James S. and Alfred T. Lucas

The plaque begins James Lucas's story in Houston; English records show a detour first. The bricklayer's son, baptized at St. Mary's in Nottingham in 1836, was a bricklayer's apprentice at fifteen and then became a Primitive Methodist preacher, listed on the Rotherham circuit in 1860 and Sheffield in 1861 before he drops from the ministers' records in 1863. In 1862 he married Emily Haywood at Crookes, near Sheffield. In Houston he returned to the trade, and the 1880 census lists him as a brick mason. Emily outlived him by nearly thirty years, dying in 1917.

What the plaque says

James S. and Alfred T. Lucas James Sherwood Lucas (1836-1888) and his son Alfred T. Lucas (1863-1922) immigrated to the United States and became influential brick masons and contractors who helped develop the city of Houston. James Lucas was born in Nottingham, England, to registered brick layer Thomas Lucas and Ann Lucas. At age 34, James, his wife Emily and their four children traveled aboard the British steamship Alice from Liverpool to New Orleans. By 1873, the family settled in Houston. From 1870 until his death in 1888, James Lucas built a lasting testament to his talents as seen at the 1884-85 Houston cotton exchange building and the 1883 Preston Street Bridge. By the age of sixteen, Alfred T. Lucas, James Lucas' son, was an apprentice to his father. After his father's death, Alfred continued the family contracting company. Lucas worked with Eugene T. Heiner on the 1896 Harris County Jail and Criminal Court Building and the 1899 Lavaca County Courthouse. Along with John Stadtler, Lucas built ten professional buildings and three private homes, including 1891 Houston Light Guard Armory, Henke and Company Store, Magnolia and American Breweries and the Houston Water Works Pump House. Lucas also helped build the 1895 City Auditorium and the 1903 Houston City Hall and Market Place. His company, Lucas Brick Works, paved many of Houston's streets, mostly from bricks produced at their brick yard on Buffalo Bayou near Shepherd and San Felipe. James and Alfred T. Lucas, two generations of brick masons, left a legacy of craftsmanship that aided in the development and expansion of Houston. (2016)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 0.9 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.
• Rothko Chapel — 2.0 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.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 2.1 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.
• The Menil Collection — 2.1 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.

More markers nearby

• The Rev. William M. Tryon — steps away
• Colonel Benjamin Franklin Terry — steps away
• Anson Jones — steps away
• Irvin Capers Lord — steps away