Elmer H. Fisher

Fisher's Pioneer Building, shortly after its completion in 1890.

Fisher claimed he was born in Scotland in 1840 and immigrated to Massachusetts at age 17 where he received an architectural apprenticeship in Worcester though this and his claims of living in Butte, Montana have yet to be substantiated by research.[lower-roman 1][1] In the 1870s he moved west to Minnesota, where he first appeared in the 1874 Minneapolis City Directory as a cabinet maker,[2] the following year as a sash maker for R.P. Russell & Co.,[3] and the year after as a moulder for Smith, Parker & Co.[4] He continued his journey west, arriving in Denver, Colorado around 1880[lower-roman 2] where after first working as a foreman for a sash & door factory,[5] began trading as an architect as well as a carpenter and builder with partner J.H. Corrin until his departure from that city in 1885.[6][7]

He arrived in the Pacific Northwest in early 1886 where he established an architectural office in Victoria, British Columbia. Business in the booming city was brisk and within a year he had multiple substantial business buildings and homes to his credit and began receiving commissions further afield in Vancouver, British Columbia and Port Townsend, Washington.[1] Around this time he received his first major commissions in Seattle including the first Korn Block (1888, Destroyed) and 1st Regiment Army Hall (1888, Demolished), giving him a foothold in the competitive architectural scene there. In early 1888 Fisher established two partnerships in order to balance his workload between Victoria and Seattle; one with Clark in Seattle as Fisher & Clark and one with E.W. Wilson in Victoria as Fisher & Wilson. With the growth and size of projects in Seattle greatly outpacing those in Victoria, Fisher decided to end his partnerships by the new year, and consolidated operations to his Seattle office where he began overseeing many large projects including the Austin A. Bell Building, the Gilmore & Kirkman Building and Henry Yesler's Pioneer Building. By early 1889 Fisher employed 4 architects at his James Street office and was so busy that all small-scale and residential commissions were turned away.[8]

While the first few months of 1889 were some of Fisher's busiest, he and every other hopeful architect in the city would be given a clean slate when the Great Seattle fire of June 6, 1889 wiped out the majority of the business district. Many of Fisher's recent commissions were either outside of the burnt district or were only in the excavation stages at the time of the fire and despite common belief, many of his most famous buildings would have been built whether Seattle burned or not. Regardless, new commissions in the wake of the fire were numerous to the degree that several pre-fire commissions were halted or left un-built due to the glut of new construction.[9] He is still considered the most prolific of the architects involved in rebuilding the city for designing almost half of the major downtown buildings between 1889 and 1891.

Due to financial problems and a variety of legal claims laid against him, he had largely set aside his architectural practice by 1891 to run The Abbott House Hotel at the Southeast corner of Pike Street and 3rd Avenue in a building that he had previously designed and built.[10]

In early 1893, mere months after his marriage to Charlotte M. Willey (They would divorce by 1900),[11] a former mistress that Fisher had left behind in Colorado brought a civil suit against him claiming to be his true wife.[12] Although he was acquitted of any wrongdoing, the scandal ruined his reputation in Seattle. He had the contents of his home and office auctioned off and permanently removed to Los Angeles where he would form a new partnership with Carroll H. Brown. In Los Angeles he struggled to re-establish the career success he had enjoyed in Seattle, which had less to do with his reputation and more as a result of the Panic of 1893 which halted building projects across the nation. After a major commission for the Van Nuys Building in downtown Los Angeles fell through, his partnership with Brown was dissolved and he all but retired from architecture. He returned to his first profession, carpentry, last appearing in the Los Angeles city Directory in 1902.[13] He passed away in 1905 in relative obscurity without so much as a mention in any Seattle or Victoria newspaper. His official date of death as well as his final resting place is unknown.

Fisher's early commercial designs were of Victorian and Italianate influence and were typified by exposed brick with corbelling, selective exterior plastering and massive Aedicular window surrounds. Romanesque elements heavily utilizing decorative terra cotta began to make their way into his designs by 1888 and would play a major role in his later work, such as the now demolished Burke block (1889-91), whose many elaborate terra cotta elements were incorporated into the public plaza surrounding the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building (1975).

On June 6, 1889, a fire destroyed most of Seattle's business district. The buildings were primarily constructed of wood so the large-scale rebuilding campaign focused on new "fireproof" buildings constructed of brick, stone and iron. Fisher designed many of the new buildings and some can still be seen in what is now the Pioneer Square neighborhood.[14]

Fisher favored the Richardsonian Romanesque style which led to a unity of appearance in the district.[14] He also tended to divide the facades of his buildings into a grid, a style influenced by Victorian architecture.[15]

His best-known work is the Pioneer Building in Seattle. Designed and first proposed in 1888, It was completed in 1892 for Henry Yesler and it served as a "prestige office address" throughout the decade.[16][17] It won an award from the American Institute of Architects for "being the finest building West of Chicago".[18]

• Goldstream Hotel, Langford - BC Archives
• Bank of British Columbia, New Westminster - BC Archives
• Stelly Block [Clarence Hotel], Victoria - University of Washington Digital Collections
• Pimbury Block, Nanaimo - BC Archives
• H. Young & Co. Building (White House), Victoria - BC Archives
• Craft & Norris Block, Victoria - BC Archives
• Armory Hall, Seattle - University of Washington Digital Collections
• 1st Korn Block, Seattle - University of Washington Digital Collections
• Gilmore & Kirkman Building [Arlington Hotel], Seattle - University of Washington Digital Archives