Harry Wild Jones
Encyclopedia
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
-based architect who designed throughout the country and the world. Born two years before the start of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, Jones, a twelfth generation New Englander, took his place on the American architectural stage in the late 19th century. His life spanned seventy-six dynamic years, during a period of U.S. history that matched his exuberant, spirited personality. Known as an architect adept at any design technique, Jones is credited with introducing Shingle Style
Queen Anne Style architecture
The Queen Anne Style in Britain means either the English Baroque architectural style roughly of the reign of Queen Anne , or a revived form that was popular in the last quarter of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century...
architecture to Minneapolis. He created an impressive portfolio from neoclassic to eclectic, reflecting his unique brand of versatility and creativity.
Early life
Jones was born in Schoolcraft, MichiganSchoolcraft, Michigan
-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of , all land. Schoolcraft is located on a prairie, and much of the land outside of the village is used as farm land, with the primary crops being corn and soybeans.-Demographics:...
, son of the minister to a small Baptist congregation. He was the only child of Reverend Howard Malcom
Howard Malcom
Howard Malcom was an American educator and Baptist minister. He attended Dickinson College and Princeton Theological Seminary. He wrote several accounts of Christian missions in Burma and was pastor of churches in Hudson, New York, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
and Mary White Smith Jones. Jones’ middle name was chosen as a tribute to his great-great aunt, Rebecca Wild, who lovingly cared for Reverend Jones after the death of his mother when he was a toddler. The Joneses and the Smiths traced their New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
roots back to the arrival of the first permanent European settlers to the eastern seaboard. The Joneses are direct descendants of Mayflower
Mayflower
The Mayflower was the ship that transported the English Separatists, better known as the Pilgrims, from a site near the Mayflower Steps in Plymouth, England, to Plymouth, Massachusetts, , in 1620...
passengers William Bradford, John Alden
John Alden
John Alden is said to be the first person from the Mayflower to set foot on Plymouth Rock in 1620. He was a ship-carpenter by trade and a cooper for Mayflower, which was usually docked at Southampton. He was also one of the founders of Plymouth Colony and the seventh signer of the Mayflower Compact...
, and Priscilla Mullins. The Smith relations arrived in North America a few years later as the Great Migration
Great Migration (Puritan)
The Puritan migration to New England was marked in its effects in the two decades from 1620 to 1640, after which it declined sharply for a while. The term Great Migration usually refers to the migration in this period of English settlers, primarily Puritans to Massachusetts and the warm islands of...
from England continued.
With his father’s pastorate changing often, by age ten young Harry had lived in Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
, Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
, and New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. His family finally settled in the seaside town of Bristol, Rhode Island
Bristol, Rhode Island
Bristol is a town in and the historic county seat of Bristol County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 22,954 at the 2010 census. Bristol, a deepwater seaport, is named after Bristol, England....
where he completed his childhood as the only child of the town’s only Baptist minister. Jones’ secondary education was focused on preparation to enter Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
in Providence, Rhode Island
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
, an institution with strong family ties. In addition to being his father’s alma mater, Brown was founded with assistance from Jones’ great-great grandfather, Reverend Hezekiah Smith (1737–1805). Reverend Smith, born in New York, showed particular support toward Rhode Island for its advocacy of religious tolerance. During the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
, he provided religious guidance as General George Washington’s chaplain. Brown University, a college deeply rooted in religion, maintained a strong emphasis toward preparing its all male students for a life in the ministry. As the progeny of generations of religious clerics, Jones would have to work hard to show his family his interest in architecture.
In 1878, Jones entered Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
and remained there for two years. Following his dream to become an architect, he transferred to Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
(MIT) in 1880, and graduated from the two-year Short Course Architecture Program in 1882. Immediately after graduation, Jones was hired as a draftsman in the Boston architectural firm of Henry Hobson Richardson
Henry Hobson Richardson
Henry Hobson Richardson was a prominent American architect who designed buildings in Albany, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and other cities. The style he popularized is named for him: Richardsonian Romanesque...
. Richardson “recognized talent . . . his draftsman were considered the best available.” (Devlin 1989)
After a year working for Richardson, Jones, with his bride Bertha Juliet Tucker, moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in September 1883. As the newest, and youngest, architect in the Mill City, Jones went to work for architects James C. Plant and William Channing Whitney
William Channing Whitney
William Ellery Channing Whitney was an American architect who practised in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Born in Harvard, Massachusetts, the son of Benjamin F. Whitney, he was educated at Lawrence Academy at Groton, Connecticut, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received his B.S. from the...
. When their partnership dissolved the following year, Jones went to Europe to study architecture for six months before founding his own Minneapolis practice in 1885.
Professional career
Jones set up his practice in the newly completed Lumber Exchange BuildingLumber Exchange Building
The Lumber Exchange Building was the first skyscraper built in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, and dates to 1885. It was designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style by Franklin B. Long and Frederick Kees and was billed as one of the first fireproof buildings in the country...
in downtown Minneapolis, where he remained from 1886 to 1921. His work included designs for commercial, residential, and church customers with a roster of clients including businessmen Emery Mapes (founder of the Cream of Wheat
Cream of Wheat
Cream of Wheat is a porridge-type breakfast food invented in 1893 by wheat millers in Grand Forks, North Dakota. The cereal is currently manufactured and sold by B&G Foods. Until 2007, it was the Nabisco brand made by Kraft Foods. It is similar in texture to grits, but made with farina instead...
Company), Will Savage (whose name is synonymous with the winning racehorse Dan Patch
Dan Patch
Dan Patch was the outstanding pacer of his day. Dan Patch broke world speed records at least 14 times in the early 1900s, finally setting the world's record for the fastest mile by a harness horse during a time trial in 1906, a record that stood unmatched for 32 years.-Life:He was a brown...
), meatpacking mogul George A. Hormel
George A. Hormel
George A. Hormel was the founder of Hormel in 1891.Hormel was born in Buffalo, New York, USA, in 1860 and later settled in Austin, Minnesota. He established his meat packing company in 1891 and established a food company that continues to thrive today.He remained head of the company until 1929...
, and philanthropist T. B. Walker
T. B. Walker
Thomas Barlow Walker was a highly successful American businessperson who acquired timber in Minnesota and California and became an art collector. Walker founded the Minneapolis Public Library. He was among the 10 wealthiest men in the world in 1923. He built two company towns, one of which his son...
.
During his work in HH Richardson’s office, Jones was introduced to Shingle Style architecture, a design gaining country-wide popularity through Richardson’s work and influence on the eastern seaboard. Jones is credited with introducing Shingle Style architecture
Shingle Style architecture
The Shingle style is an American architectural style made popular by the rise of the New England school of architecture, which eschewed the highly ornamented patterns of the Eastlake style in Queen Anne architecture....
to Minneapolis soon after he arrived in the area. He is widely admired for his use of shingle coverage in a clubhouse design for the Minnetonka Yacht Club (1890–1943). With its multi-level rooflines resembling full sails on the water, the clubhouse design was said to appear to “possess the same puffy charm of a filling spinnaker sail.” (Wyer 2001)
Respected by colleagues for his design versatility, Jones was also masterful at understanding structural engineering. Described as possessing both an artist’s eye and engineer’s intellect, he set both aptitudes to work in winning combination. Among the three hundred structures Jones designed, from whimsical park buildings to octagonal log houses, and humble church chapels, he is best remembered in Minnesota for the second Lake Harriet Pavilion (1891–1903)—“a Chinese timber-framed pagoda form in a shingle-clad exterior”(LHHSG 2001), the monumental Butler Brothers Warehouse (1908)—“a sternly poetic mass of wine-colored brick that conveys the commercial might of Minneapolis at the dawn of the twentieth century” (Millett 2007:50), the exquisite Lakewood Cemetery
Lakewood Cemetery
Lakewood Cemetery is a large private, non-sectarian cemetery located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is located at 3600 Hennepin Avenue at the southern end of the Uptown area...
Chapel (1910)—“an elaborate example of Byzantine Mosaic art and one of the finest of its type to be found anywhere in the United States”(NRHP 1983), the Northfield Bank (1910)—whose entire roof structure is designed like spokes around its domed top causing its architect to proclaim at its completion “another building just like it cannot be found in this country” (Northfield News 1910), and the Washburn Park Water Tower
Washburn Park Water Tower
The Washburn Park Water Tower poses as a landmark of early 20th-Century architectural achievement within the Tangletown neighborhood in south Minneapolis, Minnesota, and has been doing so for nearly 75 years...
(1932)—“linking function and artistic splendor with 16-foot medieval knights and eight-foot eagles”(Balcom 1984).
Jones had resolute confidence in his architectural skills, designing not only in the Midwest, but throughout the United States and as far away as Hawaii, China, and Burma. He earned his Asian commissions after a 1907 world cruise, embarked upon to recover following a near fatal car accident that resulted in a skull fracture. Choosing to spend the bulk of his trip in Burma with his missionary cousins, Jones made valuable contacts that led to his future designs for a Moulmein congregation of two thousand, a boys’ school dormitory and chapel, a Shanghai college chapel, and a Canton mission building.
In addition to Jones’ private practice, in 1890, at one of the busiest periods in his career, he furthered the Midwest’s burgeoning profession of structural design by reorganizing the architecture curriculum at the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
. Following the introduction of the new classes, he became the school’s first formally trained professor.
During that same time, Jones juggled his practice and academic instruction by beginning a twelve-year stint as an elected commissioner for the Minneapolis Park Board. Known as an ardent outdoor enthusiast, Commissioner Harry Jones was dedicated toward naturalism and the preservation of the Mill City’s natural beauty. He was well known for his many proposals on behalf of the city’s cyclist, even petitioning for a race in 1887. In addition to his civic duties on the Park Board, Jones designed thirteen recreation buildings between 1889 and 1930.
With the onset of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
in 1929, Jones, though past retirement age, continued to seek commissions to supplement his family’s income. In 1932, he began one of his last Minneapolis designs—the water tower built in his Washburn Park neighborhood. Still standing today as a city landmark, the tower was placed on the National Historic Register in 1983.
Harry Wild Jones was married to Bertha Juliet Tucker on September 3, 1883. The service was held in the First Baptist Church of Boston, Massachusetts, (a Henry Hobson Richardson design) and officiated by Reverend Howard Malcom Jones, the groom’s father. Jones and Bertha had three children, Howard Malcom (1886–1940), Mary White Smith (1887–1981), and Arthur Leo (1891–1964). Jones died in Minneapolis, on September 25, 1935, at Elmwood
Harry W. Jones House
The Harry W. Jones House is a historic house in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the Tangletown neighborhood. Harry Wild Jones was one of the most notable architects in Minneapolis, with a career spanning nearly 50 years. His designs included the Butler Brothers Warehouse, the chapel in Lakewood...
, his home in Washburn Park (a neighborhood often referred to as Tangletown
Tangletown, Minneapolis
Tangletown is a neighborhood in the Southwest community of Minneapolis. The neighborhood was officially known as Fuller until 1996 when it was changed to the present name, which reflects the winding streets in the neighborhood that do not conform to the regular street grid of South Minneapolis...
).
Designs
The following buildings and structures are listed on the National Register of Historic PlacesNational Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
:
- James Barber House, 132 Marston Ave. Eau Claire, WI
- Butler Brothers Company, 518 1st Avenue North Minneapolis, MN
- Faribault City Hall, 208 1st Ave., NW Faribault, MN
- First Baptist Church, 201 3rd Ave. Osceola, WI
- First Church of Christ ScientistFirst Church of Christ, Scientist (Fairmont, Minnesota)The former First Church of Christ, Scientist located at 222 East Blue Earth Avenue, in Fairmont, Minnesota, is an historic structure that on May 18, 1988, was added to the National Register of Historic Places. It is now owned by Martin County, which leases it to the Martin County Preservation...
, 222 Blue Earth Ave., E. Fairmont, MN - First Presbyterian Church of Steele, Mitchell Ave. N and First St. Steele, ND
- Harry W. Jones HouseHarry W. Jones HouseThe Harry W. Jones House is a historic house in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the Tangletown neighborhood. Harry Wild Jones was one of the most notable architects in Minneapolis, with a career spanning nearly 50 years. His designs included the Butler Brothers Warehouse, the chapel in Lakewood...
, 5101 Nicollet Ave. Minneapolis, MN - Lakewood Cemetery Memorial Chapel, 3600 Hennepin Ave. Minneapolis, MN
- Mrs. Preston B. Plumb House, 224 E. 6th Ave. Emporia, KS
- Swinford Townhouses and ApartmentsSwinford Townhouses and ApartmentsThe Swinford Townhouses and Apartments are a development of townhouses and apartments in the Loring Park neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Both buildings are located in an area that surrounded the once-elegant Hawthorne Park. The townhomes were built first, in 1886 by Hodgson & Sons in the...
, 1213--1221, 1225 Hawthorne Ave. Minneapolis, MN
Further reading
- Balcom, Thomas W. “The Miracle on 41st Street, A 75 Year History of Judson Church 1909–1984.” Presented at the Diamond Anniversary Celebration, Minneapolis, Minn. 13 December 1984
- “Judson Follows in Calvary’s Footsteps,” Minneapolis, Minn. 16 November 2003.
- Blodgett, Geoffrey (2001), Cass Gilbert, The Early Years, Minnesota Historical Press. ISBN 0-87351-410-6
- Christopherson, Alfred. “Reminiscences,” 1 April 1962. Freeborn County Historical Society, Albert Lea, Minn.
- The Citizens American Bank. A History of Banking at Merrill, Wisconsin, undated. Merrill, Wis. Historical Society.
- Ervin, Jean Adams (1976), The Twin Cities Perceived. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. ISBN 0-8166-0786-9
- “Health Guardians Stand Watch Over Water Supply In New Washburn Water Tower,” Minneapolis Journal, 1 June 1932.
- Hormel, George A. “Three Men and a Business,” autobiographical narrative, undated. (Hormel Historic House, Austin, Minn.)
- Kimball, Judith A. The History of the Kimball Family in America. The Kimball Family Association, 1988.
- Lathrop, Alan. “Liebenberg and Kaplan,” Architecture Minnesota, November/December 1992, 46–47.
- Pfahning, Darlene Christensen (2004). Odd Fellows Home for Elderly and Children, Northfield, Minnesota, Northfield, Minn.
- “Pioneer Recalls Early Washburn Park Days,” The Herald, 26 October 1932, Vol. XVIII, No. 5, 1:1 & 2:3, 4.
- Simpson, Richard V. (2002), Bristol, Montaup to Poppasquash. Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, South Carolina. ISBN 0-7385-2356-9
- Turke, Conne and Wascoe, Dan, November 1982. “Just Wild About Harry.” Mpls/St. Paul Magazine, 141–143.
- Watts William Pye (1933). “Personal Memoirs.” (Northfield, Minn. Historical Society.)
External links
- Hennepin History Museum
- Northwest Architectural Archives
- Harry Wild Jones - American Architect
- A collection of drawings and papers of Harry Wild Jones are available for research use at the Minnesota Historical Society.