Anderson, Clayton & Co.

The plaque follows the partners; the Handbook of Texas follows the firm, which grew into a worldwide cotton machine. By the mid-1920s it had trading companies in Europe, Egypt, India and China, and the U.S. Senate investigated it on market-manipulation charges in 1928-30 and again in 1936, taking no action. In 1945 Fortune called it the world's largest buyer, seller, storer and shipper of raw cotton, with 223 gins and 123 warehouses. It later helped operate the Savannah, the first nuclear-powered merchant ship, bought Igloo coolers, and by 1973 traded cotton only in Brazil and Mexico.

What the plaque says

Anderson, Clayton & Co. In 1904, Frank E. Anderson, his brother, Monroe D. Anderson, and his wife's brothers, William L. and Benjamin B. Clayton, formed the partnership of Anderson, Clayton & Co. in Oklahoma City. The successful cotton firm moved its headquarters in 1916 to Houston and built Long Reach, a cotton compressing-storing-shipping complex covering 32 acres on the new Houston Ship Channel, including a wharf for the simultaneous loading of eight steamships. At the time, the world's cotton-trading center was the New York Cotton Exchange; Houston and other cities had lesser exchanges. In 1924, the Houston Cotton Exchange moved into a new building at this site. Anderson, Clayton & Co. became the building's principal tenant for many years. From the eleventh floor headquarters, company officials supervised more than 24,000 employees stationed around the world. The company incorporated in 1945. By 1960, coffee had surpassed cotton in sales, and the firm continued to diversify, with interests in related foods and textiles. By the 1980s, the food division had become its principal asset, and the Quaker Oats Company acquired the business in 1986. The firm's Houston partners greatly influenced the city's development and enriched its future. The M.D. Anderson Foundation established the Texas Medical Center, the University of Texas-M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and many other projects. Ben Clayton created the Clayton Research Foundation and other philanthropies. Will Clayton became prominent as Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs and for his work on the Marshall Plan after World War II. He and his wife gave their home to Houston's Public Library. In 1996, the former Cotton Exchange Building became the Anderson Clayton Courthouse Annex. (2005)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 0.8 mi
  Ten historic buildings gathered in a downtown park below the skyscrapers, among them the 1870 house of the Reverend Jack Yates, built five years after emancipation.
• Emancipation Park — 1.6 mi
  The Third Ward park that freedpeople bought for Juneteenth in 1872, rebuilt in 2017 on Emancipation Avenue and still the center of the city's June 19 celebration.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 2.0 mi
  A museum in Houston's 1925 Light Guard Armory that tells the service of Black soldiers from the Revolutionary War onward, built from one veteran's thirty years of collecting.
• Rothko Chapel — 2.7 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.

More markers nearby

• M. D. Anderson — steps away
• Christ Church Cathedral — steps away
• Houston Bar Association — steps away
• Site of Old Houston Academy — steps away