Edward T Wilder and Thomas Wight

• American

The architectural firm Wilder and Wight was established in 1904. Edmund Wilder, originally from Kansas, had studied architecture in the East and returned to Kansas with his friend Thomas Wight, with whom he formed the partnership Wilder and Wight. Thomas Wight was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1874. His career in architecture began in 1891 in the prestigious office of McKim, Mead and White, of New York. McKim, Mead and White was considered to be the greatest training school for young architects in the country. He was associated with the firm for 12 years with the exception of one year that he spent studying in Italy and Greece. His name appears on the 1922 Role of Honor in the history of McKim, Mead and White as being one of forty out of seven hundred graduates whose activities and accomplishments have made them preeminent in their profession. Thomas Wight was widely recognized as a skilled architect who combined a sense of mass and proportion evident in the many buildings he designed. He designed the First National Bank, New England National Bank and Trust Company, St Joseph Hospital and Nurses Home, the Roman Baths, Livestock Exchange Building, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, the Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, all in Kansas City, Missouri. He originated the idea of the Wight Courtroom Plan that was first used in his own design of the Wyandotte County Courthouse, Kansas City, Kansas.

In 1911 Thomas' younger brother William Wight joined the firm. William Wight's architectural career closely parallels that of his brother. He was born in 1882 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. When he was eighteen he went to New York and started as a draftsman for the architectural firm McKim, Mead and White. Like his brother, he traveled and studied in Europe for one year before joining his brother in Kansas City. Five years later, Edward Wilder retired and the firm was reestablished as Wight and Wight. Many of the finest buildings in Kansas City from that period bear the name Wight and Wight, who became known as became known as one of the most prestigious architectural firms at the turn of the century in Kansas City. - US NRHP 20 September 2004