E. Townsend Mix
Introduction E. Townsend MixThe 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  Delavan  Wisconsin  1886–88  Demolished 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
References * Burrows, John R. (1980). ''The Work of E. Townsend Mix from 1856–1890.'' Thesis (M. Architectural History)--University of Virginia, 1980. * *
External links  * Roof garden of the Northwestern Guaranty Loan Building in a painting by William Allen Rogers* The men behind the Northwestern Guaranty Loan Building