E. Townsend Mix

The National Soldiers' Home in Milwaukee was designed by Mix in the High Victorian Gothic style during the 1860s. Edward Townsend Mix (May 13, 1831 – September 2, 1890) was an American architect of the Gilded Age who designed many buildings in the Midwestern United States. His career was centered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and many of his designs made use of the region's distinctive Cream City brick.

Biography

Mix was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on May 13, 1831, the first child of Edward A. and Emily M. Mix. The family moved west to Andover, Illinois, in 1836. They relocated again to New York City in 1845, where E. Townsend Mix began studying architecture. He would eventually be apprenticed to Connecticut architect Sidney Mason Stone. Mix also studied under Richard Upjohn, who brought Mix towards the Gothic Revival architecture that would become one of his most enduring styles.

In 1855, E. Townsend Mix moved to Chicago, Illinois, and began a brief partnership with architect William W. Boyington. The firm's work took Mix to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he decided to begin an independent practice in 1856. Mix dissolved his partnership with Boyington and began designing homes and businesses for Milwaukee's leading residents.

Mix was appointed Wisconsin's State Architect from 1864 to 1867. The end of the Civil War brought an important contract when he was chosen to design the Milwaukee branch of the National Soldiers' Home for disabled war veterans. The resulting structure, finished in 1869, is a colorful Gothic Revival building that still towers over the surrounding park and cemetery. Mix also designed the Gothic Revival Cathedral Church of All Saints and the Monroe Methodist Church at about this time.

Mix's career further accelerated when the new state of Kansas selected his French Renaissance design for the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka. Construction began in 1866, and several other architects including John G. Haskell modified Mix's design before the building was completed 37 years later.

During the early 1870s, Mix designed a number of Italianate homes for prominent Midwestern families, including Villa Louis in Prairie du Chien for H. Louis Dousman in 1870, and in 1874 both the Robert Patrick Fitzgerald House in Milwaukee and Montauk in Clermont, Iowa, home of Iowa governor William Larrabee.

The Mitchell Building and immediately adjacent Mackie Building exemplify Mix's work in the ornate Second Empire Style during the 1870s. By the second half of the 1870s, Mix shifted much of his focus to the Second Empire style. In 1873 he remodeled the home of leading Milwaukee businessman Alexander Mitchell in this style, giving it a four-story tower and mansard roofs. Later Mitchell would hire Mix to use the same style in designing two commercial buildings in downtown Milwaukee: the Mitchell Building in 1876 and the Mackie Building in 1879.

In the 1880s, Mix adopted a number of additional styles for his buildings. He used Romanesque Revival for St. Paul's Episcopal Church, built in Milwaukee in 1874, and he employed elements of Queen Anne and Eastlake styles for the A. H. Allyn House in Delavan, Wisconsin, in 1885. Mix sometimes mixed these styles with Gothic Revival, as in the Everett Street Depot built in 1886 for the Milwaukee Road. By this time, however, the styles favored by Mix were falling out of fashion in Milwaukee as its increasingly German population demanded buildings more reminiscent of their homeland.

Later in his career Mix also designed a number of projects in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota (he would eventually move to Minneapolis in 1888). In 1883 he designed a grand mansion for William D. Washburn called Fair Oaks. He designed a pair of buildings for the Saint Paul Globe newspaper, one in Saint Paul (1887) and another in Minneapolis (1889). In 1888 he embarked on his largest project, the Northwestern Guaranty Loan Building, a twelve-story skyscraper in Richardsonian Romanesque style built with red Lake Superior sandstone. It was finished in 1890, the year of E. Townsend Mix's death in Minneapolis.

Legacy

E. Townsend Mix was a versatile architect who practiced an eclectic variety of styles, and although he sometimes mixed styles in novel ways, he did little to push the boundaries of any particular style. However, in his effort to remain abreast of changing architectural fashions, Mix introduced to the Upper Midwest many popular styles from eastern cities, and his buildings helped shape the landscape of urban Milwaukee and Minneapolis. Although urban renewal projects led to the demolition of some notable Mix buildings, including the Northwestern Guaranty Loan Building and the Everett Street Depot, many of his designs still stand, and several are listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).

Works

+Completed Works Name City State/Country Completed Other Information First Congregational Church Ripon Wisconsin 1865–1868 220 Ransom St. Part of the Ripon College Historic District NRHP-listed St. Luke's Episcopal Church, Chapel, Guildhall, and Rectory Racine Wisconsin 1866 614 S. Main St. Part of the Historic Sixth Street Business District NRHP-listed NRHP-listed Northwestern Branch, National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers Historic District Milwaukee Wisconsin 1867 5000 W. National Ave. NRHP-listed Olivet Congregational Church Now part of All Saints' Episcopal Cathedral Complex Milwaukee Wisconsin 1868 804–828 E. Juneau Ave. NRHP-listed First Methodist Church Monroe Wisconsin 1869–1887 11th St. and 14th Ave. NRHP-listed Villa Louis Prairie du Chien Wisconsin 1871 Villa Rd. and Bolvin St. NRHP-listed First Baptist Church Waukesha Wisconsin 1872 247 Wisconsin Ave. NRHP-listed Wisconsin Leather Company Building Milwaukee Wisconsin 1874 320 E. Clybourn St. Part of the East Side Commercial Historic District NRHP-listed Immanuel Presbyterian Church Milwaukee Wisconsin 1875 1100 N. Astor St. NRHP-listed J. L. Burnham Block Milwaukee Wisconsin 1875 907—911 W. National Ave. NRHP-listed Thomas Cook House Milwaukee Wisconsin 1875 853 N. Seventeenth St. NRHP-listed Mitchell Building Milwaukee Wisconsin 1876 207 E. Michigan St. Part of the East Side Commercial Historic District NRHP-listed Walter S. Chandler House Waukesha Wisconsin 1876-1877 151 W. College Ave. NRHP-listed Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church and Parsonage Columbus Wisconsin 1878 236 and 254 W. Mill St. NRHP-listed Mackie Building Milwaukee Wisconsin 1879 225 E. Michigan St. Part of the East Side Commercial Historic District NRHP-listed Kansas State Capitol Topeka Kansas 1879-1889 Bound by 8th and 10th Aves. and Jackson and Harrison Sts. NRHP-listed Chauncey Hall Building Racine Wisconsin 1883 338–340 Main St.Part of the Historic Sixth Street Business District NRHP-listed A. H. Allyn House Delavan Wisconsin 1885 511 E. Walworth Ave. NRHP-listed Milwaukee Normal School-Milwaukee Girls' Trade and Technical High School Milwaukee Wisconsin 1885 1820 W. Wells St. NRHP-listed Elizabeth Plankinton House Milwaukee Wisconsin 1886–88 Demolished Everett Street Depot Milwaukee Wisconsin 1886 West Everett Street between N. 2nd and N. 4th Streets Demolished 1965 Grand Avenue Congregational Church Milwaukee Wisconsin 1887–1888 2133 W. Wisconsin Ave. NRHP-listed Northwestern Guaranty Loan Building Later known as the Metropolitan Building Minneapolis Minnesota 1890 Demolished 1961. 2133 W. Wisconsin Ave. NRHP-listed St. Paul's Episcopal Church Milwaukee Wisconsin 1890 904 E. Knapp St. NRHP-listed NRHP-listed Wisconsin Consistory Building Milwaukee Wisconsin 1893 790 N. Van Buren St. NRHP-listed Oneida Street Station Milwaukee Wisconsin 1898-1900 108 E. Wells and 816 N. Edison Sts. NRHP-listed Phoenix Hall, Wisconsin Institute for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb Delavan Wisconsin 309 W. Walworth St. NRHP-listed