Collection ID: Mss. C68-3

Collection context

Summary

Creator:
Goehle, Richard Z. (Richard Zacharias)
Abstract:
The records of personal papers of Richard Z. Goehle and family between 1852-1966, and the architectural firm of Esenwein & Johnson represents the accumulated archives of the firm between 1891 and 1966.
Extent:
17 boxes and (8.5 linear feet)
Language:
Collection material in English and German .

Background

Scope and Content:

Personal correspondence and financial records of Richard Z. Goehle, including bills, receipts, bank records and papers concerning Canadian property; Goehle family papers, including correspondence, notes, and account books of Carl A. Goehle, 1852-1917, and notebooks of Hulda and August Goehle, ca. 1882-1894; and financial records of Camp Acres Poultry Farm (Ebenezer, N.Y.). Also, records of the architectural firm of Esenwein & Johnson, including job contracts, specifications and plans, 1898-1940; records concerning lease of office space in Ellicott Square Building, 1897-1926; partnership with B. Frank Kelly, 1932; and bank records, employee tax records, account books and ledgers, 1910-1942. Includes plan of marble mosaic floor for Ellicott Square Building, designed by James A. Johnson and W.W. Kent, 1930.

Biographical / Historical:

Richard Z. Goehle was the business manager of the Buffalo architectural firm of Esenwein & Johnson. He was the son of Carl August Goehle (1836-1917), a teacher and musician who emigrated from Germany in the 1850's and settled in Buffalo, where he resided for many years on Genesee Street. The elder Goehle and his wife Augusta had ten children besides Richard. Much family correspondence in Series I/Subseries A contains letters by those family members or references to them. The children of Carl and Augusta are listed below:

  • Mrs. John Knuebel (husband of Rev. John Knuebel)
  • Thelma (Mrs. Henry C. Gram; husband employed by Coca-Cola Company, Cleveland, Ohio)
  • Hulda (Mrs. Peter Maul; husband was a judge)
  • Hugo (Cedarburg, Wisconsin)
  • Alfred (Principal , Buffalo School 15)
  • Otto (physician, Cleveland, Ohio; wife, Mary after 1941
  • Richard Z. (Business manager, Esenwein & Johnson)
  • August E.
  • Agnes
  • Hedwig
  • Emma.

Richard Z. Goehle's personal papers, which make up over half of this collection, indicate that he lived on Main Street in Ebenezer (in the town of West Seneca) and owned property in that area as well as in Canada. Kathleen F. Bell, a secretary at Esenwein & Johnson, became Richard Z. Goehle's wife.

Esenwein & Johnson was a Buffalo architectural firm of international repute. It was formed in 1897 with the partnership of August Carl Esenwein (1856-1926) and James Addison Johnson (1865-1939), and had its main offices in the Ellicott Square Building in Buffalo.

Records indicate that the early years of the firm were indeed prosperous, but in the 1930's, after the death of Esenwein and the onset of the depression, commissions and revenues declined. In 1932 Johnson entered into a new partnership with B. Frank Kelly, though the firm continued under the former name of Esenwein & Johnson. Generally, growing debts and unpaid salaries were the rule during the 1930's and early 1940's until June 1942, when records of the firm cease.

August Carl Esenwein

August Carl Esenwein was born in Wuerttemberg, Germany in 1856 and was educated in architecture and engineering at Stuttgart Polytechnic University, receiving his degree in 1879. After working in Paris as a draftsman for two years, he immigrated to the United States and served an architectural apprenticeship as a draftsman for a Buffalo firm. Subsequently he was employed by the engineering department of the Delaware and Lackawanna Railroad. During that time he entered a design contest for the Music Hall and won first prize; he later supervised construction of that building. Upon leaving the railroad, he worked as an independent architect until November 27, 1897, when he formed the partnership with Johnson.

Esenwein was a member of the board of eight architects for the Pan-American Exposition; he himself designed the Temple of Music (1901). Other notable accomplishments from the firm of Esenwein & Johnson are the Harlow Curtiss mansion on Delaware Avenue (1897, later housing the International Institute); Lafayette High School (1903); the Calumet Building, with its intricate terra cotta ornamentation (1906); the General Electric Tower (1912); later the Niagara Mohawk Building), said to have been inspired by the electric tower at the Pan-American Exposition; the Elephant House at the Buffalo Zoo (1912); and the Buffalo Museum of Science (1929).

James A. Johnson

James A. Johnson was an assistant in the firm of McKim, Mead & White before joining Esenwein; his specialty became ornament. Two architectural projects that most Powerfully demonstrate Johnson's skills in that area are the Niagara Mohawk Building (1912), with its unusual external motifs featuring electric motors and generators, said to be precursors of Art Deco ornamentation; and the spectacular marble mosaic floor of the Ellicott Square Building, installed in 1929. (Plans and contracts for the floor can be found in the present collection, box 10, folder 5.)

Acquisition information:
Dolce, Joseph S.; unknown; 1968/03/22; 68-765
Arrangement:

This collection is arranged in two series:

  • I. Papers of Richard Z. Goehle and Family
  • II. Esenwein & Johnson Records.
Within each series the files are subdivided into subseries.

Rules or conventions:
Finding aid prepared using local best practices.

Access

LOCATION OF THIS COLLECTION:
1 Museum Court
Bufalo, NY 14216, United States
CONTACT:
716-873-9644 ex
library@buffalohistory.org