to move back to Tulsa in 1915. Corliss had given up on the watchmaking business and became a grocery equipment salesman. Bruce was largely self-educated and displayed a great talent for drawing. He enrolled in the sixth grade at Lincoln Elementary School, where his first art teacher, a Miss Brown, strongly supported his individualistic artistic expression. His father apprenticed him at age 12 to the Tulsa architectural firm of Rush, Endacott and Rush. Goff's employers were impressed with his talent; they soon gave him responsibility for designing houses and small commercial projects. One of his earliest designs that was actually built was a house at 1732 South Yorktown Avenue in Tulsa's Yorktown Historical District; another was the 1920 McGregor House, at 1401 South Quaker Street in what is now known as the Cherry Street District. This house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014. During this period, his work was heavily influenced through his correspondence with Frank Lloyd Wright and with Louis Sullivan, both of whom had encouraged him to practice architecture with Rush, Endacott and Rush instead of enrolling in Massachusetts Institute of Technology; they felt the formal education would stifle his creativity. Goff was made a firm partner in 1930. He and his high-school art teacher Adah Robinson are co-credited with the design of Tulsa's Boston Avenue Methodist Church, one of the finest examples of Art Deco architecture in the United States. Goff designed the Tulsa Club Building, downtown Tulsa's historic landmark, in 1927. Chicago period In 1934 Goff moved to Chicago and began teaching part-time at the Academy of Fine Arts. He designed several Chicago-area residences and went to work for the manufacturer of "Vitrolite", an architectural sheet glass introduced during the 1930s. Military experience In March 1942, three months after the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor, Goff enlisted in the U.S. Navy, Naval Construction Branch ("Seabees"). Called to active duty in July 1942, he underwent basic training, at first in Rhode Island and then at Gulfport, Mississippi. After graduating in September, he was promoted to Chief Petty Officer (CPO) and posted to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, where he spent 18 months. His design assignments were strictly conventional (e.g., a club house, a mess hall, an officers' club), and limited by military regulations, availability of materials, cost, and schedules. In March 1944, CPO Goff was ordered to report to Camp Parks, a naval complex