HistoricSiteMarkers
Reconstruction & Gilded Age

Stevens Building

San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas

Marker Inscription

One of the finest remaining structures in San Antonio's late 19th-century commercial district, this building was designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style by James Riely Gordon (1864-1937) and was completed in 1891. Over the years the first floor has housed dry goods and furniture stores. The second story served for a time as the headquarters of the city's scientific society and as the real estate office of John Stevens, who owned the building until the 1930s.

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Completed in 1891, the Stevens Building is among the finest survivors of San Antonio's late-19th-century commercial district, designed in the muscular Richardsonian Romanesque style by architect James Riely Gordon. Its ground floor long held dry goods and furniture stores, while the second story served in turn as the city's scientific society headquarters and as the real estate office of owner John Stevens. The building embodies the confident architecture of a booming Gilded Age city.

Why it matters

Gilded Age commercial buildings like this one mark the moment western cities matured into sophisticated urban centers, expressed in the era's fashionable heavy-stone architecture.

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Related people

  • · James Riely Gordon
  • · John Stevens

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