Eugene Heiner designed the Cotton Exchange Building you face here on Travis Street in 1884. Built in 1884, it was commissioned by the Houston Cotton Exchange and Board of Trade and entrusted to local architect Eugene Heiner, who designed a three-story building on Travis Street at the corner of Franklin. In 1907 the building was remodeled and a fourth floor was added.
The Houston Cotton Exchange continued to use the building until it moved its operations to a new building several blocks away at Prairie and Caroline in 1924. The structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Later, John Hannah and Jesse Edmundson, III purchased the Cotton Exchange Building in 1973; they restored it and sold it in 1983.
Preservation Houston acknowledged Hannah's restoration work in 1979 with a Good Brick Award. Stand close and imagine the decisions and movement tied to this address: trade, redesign, and preservation across decades. Your feet rest on a corner that watched trade move away in 1924 and restoration arrive decades later in 1973, the added fourth floor from 1907, still crowning the building at Travis and Franklin.