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Please note that advance ticket purchase is required for this tour.
The Warehouse District's story begins with Buffalo Bayou. Nearby Frost Town was settled at a bend in the bayou before Houston was founded in 1836, and the early Port of Houston at Allen's Landing later drew commerce and industry to the area. As railroads converged here beginning in the 1850s, houses gradually gave way to warehouses, factories and other businesses serving a rapidly growing city. Many of the surviving industrial buildings were constructed between the 1880s and 1920s.
Our 90-minute, docent-guided walk will explore those layers of history through the buildings that remain. We’ll see the 1902 Willow Street Pump Station, centerpiece of Houston’s first sewer system; handsome brick warehouses built for machinery, paint and other goods; an 1880 neighborhood grocery that is among the city’s older surviving commercial buildings; and remnants of the community that developed around Houston’s early rail hub.
We’ll also trace the Warehouse District’s more recent reinvention. Beginning in the 1980s, artists, developers and preservationists found new possibilities in buildings left behind by industry. Former warehouses became studios, offices and residential lofts, helping transform the neighborhood while preserving important pieces of its industrial past. Along the way, we’ll uncover some unexpected Houston stories — including that of a saloon named for, and then famously attacked by, temperance crusader Carry Nation.
Photo: Bartell Warehouse (1912) / by Jim Parsons
Things to remember
- This is an exterior architecture tour. It doesn't go inside any buildings.
- There are no public restrooms along the tour route.
About the tour
Advance ticket purchase is required. Tickets are offered on a first-come, first-served basis, and walk-up registrations cannot be accommodated. Tour tickets are nonrefundable.
Registrants will receive parking and check-in information by e-mail in advance of the tour.
In the event of inclement weather that prevents the tour from being offered as planned, registrants will be notified as early as possible with options to attend a rescheduled tour or transfer their reservation to another Preservation Houston tour.
Do you have an Architecture Walks pass?
If you are a Preservation Houston member and have received a free Architecture Walks pass, you may redeem it for admission to this tour. E-mail tours@preservationhouston.org and we’ll be happy to assist.
Passes are redeemable subject to ticket availability.