Main at Rusk

27 November 1908: 1. 718 Main: The picket fence and shade trees mark the long-time home of Charlotte Baldwin Allen, wife of Houston's founder, Augustus Chapman Allen, built about 1850. In 1908 this was the boarding house of Mrs. Mary L. Jones, widow of Peter Rhodes Jones (1845-1870), a Confederate Veteran of the Texas Cavalry, to whom she was married for only 31 days before he died of pneumonia; 2. 702-4 Main: Levy Building, first floor Houston Installment Company, a furniture store owned and operated by brothers David Frosch (1870-1935) and Urban S. Frosch (1872-1923), 2nd floor professional offices, 3rd floor Citizens Telephone Company; 3. 614-16 Main: Capitol Hotel and café, Richard Rodgers (1867-1922), proprietor, an Irish immigrant who operated several hotels in Houston; 4. 520 Main: Rice Hotel, James Lawlor (1855-1941), an immigrant from Ireland, proprietor of the Old Hotel Rice, 5 floors, 1883-1911; 5. 201 Main: First National Bank, 8 floors, 1904, after an expansion in 1909 [President Owen Lynch Cochran (1833-1914), son-in-law of Benjamin Armistead Shepherd (1814-1891), founder with Thomas Madison Bagby of the original First National Bank in 1867]; 6. 513-519 Main: Binz Building, perhaps the finest office building in Houston at the time, owner Jacob Binz (1828-1913) and major tenant, Arthur Jacob Binz (1875-1955) & Julius Joseph Settegast (1875-1942), 6 floors, 1895; 7. 615-621 Main: Temple Building, 4 stories, professional offices, many medical; 8. 701-3 Main: Stowers Furniture, 7 floors; 9. 715 Main: Mason Block, with 4 floors, many professional offices including George W. Carter, real estate agent; medical professionals, attorneys, brokers, a massage studio, the office of Sahey Imamura & Co, Japanese colonization agents, and Oliver's Music House. The last two buildings (8. and 9.) were burned to the ground in a fire on 19 May 1912.
12 November 2010: 1. 712 Main: Gulf Building, 36 floors, 1929; 2. 708 Main: The Great Jones Building, 10 floors, 1908, (1921 north building extended to Capitol Avenue); 3. 600 Main: JPMorgan Chase Center, 20 floors, 1982;
4. 909 Texas: Rice Hotel, 17 floors, opened 1913, 3rd wing added in 1925, 18th floor added 1951; 5. 412 Main: Moxy Hotel (State National Bank), 15 floors, 1923; 6. 220 Main: Hotel Icon (Union National Bank, renovated to a hotel in 2003), 12 floors, 1910; 7. 405 Main: Scanlan Building, 12 floors, 1909; 8. 1001 Texas: Binz Building (the third building by this name on this site), 13 floors, 1982; 9. 705 Main: St. Germain Lofts (S. H. Kress Building), 8 floors, 1913, renovated in 1999 to apartments; 10. 711 Main: Capitol Lofts (M. E. Foster Building), 10 floors, 1908 (original facade covered with a glass in the 1980's); 11. 713 Main: AC Hotel (Rusk Building, Mason Block, Houston Bar Center Building), 10 floors, 1917, renov 2018-2019). See also: ​Main at Rusk - Automobiles for an image from around 1911 after the Charlotte Baldwin Allen house was demolished and the site began to be developed commercially.
​Postmarked: 27 November 1908; Houston, Tex. “D”
Stamp: 1c Blue Green Ben Franklin #300

To: Miss Bianca Reichert
La Grange
Texas

Message:I like it fine down here, wish I could stay longer
Frank
Frank Hugo Reichert was not quite fifteen when he wrote this postcard to his sister Bianca. Traveling from La Grange to Houston was easily done in 1901 by train in very little time, and it is not clear if he was traveling alone or with family. He was apparently close to his half-sister, who had just turned 25 eight days before.

Their father Frank was married twice, 1) to Bianca Willenberg, by whom he had two daughters, Emma and Bianca, and 2) Eleanora Fossberg, by whom he had 6 children: Minnie, Frank, Leona, Eleanor, Lorena, and Arthur. For many years of the 20th Century the Reichert Family owned and operated a furniture store on the main square of La Grange. The family was originally from Austria, tracing back to Karl Gustav Reichert born in 1807. Karl made his way to northern Germany where he married Sophie and had ten children. From there his five sons and five daughters immigrated to Pennsylvania, Texas, and parts more distant.

Frank served briefly in World War I at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio before returning to LaGrange where he married Verna Marie, daughter of Henry Letzerich, superintendent of the La Grange cotton compress. There in La Grange they and raised a family of two sons and worked at the furniture store and a family undertaking business. Frank died of a massive heart attack when only 38 years old, and is buried at Fayette County Cemetery.
Bianca married Walter Kneip, Deputy County Clerk for Fayette County. They remained in La Grange, where Bianca died at 88 and is buried in La Grange Cemetery.