James A. Wetmore

Wetmore was born in Bath, New York, to Justus Ford and Cornelia (Brownell) Wetmore and grew up in Hornell. He completed high school, worked in the Netherlands and Scotland, and then as a court stenographer at the Department of the Interior from 1885. He transferred to the Treasury Department in 1893. Wetmore took night classes at George Washington University Law School, earning a degree in 1896, when his position was Assistant Chief Clerk. In November 1896, he was promoted to Head of the Law and Records Division of the Office of the Supervising Architect, within the Treasury Department in Washington, DC, by President Grover Cleveland.[2] He replaced Judge Fleming, who was removed due to his involvement in the free silver movement.[3] Wetmore held that position until 1911.[4][5] In June 1907, he was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt, along with four other officials, to a special committee to "fully investigate and examine into the forms of contracts used by the various departments, bureaus and offices of the government."[6]

Cornerstone of a Courthouse and Post Office showing Wetmore's name (Prescott, Arizona)

In 1911, he became the Executive Officer to the Supervising Architect, James Knox Taylor. He was the EO, which put him in charge of all non-technical operations of the office,[5] under Taylor, and then under his successor Oscar Wenderoth who took over in 1912.[4] For a period in 1912 after the resignation of Taylor, Wetmore was acting Supervising Architect until Wenderoth relocated to Washington.[5]

Wenderoth resigned in April 1915 to return to private practice in a firm that specialized in designing bank interiors.[5] Following Wenderoth's departure in 1915, Wetmore was named as the Acting Supervising Architect. He held this position for almost twenty years, until his retirement in 1933. He initially believed the position would be temporary until an architect was selected to be the Supervising Architect. However, he had a thorough understanding of the operation of the office and worked well with its architects which accounted for his remaining in the position. Although outsiders did not always understand why a lawyer was running the office, the duties were primarily administrative; supervising architects did not require him to be trained as one.[5] During much of his tenure, Louis A. Simon was responsible for the direction of much of the actual design work. Simon eventually succeeded Wetmore as head of the office.

Wetmore was interested in architecture, and influenced government building design by promoting standardization. In collaboration with William Gibbs McAdoo, the Secretary of the Treasury from 1913 to 1918, buildings were to be designed with "scale, materials and finishes" that directly reflected their "location, prominence and income".[4][5] This push to standardization of public building design was in conflict with the Tarsney Act,[5] which permitted private architects to design federal buildings after being selected in a competition under the supervision of the Supervising Architect. The act, under which several Taylor-era buildings were designed, was repealed in 1913 as it was felt that designing buildings with government architects would most efficiently cause the desired standardization.[5]

As Supervising Architect, he often spoke to the Society of Constructors of Federal Buildings. He addressed the 1917 annual convention by reporting that "The Treasury Department completed plans and contracts for a public building every four days and each building has averaged a cost of $50,000." He also noted that almost 90% of these were post offices.[7]

Wetmore was also named the chairman (Surveyor General of Real Estate) of the Federal Real Estate Board after its creation in 1922. The board was created to manage the government's vast real estate holdings and reduce expenses.[8]

Wetmore's name is inscribed on the cornerstones of approximately 2000 federal buildings that were designed during his tenure that spanned the administrations of Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and into Franklin Roosevelt's. Time magazine said his name appeared more than that of any other US citizen.[1] At his insistence, since he was not an architect, his title, both in usage and as inscribed, was always "Acting" Supervising Architect out of respect for the work of architects.[9]

He was most proud of the cornerstone of the post office built in 1931 in his birthplace of Bath, New York. He laid this cornerstone himself and retained the engraved trowel as a souvenir.[1]

Some of the buildings where his name can be found are:

• United States Court House (Des Moines, Iowa), 1928
• Federal Building and United States Courthouse (Albuquerque, New Mexico), 1930
• U.S. Post Office and Courthouse (Baltimore, Maryland), 1930
• Alaska State Capitol, Juneau, Alaska, 1931
• U.S. Post Office (Medina, New York), 1931–1932
• Clarkson S. Fisher Federal Building and United States Courthouse, Trenton, New Jersey, 1932
• Las Vegas Post Office and Courthouse, Las Vegas, Nevada, 1933

During World War II the Liberty ship SS James A. Wetmore was built in Brunswick, Georgia, and named in his honor.[10]

He married Harriet Blye around 1883; she died before his retirement. They had two children, a daughter Viola and a son William. During his career with the government, he lived in both Takoma Park, Maryland, and Washington. After his retirement, he moved to Coral Gables, Florida, in 1934 with his second wife, Anna Polk Wetmore, where he died in 1940. Wetmore was an officer in the Masonic organization and attained its highest rank, a 33rd-degree Mason.[4]

Media related to James A. Wetmore at Wikimedia Commons