Houston High School

Dec 29, 1907: Constructed in 1894 filling the entire block between Austin and Caroline, Capitol and Rusk at a then-notorious cost of $80,000, Houston High School was 13 years old when this postcard was sent in 1907. The building burned in 1919 and was replaced in 1921 with a larger, more modern building which pushed the structure to the margins of the block [See Houston Chronicle: Bayou City History Blog]. When downtown was no longer close to residential districts, the student body relocated in 1955 to 9400 Irvington on the North Side and the vacated building became the administrative headquarters for the Houston Independent School District.

Feb 22, 2014: HISD Administrative offices moved into a new building at 3830 Richmond in 1969, and in 1974 the downtown building was leveled for a surface-level parking lot owned by HISD. On the left is the Art Deco 21 story Petroleum Building built in 1927, later re-named the Southwest Life Building, the Great Southwest Building, and most recently, the Cambria Suites Houston/Downtown. In the middle is the retracted canopy for Minute Maid Park (Enron Park) and mid-right the 12-story 1961 Houston World Trade Center Building (later to become the Westin Houston Downtown) with a multi-level parking lot in front (replaced 2015-2017 with an 8-story residential development, Alexan Downtown). Workmen at the corner may have been doing preliminary work for structures soon to come. ​

"The Taj Mahal" was the derisive name for the Richmond headquarters on Richmond due to its extravagant $6,000,000 cost [See Houston Chronicle: September 15, 2006])

Jun 25, 2018: Construction began in 2016 for the building that will be named the Kinder High School for the Visual and Performing Arts to be completed late 2018. The Magnet School was originally established in 1971, housed first at the Temple Beth Israel Building until the present campus at 4001 Stanford was built in 1982. The new building will mark a return of an HISD public school to the downtown location. ​

To: Miss Louella Newton
Milano, Tex.

Postarked: Houston, Tex. 20 Dec 1907
Rec'd Milano, Tex. Dec 2? 1907

Stamp: 1c Blue Green Ben Franklin #300

Message: Dear Girlie:
Why didn't you come down to the Convention? Saw Mr. Clark. Also Messrs. Watts & Gillis Suppose you know I'm married come to see me. Your old Pal
Susie Purvis Bevers

‘Girlie, girlie, girlie, … Louella dear. A long time now we both are in our graves, me far longer than you. I burned white hot and short, you a blue candle in a quiet room. Your patient mother Ophelia, so many children to keep track of! How do you love fourteen babes? Somehow she managed those few special moments you treasured before you made your own little family of three. You only ever got Marjorie and me only little Sammie, and he was so little when I drowned beside the river where he slept through the tragedy. And Miss Emma and Little Mayme, we all stayed down under the dark waters together ‘til they found us, still clutching for each other.

Little Sammie Edgar went to his own grave with no real memory of my face, just fifteen months he was when I left his world. Pappa said I would be his torchbearer to bring out the light to East Texas. He was so sad at Guedry when they laid me down forever.’

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