| Throughout the 1920s, Jesse Jones and
Ross Sterling, founder of Humble Oil, competed for influence in
Houston. Jones owned the National Bank of Commerce. Sterling owned
Houston National Bank. Jones published the Houston
Chronicle. Sterling published the Houston Post-Dispatch.
Jesse Jones had connections, both political and financial. Ross
Sterling had money (oil money, that is). At the beginning of the
20th century, like in other cities, the men tried to prove their
dominance through the height of their buildings.
The Gulf Building was planned to be the flagship of Jones’s real
estate empire. Jones insisted that the building was to be the
tallest west of the Mississippi and ‘be of strikingly modern
design.’ Jones’s plan was executed. The Gulf Building was the
tallest building west of the Mississippi for two years. From the
time of its erection in 1929 until 1963, the steel-frame, Art Deco
tower was the tallest structure in Houston. Housed in the building
were Jones’s National Bank of Commerce, the Gulf Oil Companies and
the Sakowitz Brothers Department Store.
Jones’s good fortune continued through the Depression. He
managed to take control of Sterling’s
Houston
National Bank (Sterling was bankrupt) and, during Franklin D.
Roosevelt’s administration, he was appointed as both Chairman of
the fund-dispersing Reconstruction Finance Corporation and
Secretary of Commerce.
The Gulf Building was designed by Alfred C. Finn, Kenneth
Franzheim and J.E.R. Carpenter. Like many Art Deco buildings
derived from Gothic detail, it had been inspired by Eliel
Saarinen’s second-prize entry to the Chicago Tribune’s
design competition of 1922. A stepped-back brick tower sits upon a
six-story base sheathed in Indiana limestone. The building is
ornamented with extensive interior and exterior Art Deco detailing,
including scalloped molding, metal work and windows placed in
vertical channels on the tower.
Atop the 37th floor was a viewing platform and the Jesse H.
Jones Aeronautical Beacon. On a clear day, Galveston could be seen
from the telescopes mounted on the deck. On the summit of the
building was a rotating Gulf Oil Company sign. The observation
deck, beacon and sign have since been removed.
The interior of the building is just as extravagant as the
exterior. The vaulted lobby contains eight frescoes by Vincent
Maragliotti depicting the history of Texas. In the cavernous
banking hall, built for Jones’s National Bank of Commerce, there is
a profusion of ornamental metal-work - just look up at the
intricate ceiling. A stained glass window depicting the Battle of
San Jacinto was added in 1960 to the Travis side of the hall. The
hall, still used for banking, actually feels like walking into the
1930s.
An alcove off the banking hall holds rotating displays.
Sometimes you might catch a display tracing the history of both the
structure and Jesse H. Jones. The building is now owned by JPMorgan
Chase, with the banking hall and lobby open to the public during
normal business hours. |
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