Honoring ‘Mr. Houston’ on his 150th birthday
Today, April 5, marks the 150th birthday of the late, great Jesse H. Jones — “Mr. Houston,” once the owner and publisher of the Houston Chronicle, and arguably the savior of the American economy. Franklin D. Roosevelt, like presidents Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover before him, relied on Jones to do big things. “Jesus H. Jones,” Roosevelt jokingly called him.
So today is a great moment to reflect on Jones’ life, his legacy and the lessons he has left those of us working to solve the problems of Houston today.
Among Jones’ many achievements, none was more consequential for Houston than his role in securing local and federal funds to build the Houston Ship Channel. When the waterway opened in 1914, an inland city of some 80,000 inhabitants suddenly had deep-water access to the sea. That unleashed the commerce and industrial development that would drive decades of growth.
It’s still easy to see Jones’ effect on the Houston we’re building now. For instance, it seems fitting that Houston Endowment, the foundation established by Jones and his wife, Mary Gibbs Jones, helped jump-start an ambitious project where the Ship Channel begins. In 2020, Houston Endowment provided a $10 million grant to the Buffalo Bayou Partnership to accelerate its plan to develop trails, affordable housing, cultural amenities and infrastructure along the bayou in Houston’s neglected East End.
When Jones and his wife established Houston Endowment in 1937, it’s doubtful that they envisioned Houstonians biking, picnicking or residing along a stretch of waterway that was, in his day, little more than a drainage ditch lined with industry. Jones, though, understood that the city’s culture and priorities would change over time, so he imposed few restrictions on how the foundation should give away its money, and instead trusted the organization’s future leaders to respond to changing conditions and needs. If you’ve enjoyed the city’s arts venues, studied at its educational institutions or relaxed in its expanding green spaces, then it’s very likely you have Jones to thank.
Saving banks and railroads
Jesse Holman Jones was born in 1874 in Robertson County, Tenn. He dropped out of school after the eighth grade to run one of his father’s tobacco factories, where he drove hard bargains with area farmers twice his age. He later put these talents to use managing his uncle’s lumber yard in Dallas, then moved to Houston and started a new lumber enterprise.
It was here where he amassed his fortune in, among other things, construction and banking. He helped build the Houston skyline and enthusiastically embraced civic leadership — and then, as presidents began to ask for his help, national leadership.
He organized battlefield aid for the Red Cross during World War I. He wrote a blank check to persuade the Democratic National Committee to bring its national convention to Houston in 1928, and he oversaw the rapid construction of a convention hall to house the event. In the early years of the Great Depression, Jones assembled Houston’s banking executives and persuaded them to pool their resources — meaning that Houston, unlike other cities, avoided the catastrophic bank runs that saw panicked depositors withdraw their savings.
Under Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt, Jones led the Reconstruction Finance Corp., which saved banks and railroads through government-funded stock purchases and loans. The federal Treasury made a profit when the banks bought back their stock and railroad executives repaid the loans with interest.
A hero, a man of his time
Jones was a hero: His work to avert the worst effects of the Great Depression would alone be enough to qualify him for that distinction. But Jones, who died in 1956, was also a man of his time. The political and business leaders who joined him for influence-wielding meetings in the famous Suite 8F of the downtown Lamar Hotel were, probably almost exclusively, white men.
That said, it’s also clear that Jones’ vision extended far beyond his own bottom line. In the 1950s, his Houston Endowment started funding college scholarships for students from every public high school in Houston, making no distinction between schools in white or minority neighborhoods.
John T. Jones, Jesse Jones’ nephew, provided insight into his uncle’s approach to philanthropy — and the importance of education to a man with an eighth-grade education. “(V)irtually all of the grants made by (the) Endowment during Mr. Jones’s lifetime were associated one way or another with education,” he wrote. “He did not believe in full scholarships. He felt that an education was most appreciated when a little personal sweat and effort was involved.”
As we think about Jones today, it’s probably a mistake to look for examples of comparable leaders now. The world has grown bigger and messier, and it’s more difficult for a single person or even a single organization to have so much impact. That’s why we at Houston Endowment are now committed to collaboration. Our work is about building coalitions to drive change.
If Jones were alive today, we like to think he would endorse this approach.