leased 500 rooms, and was the center of Houston social life. After concluding his service with the Red Cross, Jones returned to Houston and resumed his business activities. He amassed lots along the Main Street corridor in downtown Houston, acquired a tract on Elm Street in Dallas, and also invested in Fort Worth. In 1921, he expanded one downtown Houston structure into the Bankers Mortgage Building, while laying out plans for two more ten-story buildings. During this time he continued a collaboration with local architect Alfred C. Finn, with whom he had first worked on the Rice Hotel. Jones juggled his Houston program with a development initiative in New York City, and he built the Melba Theater in Dallas. In the mid-1920s, Jones increased his construction and development activity. Two new buildings, the Kirby Theater and the Kirby Lumber Company Building went up on Main Street, while he built additions to the Rice Hotel and the Houston Electric Building. During the same period he started projects in Manhattan. The first was an apartment building on 1158 Fifth Avenue at 97th Street, followed by the Mayfair House on Park Avenue at 67th Street. A third building at 200 Madison Avenue faced J.P. Morgan's home, with four floors leased to the first Marshall Field's store in New York City. Jones also left his mark on Fort Worth, building the Medical Arts Building, and the Worth Hotel and Worth Theater. In addition to his real estate and political activity associated with Houston's Democratic National Convention, Jones continued multiple development projects in 1928 in other cities. He commissioned an eighteen-story, mixed-use building in downtown Fort Worth, leasing the storefront and two more floors to the Fair Department Store. He sited a sixteen-story medical office building on 61st Street as just one of his projects in New York. Back in Houston, several projects were under construction with no connection to the convention. Jones broke ground on the Gulf Building that year, while completing the Levy Brothers Department Store. The Gulf Building was completed the next year as the tallest structure in Houston, a distinction it held until 1963. He finished another retail building on Main Street, a four-story store for Krupp and Tuffly Shoes. He acquired his fourth hotel, a distressed sixteen-story building which he re-branded as the Texas State Hotel. Jones built in New York a 44-story office tower at 275 Madison Avenue and