DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, most folks driving past this stretch of Buffalo Bayou don't give it a second glance — but this old brick building has been quietly holding court since 1912, and it's got a story worth slowing down for. The Magnolia Brewery Building.
Harris County, Houston, Texas. Let's talk about it. It all starts with Hugh Hamilton, who had himself a vision in the late nineteenth century.
He founded the Houston Ice and Brewing Company, and out of that enterprise came something the people of Houston took quite a shine to — beer, and good beer at that. Magnolia. Southern Select.
Richelieu. Those were the brands rolling out of this operation, names that meant something to the folks who ordered them. Now, by 1912, the company was ready to build something serious.
They brought in H.C. Cooke and Co. to design this building, and those architects did not come to play. What they put up along Buffalo Bayou was part of a much larger complex of structures — industrial in scale, but with details that'd make you look twice.
A pronounced cornice running along the roofline. An upswept corner corbelled parapet — which is a fancy way of saying they built the corners up at an angle that gives the whole structure a kind of squared-off crown. And then there are the stained-glass transoms, each one carrying a magnolia design.
On a brewery. That's confidence. The Houston Ice and Brewing Company kept on keepin' on for decades, right up through Prohibition and whatever else the twentieth century threw at it — until 1950, when the company finally closed.
Gone, but not entirely. Because that building H.C. Cooke and Co. raised along the bayou in 1912 is still standing.
Still showing its cornice, still wearing its corbelled parapet, still holding those stained-glass magnolias up to the light. Some things get torn down. Some things stick around and become the last word on what used to be there.
This building is that last word — a link, the marker says, to the area's industrial history. Hugh Hamilton built something bigger than beer. He built something that outlasted him by more than half a century, and it's still out there on Buffalo Bayou, making the case that some structures simply refuse to be forgotten.
What the marker says
Magnolia Brewery was part of the Houston Ice and Brewing Company, founded in the late 19th century by Hugh Hamilton. Some of the brewery's popular brands included Magnolia, Southern Select and Richelieu beers. This building, designed by H.C. Cooke and Co. in 1912, was part of a much larger complex of structures along Buffalo Bayou. The building's details include pronounced cornice, upswept corner corbelled parapet and stained-glass transoms with a magnolia design. The company closed in 1950, but the building remains a link to the area's industrial history. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2003