Jesse H. Jones built the seventeen-story, double-winged Rice Hotel in front of you in 1913, on the very site of the Republic of Texas's old Capitol at 909 Texas Avenue. This is the third structure to rise here; the current hotel was completed in 1913 when Jesse H. Jones built a new seventeen‑story, double‑winged Rice Hotel on the spot. That earlier Capitol had been used as a hotel until it was torn down and replaced around 1881, and the 1913 building would itself grow and change over the decades.
It gained a third wing in 1925, an eighteenth floor in 1951, and a five‑story “motor lobby” in 1958, along with several renovations during its life as a hotel. The Rice kept welcoming guests until it finally shut down in 1977; after standing vacant for twenty‑one years it was reborn as apartments and reopened in 1998 as the Post Rice Lofts. Sold in 2014, it is now simply The Rice, and it remains listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Picture that address, 909 Texas Avenue, threading from a lost Capitol through decades of hotel life to the building you see today.