Sweeney, Coombs & Fredericks Building
301 Main St., Houston, TXThe evolutionary history of the Sweeney, Coombs, and Fredericks Building began only a few years after John K. and Augustus C. Allen founded the city of Houston in 1836. With the establishment of the Houston ship channel in the 1840s and the early arrival of the railroad in the 1850s, Houston thrived as a commercial center.
In 1838 this corner property at the intersection of Main and Congress streets on which the Sweeney, Coombs and Fredericks Building now stands was the center of town, mid-way between the Capitol Building and the Allen Brothers Landing, and between the Market Square and the Courthouse Square. Originally the two-story frame prefabricated San Jacinto Hotel stood on the corner. The immediate area became the headquarters of railroad promoters, bankers, merchant princes, and publishers.
One of Houston's early business leaders was William A. Van Alstyne who came to Houston prior to 1845 to serve as Vestryman of Christ Church. Van Alstyne was one of the original incorporators of the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos, and Colorado Railroad and an original supporter and stockholder of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad. During the 1850s Van Alstyne was in partnership with Paul Bremond and later E. W. Taylor and owned property in the commercial area. Following a fire in 1860 which destroyed much of his property in block 32, Van Alstyne built a series of three-story brick buildings on the corner of Main and Congress, fronting 75' on Main. Connected by a party wall and having the appearance of a single structure, the buildings were collectively known as the Van Alstyne Building. The structures were simple, three-story brick, Greek Revival buildings with cast iron detail and were similar in many respects to the Pillot Building located in the same block (see National Register Submission, Pillot Building, June 1974) William Van Alstyne died in 1867, but the property was not broken up until an heir sold a 25 section on the corner of Main and Congress in 1882 to J.J. Sweeney and E. L. Coombs. The property contained a three-story brick building at the time of the sale.
The two men who bought the property owned a jewelry store on the corner of Main and Preston, about a block away. Born in Illinois in 1850, J.J. Sweeney came in the late 1860s or early 1870s to Texas and worked on the Columbia Tap Railroad. He soon married and moved to Houston to operate a loan office and later the jewelry store in partnership with Edward L. Coombs. Coombs, born in Kentucky in 1844, was a prominent Houston businessman in the late nineteenth century. He served as a director of the Planters and Merchants Bank and the American. Brewing Company. Together with Sweeney he bought the Gray's Opera House in Houston in 1885 and erected a five-story opera house completed in 1891 known as the Sweeney & Coombs Opera House. Sweeney and Coombs were among the largest real estate owners in Houston. Gus Freder- icks became a partner in 1889 and the firm relocated in 1890.
A fire may have destroyed much of the original section of the Van Alstyne Building in the late 1880s, for George E. Dickey, a prominent Houston architect, was hired by the jewelry firm in 1889 to design the Sweeney & Coombs Building. Dickey had one of the two oldest architectural practices in Houston. Born in Wilmot, New Hampshire in 1840, he later studied architecture in Boston and in 1868 opened an office in Waltham, Massachusetts. Shortly afterward he opened another office in Boston and operated both practices successfully until 1873. Dickey practiced for the next five years in Toronto, Canada and finally located in Houston in 1878. Some of his Houston structures included the Capitol Hotel, Grand Central depot, Scanlan Building, First Presbyterian Church, Shearn Methodist Church, the First Baptist and several private residences of prominent Houstonians.
The Sweeney, Coombs & Fredericks Building appears today as it was built c. 1889. Across the Main Street facade is the inscription "Sweeney, Coombs & Fredericks." That firm was formed in 1889 (it had previously been Sweeney & Coombs) and they moved to this location prior to 1890. Due to the fact that Dickey was referred to as the architect of the Sweeney, Coombs & Fredericks Building in an 1894 Houston publication (The Industrial Advantages of Houston, Texas and Environs...Houston: The Akehurst Publishing Co, 1894.), the structure was possibly radically remodeled in 1889 using the base portion of the 1860-61 Van Alstyne Building. Although there is no documentary proof, further evidence lends support to this theory. The corner turret and the rear portion were definitely 1889 additions.
Sweeney and Coombs sold the land and building to Eugene Pillot in 1891. They were in the process of completing the Sweeney and Coombs Opera House on the Fannin Street side of the block and may have needed the money. However, they continued to occupy the corner until 1907. The Pillot family retained ownership until 1941.
Both the earlier Van Alstyne Building and the Sweeney. Coombs & Fredericks Building was built for commercial purposes. The original structure was rented to various tenants: J. W. Oliver, Decimus and Ultimus Barziza, Thompson & Goalthwaite, all attorneys; E. H. Cushing, printers and stationers; and Blessing & Bros, artists. In 1880 the corner section was occupied by W. L. Foley, dry goods. The 1889 structure was built to house the Sweeney, Coombs & Fredericks jewelry store with work rooms on an upper floor. The Jewelers occupied the corner from 1889 to 1907. By 1912 Mistrot-Munn and Munn's Mens and Boys Store occupied the building, and they sub-leased the space in 1913 to the United Cigar Stores of America for use as a cigar store, which remained there until at least 1921. The current owner, Olle J. Lorehn, has done considerable preservation work on the building. The Burgheim Drug Store rents the first floor and the upper floors are rented as office space. Burgheim's has been in operation in Houston at various locations since 1882. The Sweeney, Coombs, and Fredericks Building is of considerable importance to the city of Houston, for it represents one of the few remaining nineteenth-century structures. This building along with the Pillot Building in the same block are two of the oldest structures in downtown Houston. They are presently threatened with demolition by the county. Plans are being made to destroy all the structures on this block in order to build a new administration building for Harris County. Concerned Houston citizens have undertaken a campaign to encourage the county to either build on another block or incorporate these two buildings into their plans.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.