Gordon, James Riely, 1863-1937

James Riely Gordon was born in Winchester, Virginia in 1863. At age 11 he moved with his family to San Antonio in 1874. He worked for the Civil Engineering Corps of the International and Great Northern Railway before apprenticing in the architectural office of W.K. Dobson of San Antonio. He gained invaluable experience in the design of public buildings while supervising construction of the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse in San Antonio (1888-1889). By the mid-1880s he had opened his own office. For a brief period, he established a partnership with D.E. Laub (Gordon and Laub Architects) in San Antonio from 1890 to 1891. By the late 1890s Gordon established the J. Riely Gordon Company in Dallas and shortly thereafter moved to New York City where he entered into a brief practice with Alfred Zucker in 1902. He was later associated briefly with Evarts Tracy and Egerton Swartwout in the firm of Gordon Tracy and Swartwout Architects (c1905). He continued to successfully design county courthouses across the eastern seaboard.

Gordon excelled at the design of public buildings and constructed 16 county courthouses in Texas alone. His most popular structures utilized the Richardsonian Romanesque style which accommodated a natural ventilation system so essential in the hot, Texas climate. Among his designs for courthouses in Texas include Bexar County (1891-1896); Victoria County (1892); Ellis County (1895); and McLennan County (1901). In addition, he designed numerous residences and commercial buildings and was selected as the architect for the Texas Pavilion at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Perhaps influenced by his experiences at the fair in Chicago, he switched to the use of a Renaissance Revival style at the turn of the century. He was also responsible for the design of the territorial capitol for Arizona (c.1900) and the Mississippi State Capitol (1896 - not built).

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