Travertine Nature Center was completed in 1969 as part of the National Park Service Mission 66 program. The building was designed by Karl Kamrath and Frederick James MacKie, Jr. who were among the first Houston, TX architects to design modernist buildings. Kamrath served in the military during World War II, but the two architects resumed their practice in Houston in 1946. That same year, Kamrath first met Wisconsin architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Kamrath was so moved by this meeting that he devoted himself to Wright's "Usonian" architecture for the remainder of his career. MacKie and Kamrath's buildings were consistently Wrightian in character; they displayed a predilection for horizontal alignment, dramatic structural engineering, and finely executed material and ornamental detailing.

In 1969, House Speaker Carl Albert and Sen. Henry Bellmon helped dedicate the new Travertine Nature Center. At about the same time, the area to the east of Travertine Nature Center was designated a "National Environmental Study Area" (NESA). In connection with the construction of the Nature Center and the NESA designation, a perimeter road looping around the east end of the original Platt National Park was closed. The road closure combined with the NESA designation meant that the area between the Nature Center and the east boundary of the park became a sort of de facto "natural area" within the park. In the process, the Nature Center and the NESA represented a marked change to the Civilian Conservation Corps-designed landscape which had predominated in Platt National Park since the 1930s.

The construction of the Nature Center obviously added an additional structure to the park, while the road closure and the NESA designation resulted in a significant change to the park landscape.