Jarvis Hunt

Jarvis Hunt (1863-1941) was the Chicago architect who designed Kansas City Union Station, the Beaux-Arts terminal that remains one of the city’s defining buildings. A member of one of America’s most distinguished architectural families — nephew of Richard Morris Hunt and William Morris Hunt — he was a busy designer of railroad stations, estates, and commercial buildings across the country, but Union Station is his most famous work.

[!info] Cornerstone-adjacent entry Created out of the deep-dive on Union Station. Citation-first; sourced to named references with links. An earlier assumption gave his birth year as 1859; the verified year is 1863.

Life and family

Jarvis Hunt was born August 6, 1863, in Weathersfield, Vermont, and died June 15, 1941, in St. Petersburg, Florida.¹ He came from a remarkable family: his uncles were the New York City architect Richard Morris Hunt (designer of the Biltmore Estate and the Metropolitan Museum of Art facade) and the Boston painter William Morris Hunt, and his grandfather was U.S. Congressman Jonathan Hunt.¹ He was educated at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and based his architectural practice in Chicago (in the Monadnock Building).¹

Kansas City Union Station

Hunt’s best-known work is Kansas City Union Station. On June 18, 1906, he was selected by the railroad interests to design the new terminal, chosen over rivals including the celebrated D.H. Burnham & Company and the Kansas City firm Howe, Hoit & Cutler.² A proponent of the City Beautiful movement, Hunt designed the station in the monumental Beaux-Arts style; it opened on October 30, 1914, as one of the largest railroad stations in the country.³²

Other works

Hunt designed a wide range of buildings nationally, including:¹²

• The Vermont Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago
• Joliet Union Station (Illinois, c. 1911-1913) and the 16th Street Station in Oakland — other Beaux-Arts railroad terminals
• The Commerce Trust Building in Kansas City
• The Indianapolis News Building, plus numerous suburban estates, industrial buildings, and clubhouses

An avid golfer, Hunt qualified for the 1904 Olympic golf competition and designed clubhouses for the National Golf Links of America and the Chicago Golf Club.¹ He retired to St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1927.¹

Sources

Footnotes

1. Wikipedia — “Jarvis Hunt.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarvis_Hunt — Confirms: born August 6, 1863, Weathersfield, Vermont; died June 15, 1941, St. Petersburg, Florida; nephew of architect Richard Morris Hunt and painter William Morris Hunt, grandson of Rep. Jonathan Hunt; Chicago architect (firm in the Monadnock Building); Harvard and MIT; the Vermont Building at the 1893 Columbian Exposition, Joliet Union Station, and other works; 1904 Olympic golf and clubhouse designs; retirement to St. Petersburg in 1927. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

2. American-Rails — “Kansas City Union Station, A Jarvis Hunt Design.” https://www.american-rails.com/kcus.html — Confirms: Hunt selected June 18, 1906, over D.H. Burnham & Company and Howe, Hoit & Cutler; his prior stations (Joliet Union Station, 16th Street Station Oakland) in the Beaux-Arts style. ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. Wikipedia — “Union Station (Kansas City, Missouri).” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Station_(Kansas_City,_Missouri) — Confirms: architect Jarvis Hunt, a proponent of the City Beautiful movement; the station opened October 30, 1914, as the third-largest in the country. ↩