Old Market Square

The square was Block 34 of the Borden survey and took the Market Square name after Augustus Allen chose a capitol site at Main Street and Texas Avenue in 1837. Thomas Stansbury and Sons finished the first market house and city hall in 1841, and Allen donated the square to the city in 1854. Several city halls there burned, among them the Italianate civic center of 1873, which had cost $400,000 and left the city in debt. Mayor I. C. Lord's competition chose Edwin J. Duhamel's design for its replacement, and George E. Dickey designed the fourth, of 1904.

What the plaque says

Old Market Square Platted 1836 by surveyors Gail Borden, Jr., and Moses Lapham as "Congress Square." It was intention of city fathers Augustus C. and John K. Allen to have permanent Capitol of Republic of Texas located here. However, this was never realized and almost immediately it became center of commerce for the flourishing city. Residents, farmers, peddlers and Indians all crowded here daily with wagon loads of goods to trade. Soon merchants were vying for permanent sites for stores. One early observer noted "reason for its popularity was that the municipal government was conducted in Kesler's Arcade, a saloon only a half block away." In 1840 Houston's first municipal market house was built here. Before it was completed, city officials voted to enlarge it and include a city hall also. For 30 years building served dual role-- the market overflowing till it reached the streets. Many items, including household and farm goods, were sold here. It was here that Houston Independent Light Guard mobilized after Texas decided to invade Mexico, 1842. Several municipal buildings occupied the site following original market-city hall. However, the seat of city government was eventually moved to a new location and this became a park. (1969)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 0.6 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 — 1.9 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 — 2.1 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.
• 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

• Harris County Courthouse of 1910 — steps away
• Harris County — steps away
• Allen's Landing — steps away
• Christ Church Cathedral — 0.2 mi