Supervising Architect of the Treasury
The Office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury was a unit of the U. S. Treasury Department that for nine decades was responsible for the design, construction, and alteration of most of the structures housing federal agencies nationwide. A succession of fifteen Supervising Architects headed the agency between its creation in 1852 and its dissolution in 1939.[1] The Treasury's Supervising Architects designed post offices, federal courthouses, and other significant buildings in Nebraska cities and towns from the 1870s through 1930s. This page provides links to the dozen Supervising Architects who built in Nebraska. Their individual pages detail those projects.
This page is a contribution to the publication, Place Makers of Nebraska: The Architects. See the format and contents page for more information on the compilation and page organization.
Contents
Supervising Architects
1852-1862: Ammi B. Young (1798-1874)[2][a]
1863-1865: Isaiah Rogers (1800-1869)[3][a]
1866-1874: A. B. Mullett, (1834-1890)[a]
1875-1876: William Appleton Potter, (1842-1909)
1876-1883: James G. Hill, (1841-1913)
1883-1886: Mifflin E. Bell, (1846-1904)
1887-1888: William Alfred Freret, Jr., (1833-1911)
1889-1891: James H. Windrim, (1840-1919)
1891-1893: Willoughby J. Edbrooke, (1843-1896)
1893-1894: Jeremiah O'Rourke, (1833-1915)
1894, 1897: Charles E. Kemper, (1859-1942)[b]
1895-1897: William Martin Aiken, (1855-1908)
1897-1912: James Knox Taylor, (1857-1929)
1912-1915: Oscar E. Wenderoth, (1871-1938)
1915-1933: James A. Wetmore, (1863-1940)[b]
1933-1939: Louis A. Simon, (1867-1958)
Other Architects with Nebraska Connections and Associations with Office of the Supervising Architect
1893-1894: John J. Kouhn was an applicant for appointment as Supervising Architect.
1893-1898: John L. Latenser was superintendent of construction for the U. S. Post Office and Federal Building (1893-1898), 1602 Dodge St., Omaha, Nebraska. Demolished.
1896-1903: Henry Ives Cobb designed the Chicago Post Office/Federal Building for the Supervising Architect, while remaining in private practice. Cobb's first assistant on the Chicago project was F. W. Fitzpatrick of the Supervising Architect's office. Cobb also designed two large residences in Omaha.
1897-1898: Edward A. Crane was an MIT graduate who was hired by the drafting department of the office of the Supervising Architect in 1896. Acting Supervising Architect Kemper claimed "general direction" of the design for the U.S. Government Building at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Omaha, while citing Crane as "the draughtsman in immediate charge." Crane also visited Omaha in 1897 and 1898 in connection with that project.
1915: The Architect and Engineer of California magazine editorialized in favor of appointment of F. W. Fitzpatrick as Supervising Architect of the Treasury.[5]
Buildings & Projects
SEE pages for individual architects.
Notes
a. Both Young and Rogers served as Supervising Architect prior to Nebraska's statehood (1867). A. B. Mullett reported on a post office/custom house for Omaha in his Annual Report of 1869, commencing 70 years of Nebraska projects by Supervising Architects of the Treasury.[4]
b. Kemper served two brief stints as "Acting Supervising Architect", following the departures of O'Rourke and Aiken in 1894 and 1897, respectively.
References
1. Antoinette J. Lee, Architects to the Nation. The Rise and Decline of the Supervising Architects Office. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
2. "Ammi B. Young," in Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia, accessed July 5, 2024 at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammi_B._Young
3. "Isaiah Rogers," in Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia, accessed July 5, 2024 at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_Rogers
4. Annual Report of the Supervising Architect to the Secretary of the Treasury for the Year 1869 (Washington: Government Printing Office), 1869, 6.
5. “Fitzpatrick for Supervising Architect,” editorial in The Architect and Engineer of California 41:2 (May 1915), 105-106.
Page Citation
E. F. Zimmer, “Supervising Architect of the Treasury,” in David Murphy, Edward F. Zimmer, and Lynn Meyer, comps. Place Makers of Nebraska: The Architects. Lincoln: Nebraska State Historical Society, August 5, 2024. http://www.e-nebraskahistory.org/index.php?title=Place_Makers_of_Nebraska:_The_Architects Accessed, November 22, 2024.
Contact the Nebraska State Historic Preservation Office with questions or comments concerning this page, including any problems you may have with broken links (see, however, the Disclaimers link at the bottom of this page). Please provide the URL to this page with your inquiry.
