Jones Mansion

About 1910: Just a few blocks away were other subjects of the present study, Joseph Presley Carter at 2604 Main, the Second Presbyterian Church at 2702 Main, Fannie Wolf at 2703 Main. Lower Main Street in 1910 was about the most prestigious address in town, but by the middle of the next decade most of these families had moved to the newly developed River Oaks gated residential district. ​

6 June 2018: The neighborhood is now called Midtown, and the block where the house once stood was turned into Midtown Park in 2017. Behind the viewer on the east side of the block, a development company from Melbourne, Caydon Property Group, is constructing The Midtown at 2850 Fannin, a 27-story, 357-unit apartment tower, soon-to-be the first high-rise in Houston's Midtown.

This grand house at 2908 Main Street was built in 1899 by Houston architect George E. Dickey for James Ira Campbell, a Texas lumberman who had moved to Houston from Lampasas in 1895. The house occupied the entire block between Main, Travis, Anita, and Tuam, and was faced with cypress blocks cut to look like stone. The style echoed a French Chateau architectural theme with a stepped gable and flanking towers. Outbuildings on Travis consisted of stables, a greenhouse, and servants quarters for the maids, cooks, and gardener.

James I. Campbell died in 1904 and Jesse Holman Jones bought his Campbell Lumber Company and his home as well to rescue him from the bankruptcy brought on by destruction of 17,000 acres of virgin pine forest. Jesse‘s Uncle Martin Tilford Jones had died in 1898, and his widow Louisa Woolard Jones took up residence in the home with her children and an extended family. This family, of course, included Jesse Jones, who lived in the house while he settled his uncle's estate, turning the stables into a garage for one of Houston's first automobiles, a pricey Pierce Arrow. The mansion, called “The Boarding House” by family members, was home to a rotating cast of relations: Hostess Aunt Louisa and her children, Adeline Jeanette, Augusta, and William Eli Jones and his wife Mary Belle Gibbs (who after her divorce from him married Jesse Jones in 1920) and their son Tilford.

More than any other Houstonian, Jesse Jones shaped the 20th century face of Houston, building The Texas Company Building, The Chronicle Building [built on the site of Shearn Methodist], the Bristol Hotel extension, the Rice Hotel, the Gulf Building [See Main at Capitol]. Jones is memorialized in many Houston landmarks: Jesse H. Jones Hall, home of the Houston Symphony; Jones High School; Jesse H. Jones School of Business at TSU; Rice University's Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management and The Jesse H. Jones Student Life Center; The Jesse H. Jones Student Life Center at Downtown UH; The Jones Library at the Texas Medical Center; and Jesse H. Jones Park & Nature Center in Humble.

Even though it was near the southern edge of Houston (about where I-69 has covered old railroad lines), the neighborhood between McGowen and Elgin was where the most prosperous citizens of Houston lived in the early 20th century. Behind the viewer, the block facing 2908 Main there were three large houses. At 2901 was Wiley C. Munn, the general manager of Mistrot-Munn, later Munn's, one of the largest dry goods store of the time. W. C. was also the vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce and president of the Houston Turning Basin Investment Company. Also at that address was Charles A. Bryan, a real estate agent working from the First National Bank Building. At 2911 was Thomas J. Freeman, the receiver and general manager of the I & G. N. R. R. Co. (International and Great Northern Rail Road Company), whose offices were in the Paul Building. Marcellus E. Foster lived at the corner of Anita and Main at 2915. Foster was the president and publisher of the Houston Chronicle, with offices in the Chronicle Building (in those days sometimes referred to as the Foster Bulding, now demolished). 

After Jesse Jones settled the complicated estate, the Jones house was sold to Settegast-Kopf for a funeral home after about 1910, then to the Arabia Temple (Shriners) in 1915 for its Houston Headquarters. In the 1930's the residence was used as a boarding house until it was demolished in 1937. The neighborhood languished for many years, but as Houstonians retreated from the distant suburban commute, the area has once again become fashionable. 
​
Reference: Houston's Forgotten Heritage.