Louis Henry Gibson (1854-1907)

Louis Henry Gibson
(1854-1907)

Louis Henry Gibson was born on March 17, 1854, in Aurora, a southeastern Indiana river town. He moved with his family to Indianapolis in 1862 when his father took over the management of a milling operation that later became the Acme-Evans Mill. He attended public schools and Northwest Christian University (Butler) before apprenticing with architect Edwin Peckham. In 1872, Gibson moved to Boston to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he met Louis Sullivan, a fellow student who would become his lifelong friend. Sullivan would later become “the father of skyscrapers” and an influential Chicago architect.

After graduating in 1874, Gibson studied in Paris at the Ecole de Beaux-Arts, considered the best school of architecture in its day. Upon returning to the United States, he worked in Boston briefly before coming home to Indianapolis in 1878 to work as a draftsman for architect Edwin May, the designer of numerous county courthouses and the Indiana State House.

From 1880-1883, Gibson left architecture to manage the Gibson Flour Mills on West Washington Street. Around 1884, he joined Edwin Ketcham at the architectural firm Ketcham & Gibson. Their firm got the contracts to design “hospitals for the insane” in Logansport, Richmond, and Evansville. Gibson did, however, continue his interest in mills, writing books and articles about their design and operations, designing several mills in other states, and even writing a novel entitled A Romance of the Milling Revolution.

In 1886, he left the firm to devote more time to writing about architecture and other subjects, and to his designs for homes. His book, Convenient Houses (1889), advocated for practical houses for middle class families and included many plan drawings, while his book, Beautiful Houses (1895), focused on more upscale homes. Though the basic designs were relatively simple, the decorative elements were often influenced by the florid style of his friend, Louis Sullivan. Among his many homes for both the middle and upper classes, he designed the homes of the Ball Brothers in Muncie. He also designed the Law Building (136 East Market Street), the Kelly Ax Manufacturing Plant in Alexandria (1900), and the new Parry Manufacturing Plant (Indianapolis 1901).

In addition to his architectural interests, the Indianapolis News writes that his original short stories were read at meetings of the Portfolio Club in the late 1890s, and his “pictures” were on display along with those of Hoosier Group painters Otto Stark and William Forsyth. He also spent much of 1891 in Europe, observing and writing about street paving, road building, and mills. Some of his last professional articles were about the use of concrete in buildings.

Gibson was survived by his wife, Elizabeth Gilbert Gibson, and their three children, Jessie, Edward, and Katharine. Daughter Jessie was described as the city’s first female architect and was a partner in his firm before getting married and moving to Ohio.

Learn more about Louis and other architects buried in Crown Hill at the Speaker Series event in December.