Place (James L. Audrey, A. S. Cleveland, John M. Dorrance, Sterling Myer); 5. American Express at 209 Main, 6. South Texas National Bank, 213 Main; [Congress Street] 7. Mistrot-Munn Dry Goods, 301 Main (see also WC Munn & Co.); [Preston Street] 8. Scanlan Building, 12 floors, 1909, including the offices of estates of T. H. Scanlan and T. W. House; 9. Jones Building (Texas Building), 712 Main, 10 floors, including Jesse Jones’ The Texas Company (See also Jones Mansion); 10. (1st floor) Wolf Shoe Store, (2nd floor) medical offices, jewelers, US Navy Recruiters, (3rd floor) Eagles Club and Hall, 302-304 Main; 11. Union National Bank (in construction), 218-220 Main; 12. Edward C. Morrissey saloon (“Juice of the Grape”) and pool hall, 214 Main and J. Lowenstein & Son, tobacco store, 216 Main. |
3 August 2012: 1. Commerce Street Building, part of The University of Houston Downtown campus, 5 floors, 2005; 2. Franklin Lofts, the First National Bank building repurposed; 3. Franklin Lofts – Parking Building (Once the site of the splendid South Texas National Bank); [Franklin Street] 4. Harris County Administration Building, 1001 Preston at Main, 10 floors, 1978; 5. Scanlan Building, 12 floors, 1909 [tiny corner]; 6. 811 Main, 46 Floors, 2011; 7. First City National Bank Building (One City Centre), 1021 Main Street, 32 floors, 1961; 8. Reliant Energy Plaza (1000 Main), 36 floors, 2003; 9. Gulf Building (712 Main), 36 floors, 1929; 10. State National Bank Building (now The Moxy Hotel), Spanish Colonial Revival, 15 floors, 1923; 11. Citizens National Bank at 402 Main, Beaux Arts, 9 floors, 1925; 12. Kiam Building, 5 floors, 1893; 13. Union National Bank (Hotel Icon), 12 floors, 1910; 14. Parking lot at this publishing, but when photographed, a building on this site at 216 Main Street was still extant. |
Postmarked: 18 December 1911; Houston, Tex. Trans. Clk.
Stamp: 1c Green Ben Franklin #374 To: Mrs. A. H. Stayton, Smyrna, Del. Message: [None] Mrs. A. H. Stayton was Annie Henderson Stayton, wife of William Henry Stayton. William wrote no message to his wife, perhaps secure in the knowledge that she would know it was he, and the image was the message. He mailed two postcards that day, this card and one of the seawall in Galveston, both stamped with the Ben Franklin stamp laid on its side as if resting. They were cancelled as Trans. Clk., or Transfer Clerk, a postal service in which the mail was transferred from one rail line to another, indicating that he was getting on or off a train or otherwise mailing the cards from a railroad depot mail box.
Annie was an American Blue-Blood, daughter of Commodore Alexander Henderson, who as a youth had served with Commodore Perry when he opened Japan in 1853, in Paraguay in 1858, and the Northern Fleet in the Civil War. Alexander’s grandfather was Thomas Truxton, first captain of the USS Constellation, and his Uncle was General Archibald Henderson, Commodore and Commandant of the US Marines from 1818-1859. The Commandant’s daughter, Charlotte married Eleuthere Irénée DuPont, linking the Henderson’s to the DuPont family. |
William Henry Stayton was a busy man, a lawyer in private practice and an 1881 graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy. In the 1880’s he had served aboard the USS Hartford off Chile and Peru and in 1889 he obtained a law degree and a year later a master’s. In 1891 he resigned his commission to practice law, and in 1895 he published The Naval Militiaman’s Handbook. In the Spanish-American War he was Captain of the Enquirer sailing off the Eastern Seaboard, then the USS New Hampshire, USS Buffalo and the USS Aileen. After service in the Navy he invested in steamships and became President of a Steamship company. This obliged him to travel a great deal, and his passport applications reveal that he visited Sweden, the British Isles, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Italy, the West Indies, Puerto Rico, Central and South America, Japan, China, Hong Kong, and Houston, TX. These passport applications required his signature on multiple occasions, and it is these penmanship samples that prove his authorship of the postcards in this study.
William Henry Stayton held classical liberal beliefs, and if he had lived in the current era, he would likely have called himself a libertarian. He was opposed to child labor laws as they would usurp parental control of the family, and he believed that the government should not be dictating to citizens whether they should or should not consume alcohol. Stayton was to gain considerable celebrity in 1918 when he founded the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, which would have 726,000 paid members by 1926. He published pamphlets and pressed his case with influential American leaders. By the time of the repeal of Prohibition, he had allies pursuing the same cause in very high places in the American cultural and political landscape: John D. Rockefeller, Jr.; Al Smith, who ran and lost the race for president as the democratic party’s candidate [see LINK]; Pierre S. Du Pont and his brother Irénée du Pont, presidents of DuPont Corporation in the 1920’s; Charles Scribner, publisher; Alfred P. Sloan, General Motors chair and president; Cleveland Dodge, executive of Phelps-Dodge, a Western mining conglomerate; Marshall Field, founder of The Chicago Sun; Pauline Sabine, founder of the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition. When the 18th amendment was repealed, H. L. Mencken wrote in Time Magazine that Stayton was “the hero of the day.” Wm. H. and Annie had five children: Alexander Harrison Stayton (1888-1889), Catherine (b. 1880), Charles (1893-1974), William Henry (1895-1955), and Thomas T. (1897-1952). Catherine married 1) Franklin Heverin Shakespeare, and 2) Hulett. William Henry, Sr. died in 1942 and Annie died in 1943; they are buried in Arlington Cemetery, as are their sons, William Henry, Jr. and Thomas T. Stayton. |