Petroleum Building

Art by: Chris Hytha

Story by: Mark Houser

Mayan motifs adorning this highrise came about after Alfred Bossom took a vacation to Mexico. The pre-Columbian stepped stone temples profoundly impressed the eminent English architect, who later wrote that they were the first American skyscrapers.

This building was for Joseph Cullinan, a serial entrepreneur from the Pennsylvania oilfields whose first company made storage tanks. The first oil strikes in Texas lured him to Corsicana in 1897, which he supplied with a massive tank, and then a refinery, before stepping away in 1902 for a new venture. Called simply the Texas Company, its target was the black gold flowing out of Spindletop.

Cullinan relocated the business — later known as Texaco — to Houston a few years later, into one of the city's first skyscrapers. Pushed out by investors in 1913, he formed a new company, American Republics, and commissioned this office tower for it. Known for his temper, Cullinan also showed public spirit, funding a Houston hospital for Black patients in a time of strict segregation and chairing the committee that oversaw the creation of Mount Rushmore.

Renamed Great Southwest after an insurance company that moved here in 1968, the building is now a hotel. Its top floor, formerly the private Tejas Club, is now a banquet and meeting hall.