1871 Thomas Jefferson League Building
Galveston, Galveston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Strand, known as "Wall Street of the Southwest," served as the central business district of early Galveston. A fire, set in 1869 to cover a robbery at Cohn Brothers, a clothing emporium, burned a mile wide area. It began at this site, once occupied by Moro Castle, a fashionable bar and meeting place of famous people. Thomas Jefferson League (1834-1874), began construction of this building in 1871. League, son of a prominent pioneer family, was an attorney and later a judge. He contracted with local craftsmen to erect this commercial building with a decorative cast iron first floor facade and a galvanized iron cornice. Originally the three-story structure housed three stores: Isaac Bernstein & Company, a leading clothier; a stationer and bookseller; and a cotton factor and commission merchant. Later tenants were attorneys, insurance agents, and clothing manufacturers. In 1921, Ben Sass joined Aaron P. Levy in purchasing this property and buying Ben Blum Hardware Co. They moved the business into this facility in 1923, where it remained 50 years. After the deaths of Aaron P. Levy (1929) and Ben Sass (1935), the building and the business were purchased by Joseph Levy Rosenfield and other Levy family members. The Levys remained owners until 1973. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1979
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On the Strand — Galveston's "Wall Street of the Southwest" — attorney and future judge Thomas Jefferson League began this three-story commercial block in 1871, on the very spot where an 1869 arson fire had swept a mile-wide swath. Fronted with decorative cast iron and a galvanized cornice, it housed clothiers, booksellers, and cotton factors, and later sheltered the Levy family's hardware business for half a century.
Why it matters
The building embodies the commercial might of Gilded Age Galveston, then one of the busiest ports in the nation, and the merchant families who built its trade.
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Related people
- · Thomas Jefferson League
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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