The text under the photograph reads as follows:
"MAIN STREET, 1866---This is the east side of thestreet between Congress and Preston Avenues. What may have been the city's first three-story building, on the left in the row of five, was built by William Van Alstyne. J. R. Morris soon built the city's first four-story building, the one in the center, which was the first iron-front building in Houston."