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The Allen Brothers, founders of Houston, donated this site to the Republic of Texas for the construction of a Capitol building. The Texas Congress met here, in a simple, two-story, wood-frame structure from April of 1837 until 1839, when the capital was moved to Austin. Ownership of the old Capitol building reverted to the Allen Brothers and it was converted into a hotel until the Mexican invasion of 1842. For seven months, the Texas Congress once again held their sessions at this location. After it’s temporary use as the capitol, the building reverted to its use as a hotel. It was here that Anson Jones, the last president of the Republic of Texas, committed suicide in 1858.
In 1882, the wood-frame old Capitol Building/Hotel was replaced with an elaborate, five-story, brick and stucco hotel designed by Houston architect George E. Dickey. In 1886, William Marsh Rice, at the time probably the wealthiest man in Texas, purchased the hotel for taxes and renamed it the Rice Hotel. He owned it until his murder (a complicated conspiracy involving his valet, a lawyer and a forged will) in 1900. Ownership passed to the Rice Institute. Jesse H. Jones leased the property and purchased the hotel from the Rice Institute in 1911.
The current structure was built in 1913 by Jesse Jones, using St. Louis architects Mauran, Russell & Crowell. It was erected as a 17-story, U-planned hotel, with 650 rooms. The hotel boasted Houston’s first air-conditioned public space in 1922, the Rice Hotel Cafeteria. A west wing was added in 1926 by architect Alfred C. Finn, turning the U-plan, with two towers, into an E-plan, with three towers, and increasing the total number of guest rooms to 1000. The friezes, cornice and sidewalk canopy were carefully extended across the west wing.
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