National Register Listing

Myers-Spalti Manufacturing Plant

2115 Runnels St., Houston, TX

The Myers-Spalti Manufacturing Plant ("Myers-Spalti"), in the Warehouse District of Houston, Texas, occupies just over 4 acres of land and was developed over a period of fifty years, from c.1900 to 1928. Its complex of buildings traces the life of an industrial manufacturing facility from its inception through its development to its eventual relocation. In addition, its nearly fifty-year construction history encompasses, on one side, the major early 20th-century construction types for manufacturing facilities in Houston. The location of the site at the headwaters of the Buffalo Bayou, adjacent to a main railroad line, made it a prime location for industrial development in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This portion of the City of Houston, known as the Warehouse District, combined access to the Gulf of Mexico, via Buffalo Bayou, with rail links to all of America as the basis for the prosperity and growth that Houston enjoyed in the early 20th century. Because the Myers-Spalti manufacturing plant and its owners made significant contributions to Houston's industrial development, the district meets Criterion A in the area of Industry at the level of local significance.

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 work. 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. However it was not until the end of the 19th 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 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.

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 to 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 the 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 Galveston Great Storm of 1900 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 Butte 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 the Warehouse District 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 a large new freight depot 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.

History of the Myers-Spalti Manufacturing Plant (1904-1957)

In the 1860s, the future site of the Myers-Spalti Manufacturing Plant was owned by Dr. D.F. Stuart, one of Houston's first physicians. Dr. Stuart served as Chairman of the City Board of Health and was President of the Texas State Medical Association. He was also Chief Surgeon for the Houston East & West Railroad. In 1893, the Lottman Brothers purchased the property, with some additional surrounding acreage, and began to develop a mattress factory. This was the beginning of the site's use as a mattress and furniture manufacturing facility, which would continue into the 1950s. In 1904, the Lottman Brothers sold their property to H. E. Spalti of Dallas, Texas, who was Vice President of the Olive and Myers Manufacturing Company.

The Olive and Myers Manufacturing Company was founded by W. S. Myers and Ed Olive in 1899 in Dallas, Texas. Myers and Olive, who had been business partners in Iowa, came to Texas in search of financial success. They began by making mattresses in their first warehouse on the outskirts of downtown Dallas, but they soon moved to 2220 Young Street. In 1901, they incorporated with a total capitalization of $50,000. W. S. Myers was President, Ed Olive was Secretary and Treasurer, and H. F. Spalti was Vice President. Their first mattress proved too uncomfortable, but they responded by making improvements that made them industry leaders, setting the standards for the entire industry during the early 1900s. Following its success in mattress production, the company branched out to chair production. One of their trademark chairs was a massive chair characterized by a rounded headrest, which was reportedly so large it took two men to lift it. In 1904, seeking to expand their business, W. S. Myers and H. F. Spalti decided to open a branch company in Houston with the help of J. A. Grieves, who owned a furniture business based in Eagle Lake, Texas. They purchased the Lottman Brothers facility and began to develop what would become the Myers-Spalti Manufacturing Plant. For a time the plant was called the Lottman-Myers Manufacturing Company, but it soon became known as Myers-Spalti.

It is unclear whether Building 1 was built prior to or just after Myers-Spalti acquired the property. It does not appear on the 1896 Sanborn map, although there was some development on the site. With its unique, joistless floor structure, however, Building 1 clearly represents a distinct construction phase, prior to the c.1905 construction of Building 2. If Myers-Spalti had constructed Building 1 after they purchased the site, it seems unlikely that they would build a similar building, but with a different structural design, within a year, and buildings 2, 3, and 4, which were definitely built by Myers-Spalti, have identical structural systems. Building 1 was, therefore, most likely built by the Lottman Brothers c.1900, with Myers-Spalti adding Buildings 2, 3, and 4 to match the existing style.

Business at both the Olive and Myers Company and the Myers-Spalti branch was very successful, and they expanded the Myers-Spalti facility several times during the first decade of the 20th century. Their expansion began with the construction of Building 2 in c.1905, shortly after they acquired the property. The 1907 Sanborn Map shows both Building 1 and Building 2 completed. (Figure-18) Building 3 is noted as under construction on the 1907 Sanborn Insurance map, with a note that reads, "To Be Warehouse (from plans)." So a construction date of 1907 can safely be assigned to Building 3. Although Building 4 is not indicated on the 1907 map, physical evidence suggests that it was built shortly after Building 3, if not simultaneously, so it was assigned a construction date of c.1908.

Myers-Spalti's business boomed during World War I, and they expanded into the full line of furniture manufacturing. Their success continued, and they began another period of expansion, constructing Building 5 in 1923 and Building 6 in 1928. But the Great Depression hit in 1929 and both Myers-Spalti and Olive and Myers were forced to downsize their workforce. However, despite the economy, they maintained contact with their dealers and continued to earn a profit and pay shareholder dividends every year between 1929 and 1933 except one. In June of 1933, the National Recovery Act was passed and both Olive and Myers and Myers-Spalti were able to hire a renewed workforce and increase production, with no lasting effects from the Depression."

W. S. Myers passed away in 1935 and J. A. Grieves became his successor as President of the Houston-based Myers-Spalti Manufacturing Company. In 1945, Grieves became Chairman of the Board of Directors. After World War II, both companies did well and profits were high. However, the plants and equipment had begun to age and were in need of expensive upgrading. The solution was a merger between the two companies on April 2, 1955. It became the Olive-Myers-Spalti Manufacturing Company. They made several changes, including closing all divisions not part of manufacturing furniture, for example, factory direct retail. They also closed sample and showroom floors in Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas, and eliminated all inventory jobs. The merger made it difficult to run a plant in both Dallas and Houston, so they developed a plan to build one of the largest furniture manufacturing facilities of the time. In February 1956, they broke ground on 57 acres of land in Athens, Texas to build a third factory site under Olive-Myers-Spalti Manufacturing. The new facility was completed on March 1, 1957. The company's total assets at that time were listed at approximately $4,500,000. They moved all of their operations to the Athens facility and sold the Houston site where Myers-Spalti had originated and where they had been located since 1904. The Olive-Myers-Spalti Manufacturing Corporation ended in January 1970, when they merged with the Curtis Mathes Corporation, which then used the Athens, Texas facility to make television sets."

History of the Property After Myers-Spalti

After 1957, the property was used for various light industrial uses, including hardware and wire sales, electronics repair and manufacturing, auto repair, general warehousing and storage, etc. In 1969, the Sanborn Insurance Map indicates the property is occupied by the Runnels Corporation - Industrial Insulator, Inc. Generally, all of these operations ceased prior to 1980 and the property lay vacant. In May 1985, the Arnold Development Company and the City of Houston attempted to redevelop the site into a Mexican-themed shopping center, called El Mercado Del Sol. This was the City of Houston's first venture into private development and they dedicated approximately $3 million of federal community development block grant funds to the $13 million project in an effort to revitalize downtown's eastside. However, the project failed, as the location was poor for retail use and the anticipated development of hotels and other facilities around the Brown Convention Center never occurred. In September 1987, the City agreed to invest $5 million more for the completion and marketing of the project, but it was too late. Many of the merchants in the development filed suit against the developer and the City. Eventually claims against the project were settled and the City obtained the title to the property in a 1990 foreclosure. The buildings were primarily vacant throughout most of the 1990s. In 1997, limited multi-family residential rehabilitation and occupancy occurred in Buildings 3 & 4. In 2002, the current owner purchased the site and is engaged in redeveloping it for multi-family residential use.

Design and Construction of the Site

The Myers-Spalti Manufacturing Plant is one of the few remaining manufacturing complexes in Houston to retain the bulk of its building inventory. There has been a significant loss of historic fabric including the doors and windows from the exterior of the buildings, but they still maintain their mass, configuration, and original locations. The quality of original materials, including heart pine and locally manufactured brick, remains. The original window openings are nearly all intact. The courtyard that housed the rail spur remains, although it has been roofed over and partially enclosed on one side. Once inside the courtyard, the original space and volume are clearly discernible. The retention of all six industrial buildings on the site is rare and presents an intact picture of a vibrant and successful manufacturing facility from the early 20th century.

Industrial buildings in Houston from the turn of the century through the early years of the 20th century consisted of three types of construction. The Myers-Spalti site represents all three of these construction types on one site, demonstrating the evolution of industrial architecture in the city. Buildings 1-4 are constructed with load bearing masonry perimeter walls and heavy timber framing, which was typical of late 19th and early 20th century industrial and commercial construction. Buildings 5 and 6, which date from the 1920s, utilize flat plate, cast-in-place concrete construction. This technology was first used in the 1890s but did not come into common use until the 20th century. It allowed wide expanses of windows and vast areas of floor space, flooded with natural light and ventilation. This was a huge technological advantage for industrial construction. Also popular in 1920s commercial and industrial construction was the use of brick and hollow terra cotta tile infill. This method is also used on Buildings 5 and 6, infilling part of the wall structure within the cast concrete frame. The empty area inside the concrete frame was filled with hollow terra cotta tiles, mortared in place, and then clad in brick veneer. This was considered a fireproof method of construction at the time and was widely used. Thus the evolution of industrial construction and architecture is easily viewed by observing the buildings on this one site, which span a period of nearly thirty years and offer a view of the changing building technologies of the time.

Period of Significance

The period of significance for the Myers-Spalti Manufacturing Plant spans from c.1900, when the oldest extant building was constructed, to 1957, when Myers-Spalti left the site. Although fewer than 50 years ago, 1957 was chosen as the end of the period of significance because it is a clearly established cutoff within the historical context. The Myers-Spalti Manufacturing Company was responsible for nearly all of the plant's development and was its only significant operator. Criteria Consideration G does not apply because all of the buildings are over 50 years old, and the complex was occupied by the Myers-Spalti Company only a few years beyond the 50-year point.

Conclusion

As a furniture manufacturer for over 50 years, the Myers-Spalti Manufacturing Plant made significant contributions to the early 20th-century industrial development of Houston, which was central to the city's overall economic success. The plant's location, evolutionary growth, and methods of construction all reflect typical patterns of industrial development in Houston during the period. It is therefore nominated under Criterion A in the area of Industry at the local level of significance.

Local significance of the district:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 2003.