Hogg Building
Houston, Harris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Noted Houston business and civic leader Will C. Hogg (1875-1930) had this commercial structure built in 1921. Early tenants included the Armor Auto Company and the Great Southern Life Insurance Company. The art deco building, designed by the engineering firm of Barglebaugh and Whitson, features an exterior dominated by industrial windows. A rooftop penthouse, used for offices of the Hogg family businesses, reflects Mediterranean influences. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1980
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Houston business and civic leader Will C. Hogg commissioned this art deco commercial building in 1921, during the city's early-20th-century boom. Designed by the engineering firm of Barglebaugh and Whitson, its faΓ§ade is defined by rows of industrial windows, while a rooftop penthouse with Mediterranean touches housed the offices of the Hogg family enterprises. Early tenants included an auto company and a life insurance firm.
Why it matters
The building reflects the confident commercial architecture of a rising Houston, and the enterprising civic families like the Hoggs who shaped the modern city.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- Β· Will C. Hogg
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The Kennedy Bakery
Houston, TX
Irish immigrant John Kennedy (1819β78) arrived in Houston in 1842 and, after running stores elsewhere in the city, commissioned this two-story brick building around 1860 for a steam bakery. Kennedy went on to become a leading Houston businessman, and the structure β one of the oldest in the city still on its original site β stayed in his family until 1970. It was named a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1980.
Horace Dickinson Taylor
Houston, TX
Orphaned as a teenager, Massachusetts-born Horace Dickinson Taylor came to Texas in 1838 and by 1848 had settled in Houston, where he built a thriving cotton brokerage beside a Buffalo Bayou steamboat landing. He raised his family on a wooded homesite here and rose to civic prominence as alderman and, in 1866, mayor. His dredging of the war-neglected bayou revived Houston's commerce and helped the city outcompete Galveston for trade.
Old Market Square
Houston, TX
Surveyed in 1836 as "Congress Square," this Houston block was meant by the city's founding Allen brothers to hold the permanent capitol of the Republic of Texas. That dream never came true, and the square instead became the young city's beating commercial heart, thronged daily by farmers, peddlers, and traders. From 1840 it held Houston's market house and city hall β a dual-purpose building whose bustle spilled into the surrounding streets for thirty years.
Auditorium Hotel
Houston, TX
Built in 1926 for Houston investor Michele DeGeorge, an Italian immigrant who reached the United States in 1881, the Auditorium Hotel showed off Italian Renaissance detailing in its upper floors, designed by architect Joseph Finger. Standing at the heart of Houston's theater district beside the old city auditorium, it became a fixture of the growing downtown. Its rise reflects the commercial energy transforming the city in the 1920s.