Myers-Spalti Manufacturing Plant

The plaque passes over Samuel May Williams in one clause, but the man named as seller of this ground was one of Stephen F. Austin's closest associates. A Providence-born merchant, he reached Texas in 1822 under an assumed name and spent thirteen years as Austin's clerk and lieutenant, paid in eleven leagues chosen along waterways that included Buffalo Bayou. His firm with Thomas F. McKinney bought arms on credit for the revolution, and his Commercial and Agricultural Bank of Galveston printed its own money until lawsuits finally closed it in 1859.

What the plaque says

Myers-Spalti Manufacturing Plant Myers-Spalti Manufacturing Plant The City of Houston developed rapidly in the 19th century due in large part to its capacity for shipping and transportation. This was made possible by waterways, such as Buffalo Bayou, and railroads, five of which radiated from the city in 1861. Houston's industrial center, the warehouse district, grew up east of Main Street, along the banks of Buffalo Bayou. In 1860, Samuel May Williams sold this property to Houston physician D.F. Stuart, who built a warehouse in the 1880s for cotton storage. The Lottman brothers purchased the site in 1893 and converted the building into a mattress factory. In 1904, they sold the property to H.F. Spalti, vice-president of Olive & Myers Manufacturing Company of Dallas. Spalti and Company President W.B. Myers started Myers-Spalti on this site. J.A. Grieves assisted them in developing the Houston branch of their successful mattress and furniture factory. The original warehouse housed the millwork and planning sections of the company. Built in 1905, Warehouse Number Two housed the shipping, cabinetry and finishing departments, and Warehouse Number Three contained the printing and management offices. By 1907, a rail line extended onto the property from nearby tracks. Myers-Spalti added a fourth warehouse for storage in 1909 and additional structures in the 1920s. The company moved operations in the 1950s. The development of Houston's industrial architecture can be seen in this site's building styles, which range from brick and heavy timber to concrete slab and columns. Since the 1950s, the buildings have housed hardware sales, electronics and manufacturing, storage and other light industrial businesses. The structures were once part of a city marketplace project and later developed into residential housing. (2003)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 1.5 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 — 2.0 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 — 2.5 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 — 3.3 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

• Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church — steps away
• El Barrio del Alacrán — 0.3 mi
• Frost Town — 0.4 mi
• Site of Academy of the Incarnate Word — 0.7 mi