In the 1890s, the celebrated Texas cattleman A.H. "Shanghai" Pierce (1834-1900) platted the townsite of Pierce, hoping it would become the Wharton County seat, and chose the location largely because it lay near his ranch headquarters in the central part of the county. He laid out a public square, courthouse square, academy square, and cemetery, and built several structures there, including a three-story hotel at this site. Designed to accommodate cattle buyers, traveling salesmen, and others drawn by the railroad and Pierce's ranching interests, the Pierce Hotel stood near the Southern Pacific railroad depot and across from the present Pierce Ranch entrance as the intended center of the town's planned growth, which did not develop. Although it never opened to the public as a hotel, the building served various purposes under several long-term tenants. A landmark on the Texas coastal prairie for more than eighty years, the Pierce Hotel was razed in 1980, and its widow's walk remains preserved here as a symbol of the structure's historical significance.