He constructed the Foster Building, home to the Houston Chronicle, in exchange for a fifty percent share in the newspaper, of which he acquired control in 1926.

He led a group of local bankers in buying public finance bonds and was later appointed to serve as the Chair of the Houston Harbor Board.

After leaving Washington, Jesse and Mary Jones focused on philanthropy, working through the Houston Endowment, a non-profit corporation they founded in 1937.

[4] In 1883, the Jones family, including Aunt Nancy and seven children moved to Dallas, Texas, partly in order for William to join his brother Martin Tilton "M.T."

Aunt Nancy remained in Dallas and enrolled the children in local public schools, while William moved to Terrell to manage the M.T.

[5] The new estate of William Jones included 600 acres, and the patriarch built a spacious brick house with ten rooms to accommodate his large family.

After several attempts to find a suitable job in Dallas and the surrounding region, Jesse started working in Hillsboro, Texas, at one of his uncle's lumberyards.

The association running the State Fair needed construction supplies for buildings and exhibits, but the lumber companies wanted personal guarantees from the directors.

Jesse, sensing an opportunity, decided to stand out from his competitors: he extended credit to the State Fair Association, with only the backing of gate receipts.

Jesse managed a large estate:[14] He was now in charge of tens of thousands of acres of timberland spread over three east Texas counties and parts of Louisiana.

The estate owned and operated sawmills and factories in Orange that had the daily capacity to turn hundreds of thousands of feet of raw timber into shingles, doors, windows sashes, and two-by-fours.

The logistics was equally huge: felled trees had to be moved to plants, and finished products had to be delivered to lumberyards located throughout the state and beyond.

He contracted to build an addition to the Bristol Hotel, committing $90,000 (equivalent to $1,800,000 in 2016) to the project, which would include a rooftop garden and dance floor.

The same year, he constructed a new plant for the rapidly growing Houston Chronicle in exchange for a half-interest in the company, which had been solely owned by Marcellus Foster.

[22] 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.

For example, Jones supported Foster's public opposition to the Ku Klux Klan, which had been a growing movement in Texas after World War I.

Edward Mandell House, who advocated Wilson's nomination for the Democratic Party the previous year, suggested Jones for service to the new US President.

[37] From 1917 until the end of World War II, Jones dedicated his activities to the nation, spending more time in the federal capital than in his home town.

Sixteen of his friends accepted his challenge to donate $5,000 each (equivalent to $100,000 in 2016), spurring the local effort to meet and exceed its fundraising quota.

[39] President Wilson asked Jones to become director general of military relief for the American Red Cross during World War I, a position he held until 1919.

[27] During his first post in Washington, D.C., his department was responsible for seven hundred Red Cross canteens and 55,000 volunteers, organization and transportation of mobile hospitals to England and France, and distribution of clothing to persons in war-torn Europe, and tendering financial assistance to families of American servicemen.,[40] Jones worked in an office building facing the White House, and eventually he had personal access to the president.

On the day of the parade, President Wilson made an impromptu speech to a full Metropolitan Opera House, which included his justification for war against Germany, lauded the work of the American Red Cross, admonished Wall Street bankers against wartime profiteering, and offered an entreaty to Americans to donate money to the Red Cross.

This hero's welcome preceded the decision by the Democratic Convention to select a site, though Walter Lippman and the New York Evening Post predicted that Houston would be chosen.

When Hoover sought advice from ranking Democrats about candidates for the board, Jones was the sole recommendation of House Speaker John Nance Garner.

For persons who were unable to access their accounts, another part of the act authorized the executive branch to reorganize failed banks in order to free up frozen assets.

[56] Though Jones attracted attention to the zoning issue, his involvement started very late in the struggle, as he published his first opinion in the Houston Chronicle less than two weeks before the vote.

In addition, he charged Jones with trying to run the city with the "assistance of New York Jews,"[57] and vowed to resign his chair at the Board of Regents at the University of Houston.

[62] More ten-year scholarship programs funded students attending Rice University and Texas A & M, and several of the individual recipients were veterans of World War II.

The Scottish Rite Temple provided the venue for a ceremony, where there was the first public viewing of a bronze bust of Jones sculpted by Enrico Cerracchio.

[84] The Jesse H. and Mary Gibbs Jones Pavilion (1977) connects Memorial Hermann Hospital to the University of Texas Medical School.