Union Transfer and Storage Building

Built in two stages, 1917 and 1920, the Union Transfer and Storage Building visually demonstrates the change in early twentieth-century building technology as it shifted from heavy timber post and beam with masonry load-bearing walls to a structural reinforced concrete frame and slab with masonry infill. The building, named after the business that operated on site from 1923-1954, demonstrates central Houston's expanding need for warehouse facilities in the early decades of the 20th century when commercial water transportation in town all but ceased after the opening of the Houston Ship Channel in 1914 near Harrisburg. The recent rehabilitation of the warehouse and its adaptive use as an art gallery and office complex ensure the continued economic viability of this structure located north of downtown Houston.

Establishment of Industry in 19th Century Houston

At the confluence of Buffalo and White Oak Bayous, the settlement of Houston, Texas, occupied a strategic position at the head of navigation on Buffalo Bayou. In contrast to other Texas rivers, Buffalo Bayou's relatively straight and evenly deep course rendered it more navigable than shallow, winding tidal rivers such as the San Jacinto and Brazos. Also, because Buffalo Bayou ran east-west and spilled into the protected Galveston Bay, it was both more accessible to the rich farmlands of surrounding counties and more desirable to ship captains. Harrisburg settled in 1824 about 10 miles downstream from Houston, was burned just before the battle of San Jacinto in April of 1836, leaving the new town of Houston as the region's best hope for development. Houston's selection as the provisional capital of the Republic of Texas brought instant recognition and gave it a considerable edge over other Texas towns struggling to attract new settlers.

Houston's initial railway was begun in 1853; by 1861, with a population of nearly 5,000, Houston had become a rail center with about 400 miles of track radiating in five directions. By 1870 the Houston City Directory reported two large foundries, numerous brickyards, eleven lumberyards, and the erection of a new gas works. Some of these and other businesses on which Houston depended for its rebirth and continued growth were situated along Buffalo Bayou in or near the warehouse district area. But it was not until the end of the nineteenth century that further railroad expansion made the lightly settled areas on the north side of Buffalo Bayou and the somewhat denser neighborhoods on the south side attractive locales for extensive industrial redevelopment.

While the construction of Houston's rail system was serious business during the 1870s, bayou improvements likewise commanded the attention of Houston businessmen. The Buffalo Bayou Ship Channel Company, organized to deepen the channel and improve navigation on Buffalo Bayou, was incorporated in 1869, and Houston's request to be an official port of entry into the United States was granted in 1870, two years after it had first been presented. The Panic of 1873 interrupted work on the ship channel, but in 1874 Charles Morgan acquired the Buffalo Bayou Ship Channel Company and set several hundred men to work not only deepening the channel but building a railroad as well. Morgan was able to acquire the rights to build a railroad at the junction of Sims and Buffalo Bayou connecting two trunk lines in Houston. Here he also built eleven hundred feet of wharves and a turning basin, naming the area Clinton after his Connecticut hometown. Finally, in 1876 numerous railroad shops and depots had been constructed creating the potential of industrial development in the area.

In 1893 the Missouri, Kansas & Texas (MK & T, or "Katy") arrived in Houston, and in 1896 Southern Pacific consolidated several early Texas lines and became a major artery from Houston. Continued dredging of the Ship Channel also made the warehouse district more accessible to barge and steam-ship traffic at this time. In the area north of Buffalo Bayou a few scattered warehouses, commercial buildings, and houses were indicated on the 1896 Sanborn map (Map 4) along with railroad depots and shops. Railroad expansion that began in the 1890s changed the area of settled working-class neighborhoods and opened up the north bank of Buffalo Bayou and blocks along the south bank as attractive areas for commercial and industrial development. These changes led to the construction of the Union Transfer and Storage Building and other properties in the vicinity.

20th Century Industrial Development in Central Houston

When the Houston Ship Channel officially opened in 1914 (with a deep-water turning basin near Harrisburg), commercial water transportation all but ceased closer into town, but the continued use of the railroad resulted in the construction of new warehouses near downtown. The building boom that occurred in Houston following World War I eclipsed all previous episodes of growth and expansion. During the 1920s Houston moved from the position of the third largest city in Texas to that of the largest city in the south.

The establishment of a viable port at the foot of Main Street, the introduction of an extensive railroad network that easily interfaced with the barges and steamships coming to and going from Houston, and the warehouses and industrial plants that naturally sprouted among the tracks and waterways created an area that was the center of transportation and trade in Houston until the 1940s. This overlapping of water and rail transportation systems in the warehouse district provided industrial opportunities that created an economic base crucial to Houston's growth and development.

Other changes had begun to occur in Houston just after the turn of the century that would affect the industrial patterns and commercial development of the city. Houston's population had grown from 27,557 in 1890 to 44,633 in 1900. Electric streetcars, introduced in Houston in 1891, came along with significant expansion of electrical service, and a public sewer system was expanded into residential areas south and north of town during the 1890s. These utilities prompted the development of the city's first electric power plant in 1898 and the first sewage treatment plant in 1901.

Two events in the first two years of the 20th century irrevocably altered the destiny of Houston. The tragic and devastating Great Storm of 1900 in Galveston left Houston without a rival in the transportation and industrial arenas. The discovery of oil at Spindletop in January 1901 also radically affected Houston's economy. After these events, President Theodore Roosevelt signed a bill in 1902 appropriating one million dollars for the further development of the Port of Houston. The first automobile arrived in Houston in 1901 signaling another coming change that would add trucking to the water-rail transportation network. Construction of new houses and businesses that continued all over the city at a rapid pace needed millwork, lumber, hardware, electrical and plumbing supplies, creating a demand for new factories and warehouses to supply them, thus fostering a cycle of spiraling growth that had begun in Houston in the 1890s.

In the first decade of the 20th century, several major offices and bank buildings were constructed in the commercial district on the south side of Buffalo Bayou, including a new headquarters for the Southern Pacific Railroad, and a number of new warehouses and industrial buildings were constructed in the commercial district on both sides of the bayou. Several lumber companies and builders' supply companies constructed new warehouses and factories. National companies began to locate regional headquarters in Houston. Developers/investors such as BA Reinsure, Mrs. El Moore, J.L. Jones, W. R. Baker and c. C. Williams began building warehouses for rental property. In 1910 the James Bute Paint Company completed the largest warehouse ever constructed in south Texas (NR 1993).

These same types of industrial facilities continued to be built in the warehouse district in the following decade, but the completion of the new San Jacinto Bridge in 1914, and the northern end of San Jacinto Street, provided better access to the north side of Buffalo Bayou, where many new warehouses were constructed after 1915. Sanborn maps from 1890 to 1924 and post-1908 street directories in the Houston City Directory show that houses and apartments continued to occupy about half of the property in the warehouse district on both the north and south sides of Buffalo Bayou. Although a few of these wood frame working-class cottages still stand on the fringes of the warehouse district, they began to disappear in great numbers during the new building boom that followed World War I.

The number of warehouses built in this area during the 1920s equaled the number built in the preceding three decades. Although the Houston Ship Channel encouraged development near the Harrisburg turning basin and docks, many companies still required locations near the rail depots and distribution points downtown. Construction of industrial and warehouse facilities began to occur in a wider area along the bayou and tracks, both eastward and westward, and the warehouse district (mostly former residential sites) was rapidly developed. Significantly, both the Southern Pacific and the MKT railroads built large new freight depots in the warehouse district in the 1920s. Between 1928 and 1930 the area saw the construction of the largest warehouse ever built in the district, the Merchants and Manufacturers Building (now the University of Houston-Downtown (NR 1981), still the most visible identifying landmark in the area. Trucking became another factor that widened geographic possibilities for warehousing. Most of the new transfer and storage companies (mostly from rail to truck to retail-motor freight) continued to build along railroad tracks in the warehouse district, but large loading docks and ample parking room for trucks became a requisite part of warehouse and industrial buildings in the area.

Houston was not unaffected by the Great Depression, but it fared better than most cities its size. The oil industry continued to provide a base of support upon which the city could depend. In 1930 the population was 292,352, almost seven times what it had been in 1900. The construction of the Houston Municipal Airport in the late 1930s increased the potential of airfreight as part of the city's transportation system. Construction in the warehouse district leveled off during the depression, mostly due to a lack of available land.

New technologies, new ideas, and new money followed World War II, changing construction patterns and techniques drastically after 1945. The railroad, which had been central to the development of Houston's warehouse district, began to wane in importance as Houston, like the rest of the nation embraced the automobile, and later the airplane. Postwar warehouses in the area are mostly pre-fabricated corrugated metal buildings with little architectural distinction.

The recent interest in downtown living and revitalization has brought a renewed interest to the warehouse district and the area north of Buffalo Bayou and north of Interstate 10. This has happened slowly since the mid-1980s when Diverse Works, a nationally recognized, local non-for-profit arts organization located its offices and gallery space in the 1929 San Jacinto warehouse just east of Union Transfer and Storage. Other artists and galleries followed suit and over time the area, both in the warehouse District and this area north of Interstate 10, has become a gallery and artist studio neighborhood. Bute Paint Company was converted to loft apartments in the early 1990s and METRO renovated the southern Pacific Freight Terminal for use as a bus barn in the mid-1990s.

Union Transfer & Storage Building

The most recent deed of trust (1996) cites in the legal property description, two deeds from 1909 and one from 1910 when three separate property owners sold their respective holdings to John F. Garrott. Deed Records for this property reveal that John F. Garrott purchased three adjacent parcels north of the Bayou near Block 60 in Houston. These separate three deeds are from J. C. Britton (1909), J. P. Schosser (1909), and David Hannah (1910) to John F. Garrott who through his estate maintained ownership of the property until it was sold to S & W Realty in 1961 (Houston Bank & Trust Co., executor). The most recent conveyance to the present owner (1996) cites the 1909-1910 deeds to Garrott as part of the legal description of this odd-shaped property.

The Houston City Directory of 1915 lists John F. Garrott as General Manager of Bute Paint Company with offices at the corner of Texas and Fannin and a warehouse at the corner of William and Sterrett St. The Bute Paint Company warehouse (NR 1993) is extant and participated in the Investment Tax Credit Program in the early 1990s as it was converted from a warehouse to loft apartments. The building remains a contributing member of the proposed Warehouse Historic District. The Encyclopedia of Texas (Davis and Grobe, eds., Dallas, 1926), has a biographical entry and portrait engraving of John Fletcher Garrott and states he was "closely interwoven with the growth and development of the City of Houston in general, and in the building up of one of the city's largest business institutions [Bute Paint]." This text also references the Union Transfer and Storage Building: [Garrott] "had other financial interests in Houston, and some years ago built a large warehouse on land he owned in the Fifth Ward." John F. Garrott had one son, Warren Bute Garrott by his first wife, Gloria Bute Garrott, a daughter of James Bute. Mr. Garrott began with the Bute Company as a clerk and eventually became general manager, a position he held for four decades. [Two streets in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston, Garrott, and Bute, are parallel and one block apart.] Mr. Garrott did remarry after the death of his first wife, to Lillian Lea Brown, daughter of Judge J. V. and Mary Alice (Mitchell) Lea of Houston. The Lea and Mitchell families were Texas pioneers and were related to Margaret Lea, the second wife of Sam Houston. (Lillian Lea Brown's grandmother's sister was Mrs. [Margaret Lea] Sam Houston). Mary Alice Mitchell Lea is the daughter of Captain W. D. Mitchell, who served in the Civil War, came from Mississippi and was a planter in East Texas.

Houston city directories (1917-1921) list John F. and Warren B. Garrott [brothers] as owners of the American Warehouse Company located at 1109 Vine, corner Shea. Henry Y. Howze was the manager and the company provided general storage and distribution, transferring, forwarding, and customhouse brokering. A painted-on advertisement of the company name, American Warehouse Company, is visible along the cornice line of what was an exterior and is now the interior wall between the two buildings. Also visible are arched window openings that are now bricked in, further evidence that the northern half of the building was built first. In 1920-21 Binyon-O'Keefe, a storage and forwarding company with operations in Houston, Ft. Worth and Galveston, purchased the American Warehouse Company. Binyon-O'Keefe advertised their facility in the 1920-21 city directory as "absolutely fireproof, 100,000 square foot capacity and a fleet of new motor trucks... equipped to do heavy and light hauling, transferring, forwarding, distributing and general storage."

Two years later, Binyon-O'Keefe moved their business to the Houston Ship Channel turning basin and sold their business on Vine to Union Transfer and Storage Company. The later company operated continuously at this site until the mid-1950s and provided moving, packing, storage, transfer, heavy hauling, and motor truck service with separate locked rooms for household goods. The initial officers of Union Transfer and Storage Company included Lonnie G. Riddell, President, J. G. Greve, Vice-President and C.C. Geiselman, Secretary. In 1936, Mr. L. G. Riddell died and his wife, Mrs. Hazel G. Riddell assumed his role as president until 1940 when Fisher G. Dorsey became president and continued in that position until 1960. He was also involved in half a dozen other business interests in the capacity of President, Vice-President, or Secretary-Treasurer, which he ran from the warehouse on Vine. Those enterprises included Patrick Transfer & Storage Co., Bluebonnet Freight Forwarding Co., Lone Star Package Car Co., Federal Rigging (trucking), Prairie Land Ranch, and Victory Warehouse Company.

Beginning in 1931, other tenants appear in the city directories at the addresses 1113, 1115, 1117, and 1119 Vine. In 1931, Schermerhorn Brothers Company, a cordage manufacturer and supplier of yarns and cotton, appeared in the city directories at 1115 Vine and operated continuously at this location until 1951. Other tenants of the warehouse include Nestle's Chocolate Company, Inc. (1952-53), Magnus Chemical Company (1945-48), and Pond's Extract Co. (1951-53).

The 1960 city directory shows 1113 Vine as vacant and Fisher G. Dorsey moved his administrative office to 2202 Nance. In 1965, Texas Grocery Company (wholesale grocery) and Texas Wholesale Merchandise (housewares) were operating out of the warehouse on Vine. Proprietors are Israel Wuntch, Sidney Stoler, and William Wuntch. Sidney Stoler and Israel Wuntch (S&W Realty) are signatories to the 1996 deed conveying the property to the present owner, Fletcher Thorne-Thomsen, Jr. The rehabilitation of the warehouse began in the fall of 1998 by the owner, Fletcher Thorne-Thomsen, Jr., and the Galveston architectural firm Michael Gaertner and Associates. The rehabilitation project utilizes the 20% investment tax credits and follows the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation. At this time, the Texas Historical Commission and the National Park Service have approved Parts I, II, and III of the tax credit application. The rehabilitation is complete, however, build-out continues in the individual units as the building occupancy increases. The warehouse, now called Vine Street Studios, is leased primarily to galleries and arts-related organizations.

Conclusion

The Union Transfer and Storage Building meets Criterion A in the area of Commerce, at the local level of significance, as a building that demonstrates the continued need for warehousing facilities near downtown Houston despite the development of the Houston Ship Channel. The building had been in continuous use as a warehouse when it was purchased by the current owner, Fletcher Thorne-Thomsen, Jr. in 1996, but due to changes in the nature of the trucking industry, the building was no longer useful or viable economically as a warehouse facility. Utilizing the 20% Investment Tax Credit, the building was adapted to become an art gallery and office complex. The building is unaltered, with the exception of bricked-in windows that were reopened during the recent rehabilitation. Interior partitions and corridors were sensitively built on the interior to incorporate lease units. The wood and concrete columns were left exposed, either free-standing or 'sandwiched between the newly constructed interior walls. Working with the Galveston architectural firm Michael Gaertner and Associates, the building was placed in service in 1999. The shape of the building's dominant façade (east), and its relation to the adjacent (now abandoned) railroad tracks, is a reminder of the railroad era when this part of Houston was the hub of goods distribution that provided the economic basis for the city's development.