The Julia Ideson Building is a Houston Public Library

Houston Public Library

Houston Public Library is the public library system serving Houston, Texas, United States. The library system has its headquarters in the Marston Building in Neartown Houston.-History:It can trace its founding to the Houston Lyceum in 1854...

 facility in Downtown

Downtown Houston

Downtown Houston is the largest business district of Houston, Texas, United States. Downtown Houston, the city's central business district, contains the headquarters of many prominent companies. There is an extensive network of pedestrian tunnels and skywalks connecting the buildings of the district...

 Houston, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

The building, with Spanish Renaissance

Spanish Renaissance

The Spanish Renaissance refers to a movement in Spain, emerging from the Italian Renaissance in Italy during the 14th century, that spread to Spain during the 15th and 16th centuries...

 architecture, is part of the Central Library; it houses the archives, manuscripts, and the Texas and Local History Department. The Houston Metropolitan Research Center is located in the building.

History

Designed by Ralph Adams Cram

Ralph Adams Cram

Ralph Adams Cram FAIA, , was a prolific and influential American architect of collegiate and ecclesiastical buildings, often in the Gothic style. Cram & Ferguson and Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson are partnerships in which he worked.-Early life:Cram was born on December 16, 1863 at Hampton Falls, New...

 of Cram and Ferguson, Boston, the Ideson Building opened in 1926 as the Central Library for HPL; the building, exhibiting a Spanish Revival style, replaced a prior Carnegie building

Carnegie library

A Carnegie library is a library built with money donated by Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. 2,509 Carnegie libraries were built between 1883 and 1929, including some belonging to public and university library systems...

. In 1976 the Jesse H. Jones Building (as the building was named in 1989) opened, and the Central Library moved to the new building.

The building received listing in the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 in 1977. The Ideson building reopened in 1979.

Lana Berkowitz of the Houston Chronicle

Houston Chronicle

The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas, USA, headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building in Downtown Houston. , it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States...

stated that there are legends of the Ideson Building being haunted by the ghost of Jacob Frank Cramer, a library caretaker, and Petey, his dog.