T. W. House Residence

1908: For many years the entire city block bounded by Smith, Lousiana, McKinney and Lamar was occupied by the home of T. W. House, Jr. [labelled here incorrectly as "T. W. Howes Residence"], son of one of Houston's first citizens, T. W. House. The younger House managed his father's banking and utility company businesses until 1907 when a banking crisis forced sale to the First National Bank. In 1913 he was named Houston's postmaster by President Woodrow Wilson, who had come to trust the advice of House's younger brother, Edward Mandell House. 
   See another postcard in this series for a card from one of the inhabitants of this house, Edith House (Southern Pacific Hospital). The post office for Houston Heights at 1300 W 19th Street was named in honor of T. W. House, Jr.. 

2015: The Wells Fargo Building now fills the 1000 block of Louisiana, Built in 1983, the building is 71 stories tall and currently the second tallest in the city, 20th tallest building in the world, and tallest all glass building in the Western Hemisphere.

To: Mrs. Geo. Price
Montrose Colorado
(R. S. D. No. 1)

Postmarked: Houston, Tex. Dec 23, 1908
Stamp: 1c Blue Green Ben Franklin #300

From: Ellen

Message: With Best Wishes for a Merry Christmas.
Ellen

Houston owes its origin to land men in the mold of the Allen Brothers, and developers have but their stamp on the city since it beginning on the banks of our muddy bayous. In the 1890’s two such Houston realtors, George Lincoln Price and James A. H. Hosack, were trading properties in Harris County. Hosack, like the Allen Brothers, was from New York, coming first to Jefferson, TX before arriving in Houston, and all too soon, leaving for Fort Worth and Cleburne.

In 1895 George was a widower with teenagers and an infant, and he took a liking to the Hosack daughter Georgie, so they married and Georgie took on the the Price household. Trading land was a competitive business and only the most aggressive could make a living. Inevitably, the lure of a distant market drew these competitive men all over the West, and for George that was Montrose, CO. They had hardly arrived when Ellen mailed this postcard from back in Houston. What Mrs. Price Was to her cannot be ascertained from available records, whether she was a casual acquaintance, a friend, or a family relation.

For a while Georgie did well in Colorado, but in due course George and Georgie parted ways. George and his first family remained in Montrose where he found a more settled career in bookkeeping and serving as sheriff. Georgie their daughter Sarah moved back to Houston, but Sarah sickened and was sent to her Aunt Sarah Ury Chase in San Antonio where Georgie’s only child died of lung disease at the age of 25.

Georgie had remarried in Houston to a more settled man, Jabe Curry Reader, an attorney and grain merchant from Harrisburg. Their far from modest house on Broadway had extensive gardens and a live-in yard man, and so Georgie was content there for many years. Jabe died in 1960 and Georgie in 1966 and they are buried in Genwood Cemetery near her daughter and other Ury and Hosack relatives.