The Rice (Houston)
building in Houston, Harris County, Texas
The Rice, formerly the Rice Hotel, is a historical building at 909 Texas Avenue in Downtown Houston, Texas, United States. The current building is the third to occupy the site. It was completed in 1913 on the site of the former Capitol of the Republic of Texas, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The old Capitol was operated as a hotel until it was torn down and replaced by a new hotel around 1881. Jesse H. Jones built a new seventeen-story, double-winged hotel in 1913, also called "The Rice Hotel." This building underwent major expansions: adding a third wing in 1925, adding an eighteenth floor in 1951, and adding a five-story "motor lobby" in 1958. In addition, there were several renovations during its life as a hotel. It continued to operate as a hotel before finally shutting down in 1977. After standing vacant for twenty-one years, The Rice was renovated as apartments and reopened in 1998 as the Post Rice Lofts. It was sold in 2014 and renamed simply The Rice.
Capitol building
When Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen commissioned the first survey of Houston in the fall of 1836, they made plans to set aside property for use by the Republic of Texas.
The public source identifies “The Rice (Houston)” as building in Houston, Harris County, Texas. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Rice, Houston and building.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “The Rice (Houston)”, the useful work is to connect “building in Houston, Harris County, Texas” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7233713. Authority coordinates are 29.761, -95.363. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1913, 1881, 1925 and 1951.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “The Rice (Houston)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow The Rice (Houston) primary sources, The Rice (Houston) archive and Rice research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Rice (Houston)”?
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- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “The Rice (Houston)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.