RICE HOTEL in Houston Match Book

Description

There is a lot of history on this building. The 909 Texas Ave. address was the old Capitol of the Republic of Texas from 1837 to 1839. it was razed in 1881 and rebuilt. William Rice purchased it in 1883 and added a five story extension which then became the Rice Hotel. In 1911 the building was sold and leveled and construction was done for 2.5 million dollars. In 1922 the Rice Cafeteria became the first air-conditioned public room. It was the first hotel  with an escalator in 1946 and within two years every room was air-conditioned. In 1962 Neil Armstrong, the Astronaut attended a NASA meeting there. In 1963  John Kennedy and the First Lady stayed there, the night before he was shot. Then in 1977 the building was shut done by court order due to new stringent fire code because it was considered unsafe. A year later it was entered into the National Register of Historic places, but remained vacant  after that for over twenty years. then in 1997 a plan was made to convert the structure into apartments. The next year the Post Rice Lofts opened after a 28 million dollar renovation. It was sold in 2014 to Crow Holdings Capital Partners of Dallas.
If you are interested in history this is a great match book for you. It is unused has some wear, please refer to pictures.