2617 Jackson St. – Houston TX (build date unknown; demolished late 1950s/early 1960s)

 

Elijah Coles was a cashier and collector for Houston Gas Light Co. until 1907 when he went in to business with Benjamin B. Rice selling coal, coke, and wood. He and/or his family lived at 2617 Jackson St. until at least 1955, not long before its demolition.

 

 

Excerpt from the June 23, 1929 issue of the Houston Gargoyle’s Civics section:

 

The passing of the cottage.

Probably there are good reasons for it, most likely it’s another indication of Houston’s emergence from the country town into the big-city class, but just on the face of it as a fact, it seems a pity the cottage is disappearing.

One can’t help noticing this. Additions opening up in every direction…new roads being developed into residential sections…the reformation of homes originally built on the cottage plan, all the building seems to be either swank apartment houses, big two- and three-story homes, or “a little something on the duplex order!”

Duplex…never in the world would I live in a duplex in South Texas where the only alleviation in life is to cross over from one side of the house to the other at noon and get out of the sun! Imagine being walled in from the shady side or knowing one is walling out the other chap from it for an even half of every day!

[…]

Here is a cottage type that is getting all too scarce in these modern days…it is the Elijah Coles home at Jackson and Dennis.

 

-Dorothy M. Hoskins