Architects of Ridgway

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The Ridgway Historic District is associated with several regionally-prominent architects and master builders. North-central Pennsylvania’s most prominent architect of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century was Henry C. Park (1849-1920), who made his home in Ridgway from the early 1890s until his death nearly thirty years later and was responsible for many buildings in the district. Born in the village of Waverly, on the New York-Pennsylvania line in south-central New York State, Park arrived in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, about fifty miles south of Ridgway, in 1891. He moved to Ridgway in 1894, and became the resident architect for the Hyde-Murphy Company, the prolific millwork producer and builder which had been established in the community ten years earlier. As their architect, Park was at the center of a frenzy of activity throughout this part of Pennsylvania, while his own practice flourished and his reputation spread. On July 19, 1900, the Ridgway Advocate reported that he had become a “noted and busy architect.” He designed homes, commercial buildings, churches, and theatres, equally at ease with Queen Anne residential design and more formal Georgian Revival institutional architecture such as his 1901 Elk County Hospital (destroyed). In the region, H. C. Park designed the 1901 Jefferson County Home (destroyed), built by Hyde-Murphy, as well as the Jones House–a Clarion, Pennsylvania hotel–the F. Hohne House and the Temple Theater in St. Marys (destroyed) and the Blaisdell House in DuBois, the 1903 Methodist Episcopal Parsonage and the 1915 Jefferson County Exposition Hall, both in Brookville, and the 1904 Hon. T. M. Kurtz House (NR 1988) and the 1905 Jefferson Theater (NR 1985; destroyed), both in Punxsutawney. At the time of his death, a local newspaper eulogized him as an architect of “beautiful homes.” In addition to the nearly exclusive use of Hyde-Murphy materials, many of Park’s beautiful homes are characterized by lavish naturally-finished interior woodwork, elaborate stairways, beamed ceilings, and intricate cabinetry, and exteriors with broad verandas with delicate balustrades and often a projecting round corner. In the Ridgway Historic District the following properties have been identified as representing his work: the Ridgway High School of 1899-1900 at 225 South Street, the 1908 Swedish Congregational Church, the 1902 Powell House at 324 South Street, and the 1904 Nurses’ Home of the Elk County Hospital. It is likely that nearly all of the pre-1920 homes in the district which are the work of Hyde-Murphy also reflect the design talent of H. C. Park.

Other architects represented in the district include J. C. Fulton, of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, who designed the 1903 Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church at 21 South Broad Street, and J. P. Marston (1832-1882), a Maine native who was responsible for the Elk County Court House. A nationally-known architectural figure whose work appears in the district was James A. Wetmore (1863-1940) who served for forty-five years as the Architectural Supervisor of the U. S. Treasury Department and who oversaw the design of more than two thousand federal government-owned buildings.[1] His 1917 U. S. Post Office is located at the corner of Center and Mill Streets.

The long career of Buffalo architect W. W. Johnson is also represented in the Ridgway Historic District in his Late Gothic Revival-style 1904 Grace Episcopal Church, located at 216 Center Street. Johnson began his working career as a pattern maker and planing mill carpenter before entering the practice of architecture in the early 1880s, first in Saginaw, Michigan, and then in Buffalo. Johnson’s skills apparently attracted the attention of Ridgway’s Hall family, since Johnson designed a house in near-by St. Marys for J. K. P. Hall (destroyed); he also designed a Shingle-style home for George C. Simons (located in the National Register-listed St. Marys Historic District). Mr. And Mrs. J. K. P. Hall, Mrs. Hall’s sister Esther Campbell, and Harry and George Hyde gifted the new Episcopal Church to the local congregation, built from Johnson’s designs by local contractor P. C. Ross.[2]

[1]Withey, Henry F., A. I. A. and Withey, Elsie Rathburn Biographical Dictionary of American Architects (Deceased) (Los Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls, Inc., 1970), p. 647.

[2]Elk County Democrat, January 19, 1905