W-K-M Company, Inc. Historic District

The story

Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com

The W-K-M Company, Inc. Historic District is a 15-building industrial district in Houston, Harris County, roughly bounded by Commerce, Sampson, Preston and Velasco streets. Its buildings date from 1919 into the 1940s in a vernacular industrial style; it was listed in the National Register in 2018.

Why it's listed

The district was listed under criterion A, with local significance in commerce and industry. Its period of significance runs from 1925 to 1957; the original 1919 warehouse was demolished around 1925.

Physical character

The buildings rest on concrete slab foundations and combine stucco, brick, concrete block and corrugated metal walls under roofs of corrugated metal or asphalt. Brown Construction is attributed as the builder. Surviving features include stucco and brick parapet walls, corrugated wire glass curtain walls, clerestory windows, exposed steel trusses and raised loading bays. Around 1945, metal infill joined Building #2-3-4 to Buildings #5 and #6, and a raised section was added; another addition went up on Sherman Street around 1960.

Historical context

Clint F. Williams, L. O. Koen and Fred McManis founded the company in 1919 to supply oil and gas pipeline equipment. The company began taking defense contracts in 1941, and ACF Industries purchased W-K-M in 1954. W-K-M opened a new valve manufacturing plant in Missouri City in 1956 and moved all its operations there in 1957. The current owners bought the buildings in 1974, and Buildings #7 and #8 were demolished around 1995.